Sei sulla pagina 1di 7

WORLD WAR II:

THE HOLOCAUST




By Lillian Wood
HIS 102-860























Our world today has been shaped by many historical events, many of which had both
negative and positive aspects, making them arguably necessary or helpful towards the
advancement of society. One world event which had so many negative aspects and affects that it
is nearly impossible to find some sort of positive view of its events is the Holocaust. Happening
during World War II, the Holocaust was one of the worst and largest genocides of the twentieth
century. The Holocaust involved the mass murdering of Jewish people living throughout Europe
and in some countries beyond its borders, using unusually cruel methods which did not just kill
people, but first tortured and emaciated them prior to their exterminations.
World War II has been marked as a war caused by Germany, where the Holocaust began
during that same time. The war began in September 1939, when Germany occupied most of
Poland, making their rough conditions much worse. Germans forced out Jewish people living in
Poland, moving them out of their homes and leaving them with few and inadequate options like
living in ghettos. There, Polish Jews lived in areas kept in almost prison-like conditions, finished
off with high walls and barbed wire, making escape very difficult. Being in such a condensed
area with a large number of people who were also pulled from their homes and brought into the
unfit conditions meant rapidly declining health would soon take over for most, including diseases
which easily spread in such tight quarters. Beyond health issues, there also was hunger, loss of
employment and money. However, before Poland was targeted for their Jewish population,
Germany was first cleansed by means of the Nazis. Beginning in 1933, a six-year process
began which eliminated as many Jewish people as possible from Germany and surrounding
European countries.
1

The Jewish population of Europe around 1933 was as high as 9 million Jewish people.
Hitlers plans during World War II were to exterminate and eliminate all Jewish people from

1
"The Holocaust," History, accessed April 16, 2014, http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust.
Europe in order to promote his ideas of a pure race or master race which is known as Aryan.
The Aryan race would be all blonde-haired and blue-eyed with Caucasian skin. This race would
not have homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovahs Witness members, or anyone with any mental illness
or disorder. These characteristics aside, his Aryan race would presumably be void of any Jewish
persons. The plans made by Hitler and carried out by his Third Reich would first work to
eliminate anyone Jewish, and later continue to focus on exterminating others with characteristics
unwanted by Hitler and his party.
23

In order to carry out these inhumane and torturous plans, it was necessary for Hitler to
ensure that he would have solid support from his party and the members of it. This involved
convincing everyone who would assist Hitler that Jewish people were the problem Germany
faced and that they were responsible for the start of World War II. Hitler chose to use Jewish
people as an easy scapegoat. Through convincing speeches and passionate arguments, Hitler
managed to convince much of Germany, or at least the population which was not Jewish, that
Jews needed to be forcibly removed from society and separated from the rest of Germany and
Europe in order to promote his ideal Aryan race.
4

The way in which Hitler introduced and implemented his ideas was under a plan
commonly known as the Final Solution. The Final Solution did much more than had been
done up until that point to the Jewish population living in Europe. At first, Hitlers plans
involved shutting down any businesses or shops which were owned by a Jewish person or
family, which in turn made that business fail and that family quickly would lose profit, making it
very difficult to feed ones family or support themselves in the usual ways. Another way in

2
"The Holocaust," United States History, accessed April 15, 2014, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1677.html.
3
James E. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), [Page
15].
4
"The Holocaust," History
which Hitler had first started to restrict Jewish rights was to set in place a curfew, not allowing
Jewish people to leave their homes during certain times of the day. With the curfew in place,
families could not go outside to get things from the store, but likely their usual store had been
shut down due to being managed by a Jewish person. The curfew ensured that Jewish employees
would have a much more difficult time going to work and may not be able to go to work at all,
bringing what was possibly an already very low income to nothing at all. This meant that those
families would quickly become unemployed, eliminating Jewish employees from many
workforces. Also, curfews made it difficult for children of Jewish families to attend school, if at
all. Furthermore, being of Jewish decent made one a second-class citizen in Germanys Third
Reich, meaning that they were excluded in a sense from citizenship. This also meant that these
Jewish Germans were not able to marry during this time period and were also not allowed to
have any type of sexual relations with a person of German citizenship, which may have been a
persons husband or wife.
5

