Kurt Gerstein

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/kurt-gerstein

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Kurt Gerstein born?August 11, 1905
2. Where was Kurt Gerstein born?Münchehofe, Germany
3. When did Kurt Gerstein die?July 25, 1945
4. Who was Kurt Gerstein?Kurt Gerstein was an SS officer who worked with chemicals used in Nazi camps. He later tried to stop the bad things that were happening.
5. What did Gerstein do to help stop the Holocaust?He wrote the Gerstein Report, a detailed account of the killings he saw. He also gave this information to diplomats, Swiss officials, and the Dutch government.

SS (Schutzstaffel): A major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, responsible for implementing Nazi racial policies and committing widespread atrocities.
Holocaust: The systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during World War II.
Extermination Camps: Nazi concentration camps designed for the systematic murder of large groups of people, primarily Jews, through methods like gassing.
Zyklon B: A pesticide that the Nazis used as a poison gas in gas chambers at extermination camps.