Clayton Collier 102-127 Research Paper

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Research Paper

Holocaust Overview

Clayton Collier

Mr. Neuburger

English 102-127

18 October 2012


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Hitler in Prison

http://bit.ly/WcBGMe

If the average person is asked to name the most notorious genocide in world history, they

will always answer with The Holocaust. Without a doubt, the slaughter conducted in Germany

and Poland from 1938 to 1945 at the hands of the Nazi government is the most well-known and

re-told story of mans hatred and the power of evil in our world today. However, few understand

the series of events that allowed the Nazis to systematically murder up to twelve million people.

The following is an account of the events, situations, and people that worked together to enable

what will forever be remembered as an ominous example of the atrocities that occur when good

men do nothing. To understand this series of events, one needs to begin with the Nazis rise to

power.

Nazi rise to power

After the end of World War I, the country of Germany was left powerless and weak. Its

economy had been reduced to nothing, and its government was restricted by the stipulations of

the Versailles Treaty. The German people were left disillusioned, poor, and feeling as if they

were living in the shadow of the formerly great German Empire. Amid this frustration many

radical political parties and ideological organizations rose to popularity. The website Yad

Vashem describes how one these groups, known as the National

Socialist Party, a small, insignificant party which Adolf Hitler, a

wounded soldier from WWI, joined and became the leader of. After a

failed rebellion in Munich, Hitler was imprisoned. While

incarcerated, Hitler wrote his famous bookMein Kampf, where he

described racial purity, the superiority of the Aryan race, and the

power of the Nazi party. Furthermore, the article describes that

because the revolt in Munich was been so utterly defeated, Hitler


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Poster Blaming Jews for the Warhttp://bit.ly/SBwf6d

realized that he must find a way to legally take power in order to fulfill his dream of German

global domination. After Hitlers release from prison, he reorganized the Nazis, although their

support steadily declined until 1930, when the globe impact of the Great Depression began. In a

surprising victory, TheNazis received 18.3% of vote, and became the largest faction in the

House by 1932. In 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg made Hitler Chancellor, paving the way

for Hitlers historic genocide (Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution). To do this,

Hitler would turn German society against the Jewish people.

Nazi views on JewsAnti-Semitism

One ofthe main keys to Hitlers plan of racial dominance was to exterminate the Jewish

people. An article in The Public Opinion Quarterly explains that to accomplish this, he quickly

began promoting anti-Jew propaganda in German society. This is evidenced by the multitude of

posters demonizing and dehumanizing Jews, characterizing them as parasites that secretly

planned to control the worlds economy for their own purposes. Even school children began

stereotyping and alienating their Jewish classmates (Hitlers Anti-

Semitism: A Political Appraisal). Another method of encouraging

hatred toward Jews was to integrate it into the arts, including music.

A report that appeared in The Times in 1942 says that Aryan-

glorifying lyrics were encouraged, while any music that had been

written by Jews or composers affiliated with Jews was banned or

oppressed. The Times continues with one example in which Richard

StrausssDie Schweigsame Frau was banned after only a few
http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206410.pdfhttp://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206410.pdf


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performances because the composer had collaborated with the Jewish writer Stefan Zweig

(The Aryanization of Music in Nazi Germany). In every area of German society, anti-

Semitism was increasing. As public sentiment grew more hateful, so did governmental policy.

The Nuremburg Laws

In 1935, the Nazi government introduced two new pieces of legislation that would change

the very existence of German Jews. These laws became known as the Nuremberg Laws. Yad

Vashem points out how the main goal of the Nazi legislators was to define who was considered a

Jew, and to affix restrictions in everyday life upon the Jews. In effect, this was done to

standardize and formalize the discrimination being propagated by the Nazi agenda. The Yad

Vashem site explains that the first law was called The

Law for the Protection of German Blood and German

Honor, which prohibited marriages and relationships

between Jews and Germans, as well as prohibiting

German females under the age of 45 from working as

maids or servants in Jewish households. This law was

designed to designate the Jews as a completely separate

race, and to portray the Jews as unclean (Nuremberg

Laws). The Jewish Virtual Library website describes how The Reich Citizenship Law stripped

Jews of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between Reich citizens and

nationals. Certificates of Reich citizenship were in fact never introduced and all Germans other

than Jews were until 1945 provisionally classed as Reich citizens (The Reich Citizenship Law:

First Regulation). The Nazis declared that anyone with Jewish heritage was considered a Jew,

whether they were religiously Jewish or not. Having even one Jewish grandparent classified a

Nazi Chart Explaining Who is a Jew

http://bit.ly/RNJIUk


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person as not pure. Jewish men who were previously regarded as heroes from World War I

were to be disavowed and ridiculed. With this strict definition in place, discrimination against the

Jews became more widespread and bolder than ever before.

