How would you feel if someone you loved was viciously slaughtered for something they didn’t do? The average person would feel heartbroken, and enraged. However, during the Holocaust this had become an everyday occurrence. For almost 12 years, millions of Jewish men, women, and children were brutally tortured and executed because of their religious beliefs. These innocent families couldn't change who they were, so they were murdered for it. The Jews didn’t deserve the cruel and inhumane torture they had to suffer through during the Holocaust.
The Jews had been scapegoats for the problems Germany had, which caused unfair accusations to all Jews. First example is, Kristallnacht, which is known today as the turning point for the Holocaust. It started
when one Polish Jew shot and killed german official, Ernst Vom Rath. After the shooting, German authorities expelled thousands of Polish Jews’ citizenship. This resulted in violent mobs breaking out, and officials breaking into Jewish homes torturing women and children (ushmm.org). The Nazis had taken advantage of the shooting as a way to blame all Jews, and to strengthen people's anti semitism. In addition to that, Germany had been struggling with economic shortcomings, and Hitler had convinced Germany that Jews were to blame (history.ucsb.us). At that time most families were struggling, whereas most wealthy business owners were Jewish, making them an easy target. Others may truly believe that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s defeat, but that is highly inaccurate. In fact 12,000 Jews had sacrificed their lives while fighting in battle for Germany (German-Jewish soldiers of the first world war). Even furthermore Germany had fabricated a census, claiming Jews had neglected their military duty. However 80% of all Jewish soldiers fought front line, far higher than the general population (jewishhistory.org). Even though these acts of anti semitism had become more extreme and more known during the Holocaust, anti semitism has been around since biblical times (ushmm.org). In summary, even though the Jews weren’t the source of Germany’s problems they were still blamed. During the Holocaust Jews were also robbed of their humanity. As mentioned in the memoir Night, written by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, “Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns...” These infants, who were barely old enough to walk, were murdered and treated as objects by the Nazis. Not to mention also in Night, Elie writes when “Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest...” To summarize, the workers had thrown crusts of bread to the starving men and watched them for entertainment, fight over the crusts like dogs. Then not only were the Jews starved and tortured, they were used as human guinea pigs. As stated by Mrs. M, a holocaust survivor and victim of one of Dr. Mengele's experiments, “I suffered immense pain and cruelty from the experiments. They were inhuman, but because of them I survived.” The Nazis destroyed everything human about the Jews, and this dehumanization was utilized as a tool to torture the Jews mentally as well as physically. In conclusion the Jews didn’t deserve the merciless torture during the Holocaust that caused many innocent lives to abruptly end. Many Jewish children couldn’t even help their beliefs, yet they were barbarously martyred anyway. In the modern world Jews still face blame, and prejudice for their beliefs. We think today that nothing this horrific would ever happen again . However if we continue a strong discrimination towards certain religious groups, who’s to say history won’t repeat itself?
At a time of loss, the German people needed a reason to rebuild their spirits. The Jews became a national target even though Hitler’s theory could not be proven. Even as a Jew, he accused the Jews people for Germany’s defeat in order to rally the people against a group of people Hitler despised. The story-telling of the Jews’ wickedness distracts the Germans from realizing the terror Holocaust. Millions of Jewish people died because Hitler said they caused the downfall of Germany. Innocent lives were taken. The death of millions mark the rise of Hitler. He sets the stage for the largest massacre in
People sometimes ask why the Jews were the people to get harmed during the Holocaust or why Holocaust even happened. Jews were the targets of Holocaust because Adolf Hitler hated Jews and blamed them for all of the problems in the world. He mainly blamed them for Germany's loss in World War I. Hitler told the German that they could have won the war, if the Germany had not been "stabbed in the back" by the Jews.
“Nobody can know for how long and under what trials his soul can resist before yielding or breaking.” This quote from Primo Levi eloquently describes how it is impossible to know how people would have reacted during the Holocaust and how much pain they could stand. Among the millions of Jewish people killed, there was a special unit of prisoners, the Sonderkommando, that were forced to witness and aid in the extermination of their people. At the time many people thought the Sonderkommando were accomplices in the murder and that they willingly participated in the acts, however, they were just as tortured as the people who were killed. The Sonderkommando had to engage in horrific acts in the extermination camps such as cremating the bodies or burying them in mass graves which berated them till the point that they were shells of their former selves, but they never stopped fighting.
