Research Paper Holocaust Overview

Jamie Beelow

Mr. Neuburger ENG Comp 102-118 9 May 2013

Beelow Throughout history the Holocaust has become known as the largest manslaughter to

plaque this planet. It involves the mass murder of 6 million Jewish people and thousands of nonJews, whom Nazis found different or inferior. With numerous factors leading up to this genocide, the Holocaust was inevitable. After World War I, Germanys economy was at an alltime low, people throughout the world shaped negative views regarding the German people, and in Germany a new form of democratic government took shape. Many German citizens prayed for someone to bring them back into the light. That man was Adolf Hitler. Nazi Rise to Power The end of World War I brought about a major turnaround for the German economy. The once flourishing country was now in debt, all due to the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Allied forces believed Germany was responsible for the outbreak and devised a treaty which dealt with territories, humility, limited military, and payment for the damages done during the war.
Adolf Hitler http://bit.ly/YJrY1e

According to the treaty, Germany was forced to bestow territories such as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to the Allies. The most humiliating of all the articles, presented in the treaty, was the War Guilt Clause. This particular article forced the Germans to admit they initiated the war, stimulating humility throughout Germany. The Allies also limited the powers of Germanys military stating their military was to be limited to 100,000 men, constricted Nazi vessels less than 100,000 tons, and forbade Germany to maintain an air force. Lastly, the Germans were liable for all damages done during the war, and they were imposed with colossal reparation payments. This angered German citizens because they believed the punishments to be

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unjust and felt as though their honor, and dignity, had been stripped away. The Germans pleaded for help, and in 1924 they received their first reply (USHMM). According to World War II diaries, Adolf Hitler was a World War I veteran and a proud German patriot. In 1923, Hitler attempted to overthrow the German government. While doing so, Hitler was imprisoned and viewed as a national hero (World War II Adolf Hitler). After Hitlers imprisonment, he came back into the spot light, promising to bring an end to the economic slump and bring forth a new era led by the Nazi political party. In 1932, the Nazis gained control of Reichstag, and Hitler named himself chancellor. On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg passes away, and Hitler announces his new Fuhrer Law to be voted into Germany. On August 19, Hitler receives majority vote and declares himself Fuhrer of Germany. With this new power, Hitler immediately begins to make adjustments to Germanys government, and begins the journey into the largest mass murder mankind has ever seen (USHMM). Nazis View on Jews- anti-Semitism According to USHMM the Aryan, superior, race consisted of those with blonde hair and blue eyes. In Mein Kampf, Hitler declares, The Aryan alone who founded a superior type of humanity; therefore he represents the archetype of what we understand by the term: man He is the Prometheus of mankind, from whos shining brow the divine spark of genius has all times flashed forth always kindling anew that fire (164). Before World War II, Jews were victims of three waves of Nazi anti- Semitism: 1933, 1935, and 1938.

Depiction of the ideal Aryan man. http://bit.ly/YsfB8r

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In March of 1933 the first wave of anti- Semitic laws were initiated to drive Jews from the public sphere. Then in 1935, the Nuremburg Laws, which limited Jewish rights, were set into action. Since the end of WW1, the Jews were to blame for the economic crisis in Germany. In Hitlers Mein Kampf, he explains The Jew has never been a nomad, but always a parasite, battening on the substance of others ( Hitler 172). Whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of the inferior race the result has been the downfall of people (162). If we divide man into 3 categories- founders of culture, bearers of culture, and destroyers of culture- the Aryan alone can be considered as representing the first category (164). All of which should have been warning signs of an up-coming mass destruction. Nuremburg Laws With Hitlers new power, he began to blame to Jews for every travesty which occurred to the German people. On September 15, 1935, the Nuremburg Laws were instituted. The laws stripped Jews of their natural rights, making them feel inhuman. According to Peter Longerich, author of Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews,
Nuremberg Laws http://bit.ly/119Zv3O

