Glencoe World History: Modern Times © 2011 Virginia Edition

Chapter 19: World War II

Student Web Activity Lesson Plans

Nazi Concentration Camps

Introduction

Between 1933 and 1945 Nazi concentration camps held millions of people in incarceration. Nazi atrocities committed at these camps were unspeakable acts of torture, murder and mass starvation and caused the deaths of millions of innocent people. In this activity students will learn about the Nazi concentration camps during the period of 1942 through the conclusion of World War II, when the camps were liberated by American, British, Canadian and Russian forces.

Lesson Description
Students will go to a Web site about the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps. Students will read the information and answer four questions about what they have read. They will then create a chart of the liberation of the concentration camps.

Instructional Objectives

1. The learner will be able to describe and summarize the atrocities conducted at the concentration camps.


2. The learner will create a chart to organize pertinent information about the liberation of the concentration camps.

Student Web Activity Answers

1. The SS signed contracts with private industry to manufacture goods and provide labor for the German war effort. One famous example was the I.G. Farben company's creation of a synthetic rubber plant in 1942 at the German concentration camp Auschwitz III.



2. In the final years of the war, hundreds of subcamps were established in, or near factories or mines to assist in the production of materials Germany needed to continue to wage war.



3. According to some estimates nearly half of all concentration camp deaths occurred during the final year of World War II. As the Germans retreated, the camp population suffered from starvation, exposure to disease, and increased use of medical experiments. Also, the SS evacuated camp prisoners to keep them from being liberated, which also caused tremendous loss of life.



4. Some examples of the unethical medical experiments conducted at the concentration camps include experiments to find vaccines for lethal diseases, experiments on twins to find ways of increasing the German population, and experiments to determine the length of time a person might survive under reduced air pressure or in frozen water.



5. Students' charts will vary but should include accurate information from the map "Liberation of major Nazi camps, 1944–1945."