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Research Paper

Holocaust

When the Holocaust started around 1933 with the rise of the Nazis and ended on May 8,

1945 with the end on World War 2. The Holocaust is the disastrous period in Germany when the

Nazis took over and about six million Jews died and around eleven million in all died through

out the entire holocaust. They included Jehovah witnesses, gypsies, people who had a mental or

physical problem, homosexuals, also just whoever Hitler or the Nazis didn’t like or who defied

them. The Nazi party was lead by Adolf Hitler. Hitler used several different tactics to fool the

Jewish people into going to the so-called work camps and into giving up there rights and

possessions.

At first the Jews resisted every once in a while According to survivor Sam Halpern who

wrote Like Sheep Why didn’t they Fight back. Sam said that probably the greatest uprising

against the Nazis was the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, At first when there was about half a million

Jewish people in the Ghetto, and they only started to fight back when almost the entire Ghetto

had been wiped out. There were a few thousand people left. This group included of many

different backgrounds including liberals, Bundists, Religionists, Atheists, and Jews of every

political and religious standings bound together. There leader was Mordechai Anielewicz, to help

them fight. They knew that they didn’t have any chance against the German army but if they

were going to get killed that they were going to take a few Germans with them. Most of the

reasons that the Jewish people didn’t fight back is the simple reason that every time one person

did try to run or escape they were simply shot, no hesitation, no dragging them back to punish

them, they were just shot. Being under the gun all the time made the Jews and the other races

that were persecuted during that time, scared and afraid to do any thing. With living with the
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constant fear of being killed by the heartless Nazi soldiers made them not want to resist in any

way.

Some of the other ways that they didn’t fight back is that with the help of the Nazi leaders

they tricked the Jews into giving up everything that they owned and there rights. Some of the

ways that the Nazi soldiers tricked the Jews into moving to these “work camps”, is by cutting of

there food supply to there Ghettos so that they practically starved to death in there own houses.

After they starved for a while the Nazis herded them around worse than cattle in small box cars

crammed full of people moving them to either small ghettos or depending on there age death

camps. So they were for the most part glad to go to the work camps, because of the Nazi troops

lied to them saying that if they work they are promised to have better living conditions and be set

free if they work. When they arrived to these “work camps”, there were these words on every set

of gates “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which means, “work will set you free”. Of course after they got in

there, they realized that they might be released, for that every now and them the troops would

call some workers back, and they had no idea were they were being taken, little did they know

that they were slowing being wiped out. For the majority of them there was no hope for survival.

Some of the main and most recognized “work camps” and extermination camps that they were

sent to include, Treblinka, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzek, Majdanek, and the most

recognized Auschwitz-Brikenau. According to the web site

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html. The first extermination camp that began the mass

killings was Auschwitz-Brikenau. This began in mid-September 1941. This camp had around

1,200,000 people exterminated; the main way the Nazis killed the prisoners was by using a gas

normally used in controlling rodents is Zyklon-B gas. Auschwitz had several different

nationalities that it killed including Jews, Poles, Romany, and Soviet POWs. The rest of the
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extermination camps included Chelmno which began December 7, 1941 and killed a total of

320,000 people were killed and there primary source of killings were using Gas vans and driving

them around to slowly kill them. Four other’s that began their mass killings in March, March 17,

also, July 23, and October in 1942. These camps used Carbon Monoxide gas and Zyklon-B gas

to kill them. These camps which included Belzek, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek. All

together had a total number of 2,930,000 people killed. The final extermination camp was the

smallest. It started June 1944. It had a number of 65,000 people killed and used Zyklon-B gas.

In the summer of 1943, an ill elderly German President, Paul von Hindenburg lay close to death

in his summer estate in East Prussia. His health had been failing for several months and Adolf

Hitler was patiently waiting for his chance to use Hindenburg’s death to take complete total

control of Germany. Making him Fuhrer, or the absolute leader of the German nation. On August

2, 1932, at 9:00a.m, the long awaited death of the German president who passed away at the age

of 87 had occurred. According to The History Place Holocaust timeline web site states that,

within days Hitler and Nazis troops began taking over and making every German soldier and

officers to swear a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler. Hindenburg’s will in-testament stated

that he desired to return to a constitutional (Hohenzollern) monarchy. This wish sealed in a letter

addressed to Hitler from Hindenburg. After Hitler received this letter, he simply ignored it and

immediately destroyed it and nobody was the wiser. As Hitler campaigned with the Nazi party to

become the actual Fuhrer of Germany he disregarded all that Hindenburg wanted, but lied to the

people by saying that Hindenburg was 100% for Hitler and all his ideas to basically to get 90%

of the votes to make him the absolute leader of Germany. On August 19, 1934 Hitler received

95% of all the votes to make him officially the Fuhrer of all Germany by direst vote from the

people. August 20, 1934 Hitler passed a law with three articles stating:
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Article 1. The public officials and the soldiers of the armed forces must take an oath of loyalty on

entering the service.

Article 2. 1. The oath of loyalty of public officials will be; I shall be loyal and obedient to Adolf

Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Respect the laws, and fulfill my official

duties conscientiously, so help me God.

2. The oath of loyalty of the soldiers of the armed forces will be:

I swear by God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer

of the German Reich and the people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be

ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at ant time for this oath.

Article 3. Officials already in service must swear this oath immediately according to Article 2

number 1.

These oaths were taken very seriously as an oath of honor as a sacred duty as a solder or

officer and pledged to Hitler personally, not to the German state or constitution. According to

www.historypalce.com/worldwar2/holocaust.

From the very beginning of Hitler’s reign and to the day of his death he wanted two

things done. His main goal was to forcibly gain “living space” for all German people. The

second goal he wanted some kind of reckoning with the Jews. Some of the steps that he took to

achieve his goals is that he broke the Treaty of Versailles and started to rapidly rebuild the

German Army. Also, Hitler made a deal with Britain to have a naval Fleet 35% the size of

Britain’s and a submarine fleet just as big. The rest of the other countries leaders became nervous
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and Hitler asked, “Doesn’t Germany have any right to defend itself like every other nation?” It

did not take Hitler to long to become power hungry and began to fulfill his second goal by

destroying Germanys “Problem People” which included Jews, poles, people with a mental or

physical disabilities, gypsies, and homosexuals. He began to slowly take away their rights them

forcing them to work camps and later on to extermination camps. This plan was called the Final

Solution. Nobody knows when exactly the Final Solution was completely in motion to

completely annihilate the Jewish people, rid Germany of all imperfect people, and free up some

“living space”. The way the people still followed Hitler is that her was extremely sly and could

look at you directly in the face and lie to you about how much he wanted peace but he was

actually building up to another horrific war. According to www.ushmm.org

Bibliography
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www.ushmm.org

www.historyplace.com/worldwar2

www.aish.com/holocaust/issues/Like_Sheep_Why_Didn’t_You_Fight.asp

http://Frank.mtsu.edu/-baustin.holocamp.html

"The Camps." The Camps. 4 Sept. 08 <http://frank.mtsu.edu>.

"Final Solution overview." Final Solution overview. 20 May 08. Ushmm. 9 Sept. 08 <http://www.ushmm.org>.

Halpern, Sam. "Like Sheep: Why didn't you Fight?" Holocaust Studies. 96. Like Sheep: Why didn't you fight? 03
Sept. 08 <http://www.aish.com/holocaust/issues>.

"Hitler become Fuhrer." Www.historyplace.com/worldwar2. 97. 4 Sept. 08.

"Hitler Reveals War Plans." The History place. 01. The Triumph of Hitler. 03 Sept. 08
<http://www.historyplacce.com/worldwar2>.