"The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed" - Stephen Ambrose
The Holocaust: A Turning Point in History
The Holocaust was a systematic, state-sponsored mass execution of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi party and their associates. The Nazi party came to power in Germany, 1933 when Adolf Hitler became chancellor. He began passing laws that rescinded the rights of Jews to be citizens. The Nazi party soon used their power to turn Germany into a dictatorship. By 1934, Adolf Hitler was in absolute control and his campaign against Jews was in full force. Adolf Hitler brainwashed astonishing amounts of people, claiming that German’s were the “racially superior” breed of humans and that Jews were inferior to them, and therefore threatened the perfect Aryan race. Although Jews were the main targets of the Holocaust, other “threats” were also alienated or killed, such as the disabled, homosexuals, and gypsies. Adolf Hitler was revoking all the rights that Jews once had. He threw Jewish families into ghettos, which consisted of disgusting and filthy living conditions. Although, many Jews attempted to flee from Europe, it was very difficult and many were unable to escape. The Jews were stuck, and were basically left for dead. Jews were eventually sent off to either a concentration camp or extermination camp. Concentration camps made Jews stay confined in a living space with harsh and brutal conditions. Concentration camps were all over Germany, one of the most popular being Auschwitz. There were 22 main concentration camps, along with thousands of other smaller camps. The Jews were put through hell in these camps and treated as if they were not human. Along with concentration camps, there were extermination camps, where the sole purpose was the systematic mass murdering of Jews and other inferior groups. Concentration camps were still terrible however because in them, people would suffer and die mistreatment, hunger, disease, and executions. Often, even the forced labor was so inhumane that many of the Jews were literally “worked to death.” A typical worker in a concentration camp would work at least 12 hours a day, and those who couldn’t work, due to age or weakness, were killed in gas chambers, shot, or forced to be subjects of awful experiments, which often ended in death. Life in concentration camps was absolute hell, though the deaths were not as frequent or abundant as they were in extermination camps. The execution and torture of Jews in the Holocaust lasted for twelve years, until the year 1945. Americans and other Allied Forces were advancing on the Germans in 1944, and were taking invading camps. The Allies slowly dissolved Hitler's power. In 1945, Hitler died and Auschwitz was liberated. Since Auschwitz was the biggest camp in Nazi territory with with the highest death toll, it was a huge milestone in the ending of the Holocaust. By the end of World War II there were about 50,00 to 100,000 survivors of the Holocaust living in Europe, and after a year of Hitler being removed the number of survivors rose to 200,000. The holocaust was important in history because it showed that certain actions were so terrible that they could not be ignored by the rest of the world. The world realized that there may be times in the future that require intervention in order to do the right thing.
Killing Centers
In order to make the “Final Solution” possible, the Nazis began creating killing centers in Poland. Poland was home to the largest Jewish population. The killing centers that they used were designed to kill mass numbers of people. One of the first killing centers for the Jewish opened up in December of 1941, called Chelmno. Jews were gassed in mobile gas vans. Gas chambers were constructed so that the killing efficiency was higher. These gas chambers were rooms that the Nazis filled with poisonous gas that the people trapped inside would inhale until it killed them. At Auschwitz, there were 4 gas chambers. When the amount of people arriving to the camp was high, those gas chambers would kill up to 6,000 Jews per day. An unimaginable amount of people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed at the numerous types of camps that the Nazis had. In killing centers alone, more than 3 million Jews were killed. Very few of the people imprisoned at the Nazi camps made it out alive.
6. Photo-“Jewish Virtual Library.” Web. 15 Feb
1997<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html>
7. Photo- The Holocaust Controversy.” Web. Aug 20, 2007. <http://vho.org/Intro/GB/Flyer.html>8. Graph-Chris Webb, Carmelo Lisciotto (2011). “ARC Website Contents”. Web. 27 December, 2011. < http://www.deathcamps.org/contents/>
8.Graph- Chris Webb, Carmelo Lisciotto (2011). “ARC Website Contents”. Web. 27 December, 2011. < http://www.deathcamps.org/contents/>
7. Photo- The Holocaust Controversy.” Web. Aug 20, 2007. <http://vho.org/Intro/GB/Flyer.html>8. Graph-Chris Webb, Carmelo Lisciotto (2011). “ARC Website Contents”. Web. 27 December, 2011. < http://www.deathcamps.org/contents/>
8.Graph- Chris Webb, Carmelo Lisciotto (2011). “ARC Website Contents”. Web. 27 December, 2011. < http://www.deathcamps.org/contents/>