Kristallnacht

It was in November of 1938 that these societal tensions reached a new level. Another Yad

Vashem article reminds us that November 9th

was the anniversary of Hitlers failed uprising in

Munich. On this night in 1938 however, Nazi supporters who had gathered to commemorate the

occasion soon became stirred up against the Jews. Soon they began rioting, breaking the

windows of Jewish-owned businesses. Before long the rioters were setting fire to synagogues

and Jewish residences, and many Jews were physically injured or assaulted, while some were

killed (Kristallnacht). This event was called Kristallnacht,

meaning Night of the Broken Glass, because of the shards of

shattered windows than lined the streets that night. Kristallnacht

is remembered to this day as one of the most frightening and

tragic events in Jewish history. An article by the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum says that although this attack was

instigated by Nazi officials, the German government claimed that

it was a spontaneous response by that public, insinuating that

Jews were the real cause. Behind that guise, the Nazis blamed the Jews themselves for the riots.

In the aftermath, around 30,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to concentration camps.

Their property was seized and they were forced to pay fines. The USHMM article also points out

that, the passivity with which most German civilians responded to the violence signaled to

the Nazi regime that the German public was prepared for more radical measures (Kristallnacht:

A Jewish Shop after Kristallnacht

http://bit.ly/YNfPII


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Jewish Orphans Starving in a Ghetto

http://bit.ly/PEVpjF

A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938). The time had arrived for the Nazis to begin the

initial stages of Hitlers ultimate plan: the extermination of the Jewish race. To this end, Jews

were soon interned and relocated in mass numbers.

Rounding up the Jewsghettos

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and

World War II began. It was then that things got even blacker for the Jewish people. As recorded

by USHMM, in October of 1939, German occupation forces in Poland set up the first ghetto in

Piotrkow Trybunalski. Before long, thousands of ghettos had been set up, mostly in occupied

Poland and Russia, as well as Germany. The most notorious ghetto was the Warsaw Ghetto,

where nearly 400,000 Jews were confined in only 1.3 square miles of the city (Ghettos). An

online article authored by the Holocaust Education and

Archive Research Team describes the horrors of the

Warsaw in detail, saying that The daily food rations

allocated to the Jews of Warsaw consisted of only 181

calories, about a quarter of the rations Poles were

granted, and much less than what was allocated to

Germans. This totally inadequate level of food reduced the ghetto to a slow murder through mass

starvation (The Warsaw Ghetto). Deathcamps.org describes the conditions of the ghetto in

Krakow, Poland by saying Before the war, around 3,000 inhabitants lived in the ghetto area, but

now more than 15,000 people were crowded together. According to the regulations, four families

had to share one flat. Alternatively one apartment window for every three people was allocated

(Krakow Ghetto). As the Jews suffered and died in these horrible conditions, an unthinkably

sinister plan was being formulated by Hitlers government.


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Einsatzgruppen shootinghttp://bit.ly/SJ6qhk

Wannsee ConferenceThe Final Solution

In January of 1942, top officials and officers of Nazi

Germany met in Wannsee, Berlin to determine how to kill the

millions of Jews in the ghettos. This meeting is called the

Wannsee Conference, and it was here that the Final

Solution to solve the Nazi Jewish Problem was decided

upon. It had already been decided that killing the Jews was

the best way to deal with them, but the details had not yet

been decided upon. Holocaust-history.org explains the conditions under which these officials

met:

By the time of the Wannsee Conference, the Einsatzgruppen operating behind the army

front lines, had murdered more than half a million people. Mass shootings were not

suitable for European Jewry outside the war zone and were also demoralizing for the

Nazi troops. This had prompted a search for a more impersonal way of killing large

numbers of people. By January 1942, the death camps in Belzec and Chelmno, with their

gassing facilities, were already under construction. (The Wannsee Conference)

Another website, Historyplace.com gives and account of how the death camps were

rapidly built and supplied with gas chambers and crematories. Soon, these camps were receiving

a steady flow of Jews taken from the ghettos. Jews who were believed to be too old, young, or

physically unfit for hard labor were the first to be sent to the death camps (The Final Solution).

It was in these abominable camps that one of the most horrible genocides in history occurred.


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Jews Being Sent to Their Deaths at Aushwitzhttp://bit.ly/VYooNv

The death camps

The daunting task of killing and disposing of millions of people required the Nazis to

build specialized facilities where the system of murder could be streamlined and made efficient.

Holocaust-education.dk describes that the first camp to be built was Chelmno. By the end of the

war, over 152,000 people were gassed to death by a method often referred to as Hell trucks.

These were simply large trucks that had been rigged so that the engine exhaust dispersed directly

into the back of the truck, where the Jews were held (Extermination Camps). When USHMM

describes the most notorious camp, Aushwitz-Birkenau, it

explains that nearly all of the Jews sent there were

immediately sent to the gas chambers, where Zyklon B

gas was pumped into large rooms where Jews were

herded in and locked up. It is estimated that up to six

thousand people were killed each day at Auschwitz; by the end of the war, over one million lives

were extinguished at this location. USHMM continues by addressing the Majdanek camp, which

is believed to have been the last camp to be constructed. Majdanek was mainly used to hold

prisoners which were put to work instead of exterminated. This camp also contained a large

storage unit for storing the property and valuables of Jews killed at other camps; however

,Majdanek also had a killing area in case it needed to function as a standard extermination camp.