The aim (of these laws was to) address racial defilement, mixed marriages, economic discrimination, and the exclusion of Jews from German citizenship (Longerich 60). The laws which are the basic outline of the Nuremberg laws are the Law for the Protection of the Heredity Health of the German People and the Reich Citizenship Law. The Law for the Protection of the Heredity Health of the German People, states Jews were unable to marry, or have sexual relations, anyone who is of German blood. This was declared to enable the Germans to maintain pure, clean, blood status. The Reich Citizenship Law states, those only of Aryan race could be

Beelow citizens of the Reich; stripping Jews of their political rights (Nuremberg Laws, Yadvashem). According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the laws did not define a Jew as someone with particular religious beliefs, but rather anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents. The laws dismissed Jewish workers, Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat nonJews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law. Many Jews believed these laws

were the peak of the Nazis hatred; however, these laws are just the beginning of the torment the Jews endured (USHMM). Propaganda During WW1 propaganda was a major necessity for capturing the attention and support of the people. In Hitlers Mein Kampf, Hitler expresses the importance of the use of propaganda. Hitler states, Propaganda is a means and a must (it) must be organized in such a way as to be capable of attaining its objective (Hitler 106). As Germany struggles to escape a previous economic struggle, propaganda is as important as ever. During World War II, the Nazis main purpose of producing propaganda is to fuel the wartime effort. Hitler initiated his most faithful ally, Joseph Goebbels, as Germanys propaganda minister. Goebbels forced Jewish artists,
WW2 Nazi Propaganda http://bit.ly/15cOJAw

musicians, actors, directors, and newspaper editors into unemployment. His main job description is to make

Hitler look appealing and format anti- Semitism throughout Germany. He encouraged the use of propaganda films, and provoked filming of Ghettos, such as Warsaw, to stimulate Germans

Beelow views on the conditions of the Jewish population. In Hitlers Mein Kampf, Hitler suggests The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings. On May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany, and burned all anti German books. During the raid more than 25,000 books

were burned. Goebbels explains the massacre was a cleansing of the German spirit (USHMM). Kristallnacht When Hitler comes to power in 1932, he takes immediate action to make Jews the inferior race. On October 28, 1938, Germany expels 17,000 Polish Jews to Poland. However, Poland refuses to allow the Jewish in, and the Jews are trapped in nomans land. Among such people is seventeen year
Kristallnacht http://bit.ly/YZYQ8h

old Herschel Grynszpan and his family. On November 9, 1938, Herschel assassinates the 3rd secretary of Germany Embassy Ernst vom Rath in Paris. This ruptured an explosion in Germany and the Nazi party. On November 8, 1938, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, gathered Nazis to burn all Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. Goebbels announced immediate action was to take place against the Jews so nothing like this was to happen again. According to Yad Vashem, at the end of two days 250 synagogues, 7,000 Jewish Businesses, and 171 Jewish dwellings were destroyed. 30,000 Jews were arrested, especially the influential and wealthy, and approximately several hundred million Reichsmarks worth of damage was done. The Nazis decided to impose a fine of 1 billion Reichsmarks to the Jews under the understanding they would be paying for the murder of vom Rath. All Jewish owners were liable for their repairs and thousands of Jews were rounded up into ghettos, or taken

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to concentration camps. This uprising has come to be known as Kristallnacht, or night of broken glass. Rounding up Jews- Ghettos According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a ghetto is a city district (often enclosed) in which Germans concentrated the Jewish population and they were forced to live under miserable conditions. Around 1,000 ghettos were established in German populate annexed Poland; the
Warsaw Ghetto, May 1943 http://bit.ly/YZZVgy

