The Holocaust

The truth of the photographs of various crimes and atrocities included in this Holocaust project needs to be shown. The photos may be of graphic nature and disturbing - before providing access to younger learners, parents and teachers should preview the sites and guide through what they may read and see.

Adolf Hitler, murderer of millions, master of destruction and organized insanity, announced at many occasions the "annihilation of the Jews" living in the territory under his control. His Nazi Regime led to Holocaust - the systematic annihilation of six million Jews during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust.

The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.

But the Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide.

Homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

The death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau became the killing centre where the largest numbers of European Jews were killed. After an experimental gassing there in September 1941 of 850 malnourished and ill prisoners, mass murder became a daily routine. By mid 1942, mass gassing of Jews using Zyklon-B began at Auschwitz, where extermination was conducted on an industrial scale with some estimates running as high as three million persons eventually killed through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting, and burning.

- Louis Bülow
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The Holocaust Websites - Crimes, Heroes And Villains
www.oskarschindler.com
www.emilieschindler.com
www.deathcamps.info
www.auschwitz.dk
www.oskarschindler.info/
www.fatherkolbe.com
www.canaris.dk/
www.mengele.dk/
www.shoah.dk
www.annefrank.dk

were established 1996 to promote education about the history of the Holocaust and assist visitors in developing understanding of the ramifications of prejudice and racism. The resources include essays, poems, eyewitness testimonies, photographs, documents, films, literature, timelines, links.