After The Great depression and World War I, Germany was left in a fragile state. The economy was ruined, many people were unemployed and all hope was lost. The Nazis believed it wasn’t their own fault for the mess, but those who were inferior to the German people. These Nazi beliefs lead to and resulted in cruelty and suffering for the Jewish people. The Nazis wanted to purify Germany and put an end to all the inferior races, including Jews because they considered them a race. They set up concentration camps, where Jews and other inferior races were put into hard labor and murdered. They did this because Nazis believed that they were the only ones that belonged in Germany because they were pure Germans. This is the beginning of World War 2. The Nazi beliefs that led to and resulted in the cruelty and suffering of the Jewish people
The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million people of innocent Jewish decent by the Nazi government. The Holocaust was a very tragic time in history due to the idealism that people were taken from their surroundings, persecuted and murdered due to the belief that German Nazi’s were superior to Jews. During the Holocaust, many people suffered both physically and mentally. Tragic events in people’s lives cause a change in their outlook on the world and their future. Due to the tragic events that had taken place being deceased in their lives, survivors often felt that death was a better option than freedom.
During the rule of Adolf Hitler, many children who were Jewish lived a very frightening and difficult life. They never were given the love and compassion that every child needs and deserves growing up. The Holocaust is a story that will continue to be shared till the end of time.
The Holocaust was a very impressionable period of time. It not only got media attention during that time, but movies, books, websites, and other forms of media still remember the Holocaust. In Richard Brietman’s article, “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust,” he reviews two books and one movie that were created to reflect the Holocaust (BREITMAN 11). He notes that the two books are very realistic and give historical facts and references to display the evils that were happening in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This shows that the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust have not been forgotten. Through historical writings and records, the harshness and evil that created the Holocaust will live through centuries, so that it may not be repeated again (BREITMAN 14).
The Holocaust was a bloody, terrifying event that unfortunately happened during the world’s most bloody war, World War II. The end result of a portion of deaths of the Holocaust resulted in astounding number of about 6,000,000 Jewish people dead. However, there were about 13,684,900 other lives that were taken during this “cleansing period” that Adolf Hitler once said. Those lives included civilians in surrounding countries, resisters against the Nazi nation, opposing religious members, and many more. Although, over 6,000,000 Jewish people died, many others died who are just as memorable.
There are many factors which lead to the Holocaust, however anti-Semitism was the greatest cause of the conflict. Anti-Semitism is the common name for anti Jewish sentiments. During Hitler was in power, anti-Semitism was used by the Nazis too carry out the Endlosung, which means “final solution to the Jewish Question” (“The Roots of the Holocaust”). However, anti-Semitism was not something that was created by Germany. Through centuries, Jews were a persecuted people. Jews have faced heavy discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, 1800s and mid early 1900s.
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
The Holocaust is considered the largest genocide of our entire world, killing more than 600,000,000 Jewish people during the years of 1933-1945. The memories and history that have filled our lives that occurred during the Holocaust are constantly remembered around the world. Many populations today “think” that constant reminders allow for us to become informed and help diminish the hatred for other races still today. These scholars believe that by remembering the Holocaust, you are able to become knowledgeable and learn how to help prevent this from happening again. Since the Holocaust in a sense impacted the entire human race and history of the world, there are traces of the Holocaust all across our culture today. As I continue to remember the victims of this tragic time period I think of all the ways that our world remembers the Holocaust in today’s society. Through spreading the word, works of media and memorials across the world, I am continually reminded of the tragedy that occurred.
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
For many years, people time and time again denied the happenings of the Holocaust or partially understood what was happening. Even in today’s world, when one hears the word ‘Holocaust’, they immediately picture the Nazi’s persecution upon millions of innocent Jews, but this is not entirely correct. This is because Jews
The Jews were used as scapegoats by the Germans. They were treated terribly and lived in very poor conditions. Many of the Jewish children were put into homes,ther...
Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, after World War 1 when tensions were high because the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the destruction the war caused and they were faced with the payment for all the damages, which sent Germany into economic downfall. The Nazi party got a lot of electoral votes that year in the government, and started creating propaganda against the Jews; they blamed the Jews for the terrible things happening in Germany at the time. Some of the propaganda the Nazi party made were pictures of Jews pointing out what makes them Jewish and their distinctive traits, so you can spot them. These were on the front of newspapers printed everywhere in Germany. (An Introductory History of the Holocaust) They began to take away individual rights, and picked the Jews apart. They also put the Star of David on all Jews clothing, so they could easily be spotted in public.