Jaclynn Reed 102 117 8holocaust

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Research Paper

Holocaust Overview

Jaclynn Reed

Mr. Neuburger

English Comp 102-117

4 April 20139 May 2013


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The Holocaust remains the largest case of genocide in the history of mankind. A series of

events over a twelve year span allows twelve million people to be brutally murdered. If studied,

the Holocaust and the events culminating with this murderous event, evil is brewing long before

this tragedy begins. Hitler desires a perfect race for Germany; therefore, he accelerates roundups

of Jews throughout Europe and placing them into ghettos or concentration camps, and eventually

into mass graves. Undeniable truths of humiliation and embarrassment of the Jewish people are

painful results of propaganda and government sponsored genocide, and memories still plague

mankind close to seventy years later. In order to prevent another tragic massacre, one needs to

understand the series of events leading up to the Nazis systematic murder of over twelve million

people.

Nazi rise to power

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, (USHMM) article Hitler

Comes to Power, with the worldwide economic depression in the 1930s after WWI, millions of

people are out of work. However, prior to this tragedy the Treaty of Versailles is signed on June

28, 1918 ending WWI; this imposes severe terms on Germany forcing Germany to accept

responsibility for the war and agree to reparations. The terms of the treaty lead to widespread

political discontent in Germany, and Hitler

gains support by promising to overturn this

event. Still very fresh in the people of

Germanys minds is the humiliating defeat

fifteen years priorof WWI and its severe

terms the Germans lack confidence in their

weak government, known as the Weimar

Nazi rising to power.

Source: http://bit.ly/YLul6Q


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Nazi views on anti-SemitismSource: http://bit.ly/RyPhYN

Republic. The article further explains how this brought forth a new leader, Adolf Hitler. Hitlers

political party is the National Socialist German Workers Party, most known as Nazi Party. The

Nazi partys rise to power is rapid. Hitler is a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a

wide following of Germans desperate for change. Hitler promised a better life and a new and

glorious Germany. Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and lower

middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsman, and farmers). In 1933 Hitler is

appointed Chancellor, head of German Government. Many Germans believed they had found a

savior for their nation (USHMM).

Nazi view on Jews anti-Semitism

Years prior to Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany, he became obsessed with the idea

of the perfect race. To summarize the USHMM, for Hitler, purity and superiority of the

German Race the Aryan Master Race was blond hair, blue eyes and tall. When Hitler came

into power these beliefs became government ideology and spread publically through posters, on

the radio, in movies, in classrooms, and even newspapers. Hitler and other Nazi leaders viewed

the Jews not as a religious group, but as a

poisonous race and would weaken their pure

German race. Once Hitler took power, Nazi

teachers in school classrooms began to apply

the "principles" of racial science. They

measured skull size and nose length, and

recorded the color of their pupils' hair and

eyes to determine whether students belonged


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to the true "Aryan race." Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) students were often humiliated in the

process (Nazi Racism).

Nuremberg laws

Exemplifying, the article The Nuremberg Laws of Jewish Categorization, the

Nuremburg Laws of 1935 defined Jews not by their religion or by how they wanted to identify

themselves but by racial criteria. According to the Nazi categorization, a Jew had at least three

Jewish grandparents. A person with two Jewish grandparents also was categorized as a Jew if he

belonged to a Jewish congregation or was married to a Jew. A Half-Jew was defined as a

person with one or two Jewish grandparents. At the annual party in Nuremberg, September 15,

Nazi leaders announced new laws that institutionalized many of the racial theories of Nazi

ideology. In continuance in reference to the The Nuremberg Laws of Jewish Categorization,

the Nuremberg race laws excluding Reich citizenship and

prohibiting them from marrying or having sexual relations with

persons of German or German-related blood. This also excluded

Jews from political entitlements including the right to vote or hold

public office. Therefore, these laws represented a major shift from

traditional anti-Semitism, which defined Jews by religious belief, to

a conception of Jews as a member of a race, defined by blood and

lineage. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism or who had

not done so for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with

Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews (USHMM).

Propaganda

Nuremberg Laws

Source: http://bit.ly/1ByPsp


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With Hitler in complete control of all types of communication and media, as chancellor,

his racist views and opinions result in very successful growth in anti-Semitism and violence

towards the Jewish population. Hitler and the Nazi party use extreme propaganda to sway the

masses. Furthermore, he USHMM, State of Deception, Adolf Hitler states, is truly terrible

weapon in the hands of an expert. The

Nazi leaders proved a bold new way to

use this. The Nazi party swayed millions

of Germans and Europeans with

appealing ideas of a utopian world. They

used frightful images of Jews portraying

them as the enemy that would threaten

those utopian German Nazi dreams (qtd.

in USHMM).

