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The Holocaust
Constance Leavitt
College English
Many people ask how could a thing like the Holocaust happen to the world and
what kind of person could do this to so many innocent people. The word Holocaust
means “sacrifice by fire.” (historyplace.com) Upon the death of German president Paul
von Hindenburg in August 2, 1934, Hitler assumed the powers of the presidency. The
army swore an oath of personal loyalty to him. Hitler's dictatorship rested on his position
as Reich President (head of state), Reich Chancellor (head of government), and Fuehrer
(head of the Nazi party). According to the "Fuehrer principle," Hitler stood outside the
legal state and determined matters of policy himself. (page 1-3) Germany power in during
this time thought they were racially superior and Jewish people threatened their
community. (ushmm.org) Jews at this time is viewed as parasitic vermin only good
enough for eradication. After the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor on January
30, 1933, the Nazi state (also referred to as the Third Reich) quickly became a regime in
The Nazi seized control over the culture, economy, education, and law.
(ushmm.org) They wanted to gain power over religious beliefs and the Catholic and
Protestant churches gave them their support. Extensive propaganda is used to spread the
With Hitler having total power to do anything he wanted he began a mass killing
spree known as the Holocaust. (ushmm.org) He started it by first killing disabled people.
The term "euthanasia" meaning "good death" usually refers to the inducement of a
painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual. Robert Wagemann a German
native was born with a bad hip from delivery. He recalls going to a “clinic” for a
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physical. While at the clinic his mother overheard the doctors talking about putting
Robert to “sleep”. The doctors went to lunch and during this time Robert’s mother
grabbed him, fleeing from fear that her son was about to be killed. Many people thought
that they were to undergo a physical and then a disinfecting shower. Little did they know
that poisonous gas was released in the showers to kill them. These clinics killed around
Many people think that the Holocaust was just Jews being murdered.
(ushmm.org)But other groups of races were attacked too. Roma Gypsies, homosexuals,
African Americans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Slavic people were also considered inferior
to the Aryan race. These groups of people had to wear certain symbols identifying what
they were. Jews had to wear yellow Star of David on the sleeves of their clothes. These
groups of people were sent to live in ghettos which were enclosed areas where they lived
in miserable conditions. They were simply separated from the non-Jewish community.
There were at least 1,000 ghettos in Eastern Europe at this time. Nazis used the ghettos as
a way to realize their goals to control the Jewish population. (page 7-11)
Some non-Jewish families tried to hide Jewish families from being caught by the
Nazis. ( history1900s.about.com) The most famous story about this is the story of the
Frank family. It was a typical family with a father, a mother, and two daughters. They
were Jewish so they hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Anne, their youngest daughter,
kept a diary during her two years of hiding out. It gave us a real insight on how someone
would feel during this time. It had all her daily experiences. They were caught after two
years of hiding and sent to camps where they would all die except for the father, Otto.
With the decision at the Wannsee in 1942 to implement “The Final Solution” the
Nazis started to destroy the ghettos and send the Jews to “work camps”, also known as
killing camps. (ushmm.org) When they got to the camp they got a number which was
tattooed on their forearm. The first killing center was Chelmno; it was located in
Warthegau, Poland. In the beginning they were gassed in mobile vans. Nazis opened the
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killing centers. They are also known as Operation
Reinhard. People were separated into two groups. One where they immediately got killed
and the other where they got to live. Almost all of the deportees who arrived at the camps
got sent immediately to death in the gas chambers. Only a few exceptions of very small
numbers of people chosen for special work teams known as Sonderkommandos. The
largest killing center, Auschwitz, had four gas chambers. In one day Nazi troops could
kill up to 12,000 Jews a day. They used Zyklon B poison gas to kill them. (page 11-15)
As World War Two ended, Death Marches also helped Nazis kill Jews; the Nazis
evacuated the camps for a reason. (ushmm.org) There are three major reasons why they
evacuated; SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands alive to tell
their stories to Allied and Soviet liberators, the SS thought they needed prisoners to
irrationally that they could use Jewish concentration camp prisoners as hostages to
bargain for a separate peace in the west that would guarantee the survival of the Nazi
regime. Gestapo’s had strict orders which said if one could not walk anymore they had to
be shot. The Death March term is considered to be coined by the people who walked it.
(page 11-16)
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In the end six million Jews died and five million of the other groups died.
(ushmm.org) All together there were eleven million innocent people murdered by the
Nazis. (page 20-22) This could have occurred because people in those countries believed
every word Hitler said and they were afraid for their own life. The people killed during
Works Cited
Gavin, Philip. "The Rise of Adolf Hitler." The History Place. 16 Feb. 1996. Sept. & Oct.
2008 <http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/runs.htm>.
Gilbert, Martin. "The Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 11 Mar.
<http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143>.