first of which established in Piotrkow Trybunaslski, Poland in October 1939. USHMM states, ghettos were built as a means of segregating the Jewish population until the Nazis construct a plan on how to rid the world of the Jewish race. The Nazis established three main types of ghettos: closed, open, and destruction. Closed ghettos were built with large walls which restricted the Jews to the confinements of the ghetto. Open ghettos did not have walls, which restrained the people, but the Jews were still monitored. Destruction ghettos were the first form of concentration camps. They were built to be used for two to six weeks until the Jews were deported or killed. The largest ghetto was the Warsaw ghetto; it held 400,000 Jews in 1.3 square miles. In the documentary A Film Unfinished, the ghettos are visibly an unbearable situation. Numerous families were forced to live in close nit homes, disease, famine, and poverty flourished. The producers of the film tried to make the ghettos seem more appealing than they actually were by staging actors in homes and shotting scenes of elegant balls, and magnificent parties, as a means of propaganda. One survivor of the Warsaw ghetto stated, When did one see a flower? We would have eaten it. It was food. (A Film Unfinished). Many residents were afraid

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of what would happen to them, or their families, if they dared tried to resist the Nazis. However, Jews were promised, if they cooperated, they would be able to find jobs and food for their families. Little did they know, it was all a lie. The Death Camps After the final solution, Jews were taken from the previously established ghettos, herded into vans and railway cars, and taken to concentration camps. Here they were forced into labor, stripped of all their personal belongings, and separated from family. Those with able bodies were sent to labor until their death. Those unfit to work were sent directly to the gas chambers. The largest death camp in Nazi Germany was Auschwitz, which exterminated approximately 10,000 victims a day. After their death,
Entry way to Auschwitz http://bit.ly/Z00irk

bodies were looted of gold before they were thrown into

large mass graves. Over time, bodies were cremated in an abyss of fire known as the crematorium. The crematorium was devised for an easier way to dispose of the bodies. The stench of burning bodies could be smelled from miles away. The screams and shrieks of family members calling out to one another echoed off the walls. In a number of camps, medical experiments were carried out, and German physicians operated with no limits. One survivor Eva Moses Kor, recalls her family being separated by the Nazis and taken to Auschwitz. Eva was 6 years old when the Nazis came into her home town and forced her family into the camps. She recalls being cattled off the train and being separated from her parents and sisters; she never saw them again. Eva and her twin sister Miriam were sent into medical rooms where they were used as guinea pigs in genetic experiments performed by Dr. Josef Mengele. She recalls the horrors of

Beelow the camps by recollecting the times where she was tortured and starved. However, she soon learned that in order to survive, one must first learn to be brave and cooperative. Wannsee Conference- The Final Solution The Wannsee conference was held on January 20, 1942 in Berlin Germany. According to Peter Longerich, author of the book Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, the Final solution is the beat around the bush way of saying, were going to alienate the Jews, or simply stating it will be the mass destruction of Jewish people. In Goebbels diaries, Goebbels recollects Hitlers prophecy regarding the Jews, as regards the Jewish question, the Fuhrer is resolved to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that if they were to bring about another world war, they would bring about their own destruction as a result. The world war is here, the destruction of the Jews must be the necessary consequence. (Longerich 307) The conference was preceded over by SS-Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich made the following remarks about the Final Solution, as part of the development of the final solution the Jews are now to be out to work in a suitable manner under the appropriate leadership. Organized into large work gangs and segregated according to sex, those fit for work will be led into these areas as road-builders, in the course of which, no doubt, a large number will be lost by natural wastage (The Wannsee Conference: holocaust history.com). With the Final Solution settled, Nazi leaders took immediate actions to exterminate the Jewish population, and came up with new ways of killing.
SS-Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich http://bit.ly/XEeFk8

Beelow Extermination Methods After the Final solution, 11 million Jews were taken to extermination, concentration