Approximately 70,000 Jews died at Majdanek(Killing Centers: An Overview). Another

important extermination center was the Treblinka death camp, where, according to HEART,

victims were killed in a cramped building that was pumped full of carbon monoxide. Nearly

900,000 Jews were murdered at Treblinka in this fashion (Treblinka Death Camp History). In

total there were six death camps, the others being the ones at Sobibor and Belzec. Both of these


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Soviet Soldiers Liberating Auschwitz

http://bit.ly/UkLZH0

camps used gas chambers to slaughter detainees, who arrived by train. Due to a lack of detailed

records, it is unknown exactly how many people died in the six death camps or by the second-

line combat execution squads, but it is believed to be between six and twelve million.

Liberation

By mid-1944, the war was not going well for the Nazis. The Soviets were gaining ground

in the East, and the British and Americans were beginning to push from the West. With Nazi

morale plummeting and the Reich falling, it was in July

1944 that the first death camp was liberated. A Yad

Vashem article describes that the Soviet troops reached

Majdanek. Although the USSR kept many of its findings

classified, the Russian troops did what they could to help

the survivors there. The article also explains that by 1945,

US and British troops were liberating the camps in Germany and nearby occupied countries.

Their findings of starved and dying people, as well as mountains of corpses were horrific and

demoralizing. Eventually, Many of the Jews ended up in Displaced Persons (DP) camps,

sometimes in the company of their formerpersecutors. Over the next few years the DPs rebuilt

their lost lives, usually moving to a place where they had located a relative or friend. Many of the

Jews eventually moved to Israel (Liberation).

The Holocaust will forever be a grim reminder of the unlimited brutality that is so easily

perpetrated by mankind. Furthermore, it is the moral responsibility of all people to be aware of

this ever-present threat, and to do whatever is in our power to prevent such wide-spread acts of

unwarranted violence.


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Works Cited

"Extermination Camps."Holocaust-education.dk. Holocaust-education.dk,n.d. 9 November

2012. Web.

"The Final Solution."Historyplace.com. Historyplace.com, n.d. 9 November 2012. Web.

"Ghettos." Ushmm.org. Ushmm.org, n.d. 6 November 2012. Web.

"Killing Centers: An Overview." Ushmm.org. Ushmm.org, n.d. 9 November 2012. Web.

"Krakow Ghetto."Deathcamps.org. Deathcamps.org, n.d. 8 November 2012. Web.

"Kristallnacht." Yadvashem.org. Yadvashem.org, n.d. 6 November 2012.Web.

"Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." Ushmm.org.Ushmm.org, n.d. 6

November 2012. Web.

Levi, Erik. "The Aryanization of Music in Nazi Germany." The Musical Times

131.1763 (1990): 19-23. Print.

"Liberation." Yadvashem.org. Yadvashem.org, n.d. 12 November 2012.Web.

Needler, Martin. "Hitler's Anti-Semitism: A Political Appraisal." The Public Opinion

Quarterly 24.4 (1960): 665-669. Print.

"Nuremberg Laws." Yadvashem.org. Yadvashem.org, n.d. 5 November 2012. Web.

"The Reich Citizenship Law: First

Regulation."Jewishvirtuallibrary.org.Jewishvirtuallibrary.org, n.d. 5 November

2012. Web.

"Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution." Yadvashem.org.Yadvashem.org, n.d. 1

November 2012. Web.


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"Treblinka Death Camp

History."Holocaustresearchproject.org.Holocaustresearchproject.org, n.d. 10 November

2012. Web.

"The Wannsee Conference."Holocaust-history.org. Holocaust-history.org,n.d. 9 November

2012. Web.

"The Warsaw Ghetto."Holocaustresearchproject.org.Holocaustresearchproject.org, n.d. 8

November 2012. Web

Clayton,

This is an eloquently written paper. You seem to have grasped all of the concepts I wanted you

to get and have effectively integrated those concepts into your paper. You should be

proud of this paper. Aside from some minor issues this is outstanding work! See your

score below.

Points Available

Score

40Content paper demonstrates understanding and

confidence about topic39

20 Sources uses only primary and secondary sources 20

40 In-Text Citations

integrates sources within text witheffective use of signal words and phrases

40

35 Formatting properly uses MLA formatting 34


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25Works Cited works cited page has the required number

of sources and is properly formatted25

15Pictures uses pictures to enhance the text with effective

captions and source information15

25Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errors in spelling,

punctuation, etc.22

Total = 200

Total Score

195

Clayton Collier 102-127 Research Paper

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