The Holocaust: The Cause And Effects Of The Holocaust

A Holocaust is a disaster that results in the large-scale destruction of life. Although this name has been used to describe many catastrophes over centuries, today it has a more specific meaning. The Holocaust refers to the annihilation of 6 million Jews, men, women, and children, in addition to other groups of people by Hitler and the Nazi party during World War II. Such a destruction of a particular group or race is called genocide. (Resnick 9)

The Holocaust was very different from all other genocides in history. This was not a result of government issues, a power struggle between two groups, a holy crusade, or an attempt to defeat an enemy to win. Instead, the Jews were murdered simply because they were Jews. The Nazi group believed that the Jews were inferior to most other peoples and sought to literally wipe them from the face of the Earth. Many people saw this as wrong and unjust, but there was still other people like, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi leaders who still looked at the Jews as somehow less human. When the Nazis came into power in the 1930’s, they began to round up the Jews, and send them to concentration camps. The number of Jews that they gathered up was imaginable. The Jews were forced to do hard labor in the camps. Others soon died or were later to “death camps”, as they were called.

After the terrible causes of World War I, Germany was stuck in the ruins. They were still trying to rebuild and recover from the war. The Treaty of Versailles, along with the Great Depression severely affected Germany. The unemployment lines increased, and food was scarce. Money was a huge hassle too, the factories were all closed and the savings were completely wiped out. Due to all these economic is what made Hitler’s rise to p...

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...lation by Nazis and Hitler. The Jews were persecuted by Hitler and the Nazis before world war two. The Nazis believed that the Jews were an inferior race and did not want them "contaminating Aryan blood". When Germany invaded Poland, World War two began. During the war the Germans created the Warsaw ghetto. Jews were crammed into this and other ghettos. In ghettos there were too many people, and not enough food, space, or sanitation. The Germans also built concentration camps. In these camps people were worked to death or just gassed and killed. Many Jews resisted the Nazis. Some fought the Nazi’s; others refused to go to camps and ran away. Some Jews worked to preserve their traditions alive. Over 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. After the war survivors were put in Displaced Person camps. The Holocaust will go down as one of the most brutal genocides ever.