The liberation of Nazi camps by the Allies

Activities

1. Tick the right answer:

1. Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by:

	British army.
	Correct Incorrect
	Soviet army.
	Correct Incorrect
	American army.
	Correct Incorrect

2. Primo Levi was the author of:

	Si c’est un homme.
	Correct Incorrect
	Nuit et Brouillard.
	Correct Incorrect
	L’Espèce humaine.
	Correct Incorrect

3. Most of Nazi camps were liberated by the Allies in:

	1943.
	Correct Incorrect
	1945.
	Correct Incorrect
	1946.
	Correct Incorrect

Synthesis question

1. With the help of the resource file, write a few lines of synthesis on the Nazi camps and their liberation by the Allies.

Questions of synthesis

The occupied Europe by Germany was covered with concentration camps where the Nazis imprisoned political opponents (resistant) and those they described as “asocial” (the common criminals, Gypsies, objectors conscience, homosexuals). Extermination camps (Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau) served as death centers of Jewish populations.

As they liberated Europe, soldiers of the Allies armies discovered the crimes against humanity that were perpetrated in Nazi camps, but, it took several weeks to understand the realities of the Nazi concentration system and the specificity of the genocide which the Jewish populations of Europe were victims of.

In April and May 1945, governments of Allies countries, sure of their victory, decided to spread by the press, newsreels and the radio, images of mass graves and the testimonials of survivors. It was, for the public opinion around the world, a terrible shock.