Chapter 7 [Part TWO]: The Peak Years of Killing:
1942 & 1943 [191-214]
“Big Picture” Questions:
1) What was the nature of the vast system of Nazi concentration camps? In what ways did it mirror the Third Reich as a whole?
2) Who resisted the Nazis, what methods did they use, & what impact did resistance have?
GENDER & GENOCIDE [191-196]
· men’s & women’s experiences? (“different horrors, same hell”)
· who knew & what did they know about Nazi extermination?
· examples: Teresa Stangl & Jews in different parts of Europe
What happened to Jews who were not in the killing centers?
· how many hid & where?
· Jewish children versus adults & girls versus boys
· examples: Henny & Rudy
How many in the entire camp system? How many died in total?
NATURE OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS [196-203]
Who was in the camp system & how did they live?
· old versus new prisoners? names of notorious camps?
· who worked in the camp system?
à perks? (e.g., zoos, brothels, etc.)
à women staffers? (e.g., “Bitch of Buchenwald”)
à kapos?
à system of colored badges?
· The Roma/Gypsies [200-202]
à how many killed? Himmler’s attitude toward?
à “pure Gypsies”?
à treated/viewed differently from Jews?
· Homosexuals—The “Men with the Pink Triangle” [202-203]
à how many died in camps?
à how & why viewed as threat by Nazis?
à “queer blocks”? differential death rates?
à why were some released? under what circumstances?
RESISTANCE [203-212]
How is resistance defined? What overall effects did it have?
1) Spread of Information
· Jan Karski’s mission (fall 1942)
· what did the Allies know & when? responses to mass murder?
2) Jewish
· what types of & specific examples?
· Jewish partisans in Lithuania (early 1942)
· Warsaw Ghetto uprising (spring 1943)
3) Within Germany
· White Rose (winter 1942) Hans & Sophie Scholl
· who & when? what impact or response?
4) Obstacles
· fear of severe Nazi reprisals
· divisions w/in communities
CASE STUDY: THADDEUS STABHOLZ [212-214]
· who, what, where, when, how, & historical significance?