The Holocaust During The Twentieth Century

The Holocaust (or Shoah in Hebrew) was the annihilation of the Jewish population by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The Jewish people were persecuted by Hitler and the Nazis before and during World War Two. The Nazis believed that the Jewish people were an inferior race and did not want them "contaminating Aryan blood". The Holocaust lasted for 12 years (January 30th, 1933 - May 8th, 1945) and was one of the most brutal events of the twentieth century. The Holocaust included the death and torture of almost 6 million Jews, as well as 5 million Gypsies, Poles, Russians, Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners and male homosexuals. The Holocaust was made possible due to anti-Semitism worldwide, isolationism politics, fear of the Nazis and the appeasement of Hitler by leaders of other countries.

Anti-Semitism played a large role in the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism is defined as “discrimination against, or prejudice, or hostility toward Jews”. (dictionary.com) The Jewish people were accused of many things including the extreme opposites of being militant aggressors and cowardly pacifists. Hitler’s Nazi party put in place many anti-Semitism laws, rules, regulations and guidelines that greatly restricted the civil and human rights of Jewish people. Some laws passed between March 31st 1933 and November

Unfortunately, this allowed Nazi Germany to gain more and more power in Europe. The United States did not join the war until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 by Japan. This was more than two years after the start of World War Two. Even the Allies did not start fighting the Nazis until 6 years after the start of the Holocaust which is an incredible amount of time for multiple countries to sit around doing nothing while Hitler was slowly gaining more and more power in those six years and more and more Jews were being killed during those six