The Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis through an officially sanctioned, government-ordered, systematic plan of mass annihilation. As many as six million Jews died, almost two-thirds of the Jews of Europe. Although the Holocaust took place during World War II, the war was not the cause of the Holocaust. The war played a role in covering up the genocide of the Jewish people. How could this have happened? The answers can be found by understanding how violence of this magnitude can evolve out of prejudice based on ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding about minority groups and other

groups who are different from ourselves.

In 19th century Europe, Jews were classified as an "inferior" race with specific physical and personality characteristics. Some thinkers believed these traits would disappear if Jews received political and social emancipation and could assimilate into the broader society. Others felt that these traits were genetically passed on and could not be changed. An increasing emphasis on nationalism also highlighted the Jews as a "foreign element," which could contaminate the native stock and culture and potentially dominate the native population economically and politically. This long-standing history provided a seed-bed for the Nazi ideology and program of genocide.

Adolf Hitler, a charismatic, Austrian-born demagogue, rose to power in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s at a time of social, political, and economic upheaval. Failing to take power by force in 1923, he eventually won power by democratic means. Once in power, he eliminated all opposition and launched an ambitious program of world domination and elimination of the Jews, paralleling ideas he advanced in his book..

The Nazis, under cover of the war, developed the technology, bureaucracy, and psychology of hate to efficiently murder millions of Jews. The details of the "Final Solution" were worked out at the Wannsee Conference. All Jews in Germany and the occupied countries were deported to sealed ghettos as a holding area. Many were then shipped in cattle cars to labor camps where they lived under brutally inhuman conditions. Hundreds of thousands were sent directly to the gas chambers in death camps. As the Allies advanced on the camps, death marches further depleted the ranks of potential camp survivors.

On October 23, 19...

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machine were subjected to many of the same persecutions as the Jews: restrictive, discriminatory laws, isolation and internment, and mass executions at their camp sites, in labor camps and death camps.

Polish Christians Of the six million Poles murdered by the Nazis, half were Polish Christians. Among the dead were more than 2,600 Catholic priests.

Other Victims of Nazi Genocide The Germans rounded up thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals and sent them to the death camps for extermination. Homosexuals were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothing paralleling the yellow Star of David for Jews.

Much of Europe was destroyed in the war. Survivors of the camps were in terrible condition, both physically and psychologically. Trials were held in Nuremberg in 1945 at which top surviving Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes. Similar trials followed, but thousands of war criminals eluded justice, and some even remain at large today. The State of Israel opened its doors to all Jews and is a positive legacy of the Holocaust. Neo-Nazi groups today continue to spout hatred for Jews and other minorities, and insist that the Holocaust never occurred.