Kristallnacht

Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Polish Jew shot the diplomat on November 7, 1938,

who sought revenge for his family. Vom Rath died November 9, 1938, two days after the

shooting, in accordance to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, USHMM, Kristallnacht: A Nationwide

Pogrom,. The Nazi Party leaders chose to launch a night of anti-Semitic violent raid. Violence

began to erupt. This lasted throughout the late evening, early morning hours of November 9-10.

At 1:20 a.m. urgent telegrams are sent to headquarters of state police and SA leaders regarding

the riots. Stated by USHMM,

SA and Hitler Youth units throughout Germany and its annexed territories engaged in the

destruction of Jewish-owned homes, synagogues, and businesses; members of many units

The royal Kauffman, haggling Jews 1936 Germany

Source: http://bit.ly/17fDwMi


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KristallnactSource: http://bit.ly/YqPjDC

wore civilian clothes to support the

fiction that the disturbances are

expressions of outraged public

reactions. Shattered glass lined

German streets in acts of vicious

violence. The rioters destroyed 267

synagogues, an estimated 7,500

Jewish-owned establishments

shattered, and looted by SA and Hitler Youth members across the country. Attacking

Jews in their houses and forcing Jews they encountered to perform acts of public

humiliation. Kristallnacht claimed 91 lives on November 9-10. Police records document a

high number of rapes and suicides in the aftermath of violence (Kristallnacht).

Kristallnacht marks the first instance which Nazi regime incarcerated Jews on a massive scale

simply on the basis of their ethnicity. Hundreds died in the camps as a result of the brutal

treatment they endured; most obtained release over the next three months on the condition that

they begin the process of emigration from Germany. Indeed, the effects of Kristallnacht would

serve as a push to the emigration of Jews from Germany in the months to come. The events to of

Kristallnacht represented one of the most important turning points in National Socialist anti-

Semitic policy. Historians have noted, the Holocaust Encyclopedia, USHMM, that after the

pogrom, anti-Jewish policy was in the hands of the SS. The Nazi regime aimed on removing

Jews entirely from German economic and social life in the next coming years (USHMM).

Rounding up Jews; Ghettos


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The Kristallacht arrests lead to Hitlers harsh public round up of Jews. A Holocaust

survivor, Malka Baran, states, I knew something was wrong, we were layering our clothing; I

walked up to our window and saw the SS men and no people. They were shouting OUT! OUT!

All at once! (Baran). The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional

measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership deliberated upon options of

removing the Jewish population entirely. Yael Hersonskis film documentary, A Film

Unfinished, the ghetto confinement

proves unbearable, overcrowding,

malnourished, starving, fearful living

conditions for the Jews. Medical services

non-existent, food is rationed, feces pile

in the streets with garbage, and disease

and starvation are many causes of death

as well as the morbid inhumane living

conditions (A Film Unfinished). During the Holocaust ghettos were a central step in the Nazi

process of control, dehumanization, and mass murder of the Jews.

Resistance efforts

Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. According to

the website, USHMM, Ghettos,

Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling

food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto wall, often without the

knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. Some Jewish council members tolerated

or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents

Children living inside the Ghetto

Source: http://bit.ly/15gLPLB


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Resistance effortsSource:http://bit.ly/11bxTgr

alive. The Germans forbade

any type of schooling or

educating while in the

ghettos. Furthermore, any

social gatherings of religious

worship, attendance or

cultural events are viewed as

security threats and Nazi

regime would ruthlessly kill participants (Ghettos).

However, members of Jewish resistance movements held armed uprisings and against the Nazi

guards; largest of these is the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943, violent revolts are common

amongst ghettos. Although suffering and death is part of everyday life around the ghettos,

children did not stop playing with toys. Some had beloved dolls or trucks, children also made

toys, using whatever bits of cloth and wood they could find. In the Lodz ghetto, children turned

the tops of empty cigarette boxes into playing cards. Everyday people weakened by hunger and

exposure to the cold, therefore, victims of disease; tens of thousands died in the ghettos from

illness, starvation, or cold. Some individuals killed themselves to escape hopelessness. Every day

children became orphaned, and many had to take care of even younger children. Orphans often

lived on the streets, begging for bits of bread from others who had little or nothing to share.

Many froze to death in the winter (Ghettos).

Wannsee Conference: The Final Solution

January 20, 1942, fifteen high-rank Nazi and German government leaders gathered for a

meeting, at a villa by a lake known as Wanssee. This meeting particularly discussed the, final


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Rounding up Jews after the Wannsee ConferenceSource: http://bit.ly/11bxTgr

solution of the Jewish people in Europe. Therefore, the USHMM, The Wannsee Conference

and the Final Solution, regards The Final Solution is Nazis' code forthe deliberate, carefully

planned destruction, or genocide, of all European Jews. The Nazis used the vague term "Final

Solution" to hide their policy of mass murder from the rest of the world. In fact, the men at

Wannsee talked about methods of killing, about liquidation, about "extermination." The

Wannsee Conference, as history would tell, however, did not mark the beginning of the "Final

Solution." The mobile killing squads are already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union

at this time. Rather, the Wannsee Conference is the place that the "final solution" is formally

revealed to non-Nazi leaders who arranged for Jews to be transported from all over German-

occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at

Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to

the murder of an entire population of people (The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution).

