World War 2 Persuasive Speech Outline

I. Throughout the world, many people stood by and watched as the terror happened.

A. Bystanders were ordinary people who played it safe.

B. When the Jews were taken away people stood by and just watched.

C. If the people ever did anything they would be killed by the soldiers.

II. Children were especially vulnerable in this tragic period.

A.

B. If the children couldn’t work they were killed.

C. The soldiers would throw the babies in the air and use them as targets to shoot.

III. The Allies liberated the concentration camps in 1945 and became unwilling witnesses to

the horror.

A. There were rows upon rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood.

B. Liberators struggled to make sense of the scenes

they witnessed.

IV. Hitler created an atmosphere of terror that was maintained by force
A. Perpetrators were Nazi party leaders, bankers, professors, military officials, doctors,
journalists, engineers, judges, authors, lawyers, salesmen, police, and civil servants.
B.

Perpetrators committed crimes against Jews and other undesirables for many reasons. V. Rescuers, by hiding victims in attics or by helping them to escape to other countries

saved many who would have perished.

A. Rescuers were peasants and nannies, aristocrats and clergy, bakers and doctors, social

workers and storekeepers, school children and police officers, diplomats and

grandmothers.

B. Rescuers were able to accept people who were different than them.

VI. Resistance took many forms, from individual acts to organized armed resistance against

the Nazi terror.

A. Some people resisted going to the camps and were shot.

B. Jews created an underground economy as a way to resist the Nazis.

VII. Survivors relate their thoughts and feelings about living through such a terrible period of

human history.

A. The consequences of being found for hiders and those hiding them were grave, often

resulting in brutal death at the hands of special police squads.

B. There are some survivors now that tell their story to people around the word.

C. All survivors have a different story of how they escaped or hid from the Nazis.

VIII. Millions were victimized by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust: Jews,

Gypsies,
political enemies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people with disabilities.
A. Many people who never considered themselves Jewish suddenly became targets of Nazi
persecution.
B. Millions upon millions of non-Jews were slaughtered in the Slavic countries.
C. Millions of Jews and other people were saved by the Americans and the English