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camps. To transport the large Jewish population to such camps, the Nazis packed Jews on trains in both freight and passenger cars. While on the voyage, Jews were given very little food or water. Suffering from overcrowding, Jews endured extreme changes in temperatures, and the repulsive stench of urine. Many passengers died even before they reached their
Crematory http://bit.ly/13gcIuY

destination due to disease and starvation. Between

December 1941 and July 1942, the Nazis established five killing centers in German occupied Poland: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz- Birkenau (USHMM). In these concentration camps the most common method of mass murder is the use of gas chambers. Men and women were separated from one another, and before Jews were put to their death the Nazis shaved all of the Jews hair off, stripping women of their womanhood and dignity. Jews, stripped naked and hairless, were horded into the chambers which were disguised as showers. The Nazis closed the doors and exhausted gas, Zyclon A or B, onto the Jews. Gassing trucks, using the same method of killing, were used when Jews were being transported to new locations. Another example of extermination methods used by the Nazis is the mass shootings of Jewish men and women. According to Project Alladdin, on November 3-4, 1943, between 17,000 and 18,000 Jews were killed in a mass shooting in the Majdenek concentration camp. This event became to be known as Erntefest or harvest feast.

Beelow Liberation

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According to BBC, as the allied forces moved towards German concentration camps, the Nazis tried to transport the Jews away from the camps into new, already overcrowded, camps. These movements later became known as death marches, due to the substantial amount of deaths which occurred. American army units were the first to discover such overcrowded camps, and were soon followed by the
Liberated Jews http://bit.ly/ZB3WDM

British and Soviet forces. Soviet forces moved rapidly

into Nazi Germany, surprising the Germans whom quickly began to find hasty ways of disposing the bodies from the camps. In January 1945, Soviets liberated the largest death camp from the war, Auschwitz. When Soviets examined remains left in the camps, they found Jewish personal possessions, clothing, and more than 14,000 lobs of hair (USHMM). United States forces liberated camps found primarily in central Germany, while the British liberated camps in Northern Germany. When the liberators made their way into the camps, they came across sheer pictures of horror. Sickly, skin and bone, men and women greeted the soldiers at the gates. Mounds of dead bodies had been disposed in haste. Survivors sat in their own filth, some were to sickly to respond to the Alliesvand stared blankly into space with heir tired bulging eyes. Troops recalled the combination of the sickly sweet stench of rotten human flesh. The first task of the liberators was to take care of the sickly and tackle the medical nightmare which unfolded. After all attempts to cure the sickly, 13,000 Belsen inmates died after their liberation. Many inmates had starved for too long. They lost the ability to digest and died moments after receiving their first bite. No matter what negative aspects liberation brought, it does have one major, and crucial, positive. The Jews were finally free from the horror they had endured for the past 10

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years. Many of those who were liberated wanted to go home, but soon found there was nothing left. The Holocaust will forever go down in history as the single greatest massacre in the world. The Holocaust should be taught in schools around the world, in order to prevent another disaster, such as this, to occur again. Adolf Hitler was a brilliant politician who knew how to work a crowd; he knew how to manipulate the people into believe what he was preaching. What if someone, such as Hitler, were to emerge again? Would we as the human race be ready to stand up against him? Only time will tell, but mankind has grown, and has witnessed more than imaginable, so nothing to this extent could ever occur again.

Beelow Works Cited A Film Unfinished. Dir. Yael Hersonski. Oscilloscope,, 2010. DVD.

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Hart, Dr Stephen A. "Liberation of the Concentration Camps." BBC News. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. Hitler, Adolf, and James Vincent Murphy. Mein Kampf. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1981. Print. "Holocaust | Concentration Camps." Holocaust | Concentration Camps. N.p., 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students." Hitler Comes to Power. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "Holocaust History." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. Holocaust. Perf. Edith Coliver. Shoah Foundation Institute, 1999. Youtube.com. "It Came From Within... Exhibition Marking the Events of Kristallnacht." It Came From Within... Exhibition Marking the Events of Kristallnacht. N.p., 2013. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "Joseph Goebbels." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. Longerich, Peter. Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. "Nuremberg Laws." Yad Vashem. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "Survivors." CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center - Biography of Eva Kor Survivors. Candles Holocaust Museum, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.

Beelow "Wannsee Conference." Wannsee Conference. N.p., 4 Feb. 2004. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "What Are the Concentration Camps?" What Are the Concentration Camps? N.p., 2008. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. "World War 2 Adolf Hitler." World War 2 Diaries. N.p., 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2013.

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