Beyond the difficult living conditions which were introduced during the 1930s to Jewish
people in Europe, but specifically in Germany, the Final Solution was much more than
troublesome or cruel living conditions. The Final Solution was aimed at completely
eliminating anyone with Jewish blood from living anywhere in Europe. After all of the social
separation and extreme exclusion from anything social, Jewish people were later forced to wear a
yellow Star of David with the word Jude on it at all times on their clothing, so that they could
be easily identified as a Jewish person and also be treated as the Third Reich had established any
Jewish person should be treated. Many of the Jews in Poland during 1939 were placed into
Ghettos with extremely poor living conditions. After three more years of ghettos being
established in various places throughout Europe which were being occupied by Nazis, Hitler

5
"The Holocaust," United States History.
decided that his Final Solution needed to establish concentration camps. These camps would
effectively remove almost all Jewish people, aside from the very few who managed to escape
and take up refuge in nearby countries, and place them in a few locations. These locations were
all heavily guarded by Germans of the Third Reich who had weapons which were visible, along
with much more severe weapons which were not immediately seen.
6

Hitlers extermination process involved driving large amounts of Jewish people to these
concentration camps in quarters not nearly fit for living. The amount of people in one spot made
health issues extremely worse, including barracks with no windows or bathrooms. When Jews
were first introduced to a camp, they were stripped of all clothing, shoes, and personal
belongings. Often, families were separated and sometimes a mother or child would have to watch
a family member be shot in the head. One unusual exception to this was for twins. It was
common for any set of twins to be taken aside so that they could be studied, but also tested in in
cruel and severe ways. These tests could be daily and highly painful. Jewish people in
concentration camps were given tattoos with an identification number, and so were the twins
who were kept separately for testing. The twins would receive a special number so that when
identified, a German would understand that that person was a twin and what to do with them.
The testing done on twins included daily blood drawings, measurements of bodies taken, painful
solutions put into eyes which often caused blindness, injections causing pain, surgeries ranging
from castration to organ removal, and even lethal injections directly into the heart.
7

The worst of these torturous and cruel methods were the gas chambers. These were not
identified right away because of their design which disguised their real purpose. After being
cramped in very tight spaces with massive amounts of strangers who may have been carrying

6
"The Holocaust," United States History.
7
Jennifer Rosenberg, "Megele's Children: The Twins of Auschwitz," About, accessed April 16, 2014,
http://history1900s.about.com/od/auschwitz/a/mengeletwins.htm.
diseases and were also starved, dirty, and ill, the idea of a shower may have seemed extremely
welcoming. However, the showers used at these camps were actually gas chambers. These
chambers were used to quickly murder a massive amount of people in one spot at one time where
escape was near impossible and death was inevitable. After the naked, emaciated people were
crammed into a shower, they were quickly hit with gases which would kill them within minutes.
After being gassed, the dead bodies were then cremated in masses and turned into ashes. It is
concluded that as many as two out of three Jews at that time who had been living in Europe were
exterminated in Hitler and his Third Reichs Final Solution.
8

This drastic extermination of Jewish people in Germany has greatly shaped our history
today. It serves us as a reminder of what a person is capable of when they are in control and
power of a massive amount of people. Many Germans did not predict that the initial phases of
Hitlers rule would have resulted in the massive murdering of almost six million Jewish people
and others who were deemed unfit by the standards of Hitler. Those who survived and were
lost during the Holocaust faced unfathomable torture and pain, and serve as a warning to
everyone today that power in the wrong hands can easily spiral into massive destruction in our
modern world.








8
"The Holocaust," United States History.
Bibliography
A&E Television Networks. "The Holocaust." History. Accessed April 16, 2014.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust.

Online Highways. "The Holocaust." United States History. Accessed April 15, 2014.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1677.html.

Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Megele's Children: The Twins of Auschwitz." About. Accessed April 16,
2014. http://history1900s.about.com/od/auschwitz/a/mengeletwins.htm.

Young, James E. Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1988.

Potrebbero piacerti anche