THE PEOPLE
OF THE
HOLOCAUST
Holocaust memorial
located in Miami Florida
Report of daily
executions
Men in the Jewish
Concentration Camps
Children from infants up
Women enduring the
concentration camps
Gas Chambers
6 million
died
Crematorium
These are some of the
people who survived the
horrors of a man made hell.
Writers and artists who
survived the Holocaust
emerged to tell their story
and show the world the
horrors of their experience
in the concentration camps.
They hoped their stories
would influence society so
that something like the
Holocaust would never happen
again.
All paintings
by David
Olere,
a Holocaust
survivor
Unable to Work: Inability to work was often an immediate death
sentence. In the background of this painting, smoke rises from
the crematorium to form the SS insignia.
Arrival of a Convoy: A new convoy arrives in the background
as inmates struggle with a cart carrying away cadavers from
a previous convoy.
The Food of the Dead for the Living : Olère collects food, abandoned
near the undressing rooms of crematorium III at Birkenau, so he can
throw it over the fence to the prisoners at the women's camp.
Eliezer Wiesel
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Largest killing center in the
entire Nazi universe
Auschwitz was one of the original
camps founded on May 20, 1940
Sign hung at entrance translates
to “work makes (one) free”
Held between 13,000 and 16,000
inmates
Shoes from the Jewish
people who were sent to
All inmates worked in arms factories the crematorium
Main Gate to
Auschwitz
Toilets
Fence
separating the
administration
part of the
camp from the
prisoners
Crematorium
Starvation cells
Dark cells
Execution yard Place prisoners went to strip before
their execution
Shot against
reinforced walls
Hung suspended
from hooks
Death wall
Block 11 of Auschwitz
Standing Cells
Entrance to Prison Cells
Dark Room
Gas Chambers
Death Marches
The SS, not wanting the world to know about
the Holocaust, decided to abandon the
camps
The SS killed huge numbers of prisoners in
gas chambers, by lethal injection, and by
starvation before the marches
Prisoners were marched for tens of miles in the
snow to railway stations
Transported for days at a time without food, water,
or shelter in freight carriages for cattle
The SS guards had strict orders to kill prisoners who
could no longer walk or travel.
Thousands of prisoners died of exposure,
starvation, and exhaustion.
For ten days, Wiesel and the prisoners were
forced to run and, at the end, were crammed
into freight cars and sent to Buchenwald
Of the 20,000 prisoners who left Buna, 6,000
reached Buchenwald.
“A destruction, an annihilation that only man can
provoke, only man can prevent.”
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever
human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We
must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor,
never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor,
never the tormented.”
“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember,
I have the duty to reject despair.”
“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually
dies.”
First They Came for the Jews
By: Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out-because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
And I did not speak out- because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out- because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me-
And by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
Elie and other Holocaust
survivors hoped their
stories would influence
society so that something
like the Holocaust would
never happen again…
But has it happened again?
Darfur- 2.5 million people estimated
dead due to killings by two ethnic
groups
Rwanda- 800,000 to 1 million
estimated dead as the Hatu militia
work to kill off all of the Tutsis
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that
turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose
bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith
for ever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me
for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God
and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to
live
as long as God Himself.
Never.