Extermination Methods

June 22, 1941 killings accompany German invasion of the Soviet Union, German special

duty units and mobile killing squads, kill Jews during this invasion. To be specific, The

Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution, USHMM, by the spring of 1943, the mobile

killing squads will have killed more than one million Jews. Next, September 3, 1941

experimental gassings begin at Auschwitz, using Zyklon B gas. To emphasize on the learning

site for students, The Killing

Evolution, from PBS, (PBS), within a

few months, December 8, 1941

Chelmno killing center operations

begin; this is the first Nazi camp to use


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poison gas for mass killing. In this specific killing center, victims are forced into gas vans; a tube

directs the vans exhaust into the sealed compartment, which holds between 50-70 people. Once

the carbon monoxide kills the innocent lives locked inside, the van is driven directly to the mass

graves and therefore emptied. By mid-July 1944 at least 152,000 people will be murdered. Keep

in mind that these killing methods are carried out prior to the Wannsee Conference, and the

Final Solution

Tells of death by firing squads, carbon monoxide, hell vans, Zyklon B and massive gas

chambers and crematoria throughout the war. General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was

worried about the firing squad methods traumatizing effects on his men, these men are

finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we producing hereeither

neurotics or brutes (PBS)?

Nazis murdered men, women and children in cold blood at close range (PBS). By spring of 1943,

four crematorias became operational at Auschwizt II (Birkenau) they housed eight gas chambers

and forty-six ovens that could dispose of 4,400 corpses per day. Trains would arrive at camp and

about 10-30 percent of new arrivals would be selected for work positions. The remaining would

be immediately sent to gas chambers. Again, The Killing Evolution, regards precise counts of

how many people actually murdered will never be available due to those directly marched off the

trains into gas chambers; never registered. At least 1.1 million gassed at Auschwitz, ninety

percent Jewish. However, the Germans could not cremate every corpse murdered during the

Holocaust. Eventually, gas chambers would be blown up and crematories destroyed as the Nazis

retreated from the advancing allied forces. Furthermore, evidence remained. Tens of thousands

of bodies remained stacked or spilling out into the cold winter snow throughout Poland and

Germany (PBS).


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In 1944, Poland, Soviet forces overran a major Nazi concentration camp. In 1945, Soviet troops

liberated Auschwitz where 7,000 prisoners, including children were held captive.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced

persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost

700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from

Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP

camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most

European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in

occupied eastern Europe entirely (Holocaust History).

American soldiers witnessed evidence of the Holocaust and Nazi hatred, crimes, and immoral

acts, as we marched into the interior of Germany, liberating major camps, such as Buchenwald,

Dachau, and Mauthausen. However, the liberation of Nazi camps is not a primary objective of

the Allied military campaign, U.S., British, Canada, and Soviet troops freed prisoners and

provided food, medical support and evidence of war crimes, for later date trials. To conclude,

this website, Liberation, states on May 8, 1945, less than one year after D-Day, Nazi

Germanys unconditional surrender became official, and the world could celebrate the liberation

of Europe from the Nazi rule (USHMM).

The Holocaust will forever be remembered as a blood stain in German history that

affected the entire earth in a tragic way, the repercussions against humankind during these dark

times continue to be felt. The Holocaust was the largest case of genocide to plague this planet


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ever in the history of mankind. Mass murder and persecution of six million Jewish people should

remain in archives of peoples hearts today in remembrance of evil that once tried to overtake the

world. The base ingredient of this evil and egocentric power hungry, blood driven Nazis led by

Adolf Hitler, mixed with hatred, devastated nations populations for years to come. Survivor Dr.

Harold Herbst states about his most memorable at the time of liberation, I heard a voice and I

turned around and I saw a living skeleton talk to me was talking to me, and he said, thank God

the Americans have come.


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Works Cited

"Background: Nuremberg Race Laws." Holocaust History. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

"Ghettos." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 10

Apr. 2013.

Hitler Comes to Power." Hitler Comes to Power. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

"Holocaust History." Introduction to the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.

"Liberation." Holocaust History. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 18 Apr.

2013.

"Liberation." Personal Histories | Liberation. United States Historical Memorial Museum, n.d.

Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

"The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students." Nazi Racism. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

"The Killing Evolution." Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. PBS, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

"Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.

"The Nuremberg Laws of Jewish Categorization." The Nuremberg Laws of Jewish

Categorization. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

"State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda." Calendar. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.


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"The Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"" The Holocaust: A Learning Site for

Students. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.

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