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The Holocaust is the name given to the systematic murders of Jewish civilians during World War II by German Nazis. By the end of the war, 6 million European Jews had been murdered. This was all part of Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" to what he considered the world's race problem.
Jews were not the only ones targeted, however. Thousands of handicapped people, gypsies, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses were also murdered. But all of these paled in comparison to the millions of Russians slaughtered just because they happened to be living in a Communist country.
The first murders in the Holocaust were carried out by German units called Einsatzgruppen. Often one soldier would be paired with one Jew, and trained to kill with one shot.
Later, mass graves were dug and victims were marched in and shot. When the grave was full, it was covered over with dirt.
Machine guns made killing even quicker, but not as quick as the technology that would come later.
It soon became clear to the Nazis that a more rapid means of exterminating the Jews was needed. A system of camps was developed. There were three basic types: *Concentration Camps: where Jews were held before deportation *Work Camps: where able-bodied Jews were held and used for manual labor. *Death Camps: where less able Jews were mass-murdered using poisonous cyanide gas.
The first step was identification using official family records, generally back to grandparents. Those of Jewish descent were forced to wear a Star of David sewn on their clothing at all times.
Jews were then marched from the ghettoes where they were forced to live, and taken by train to concentration camps where those capable of grueling manual labor would be separated out.
Those who were too old or too sick to work were taken to death camps and immediately murdered.
Those young and healthy enough for work were held in awful conditions, starved, beaten, denied medical care. Anyone who resisted or who could not carry on was murdered.
The most famous of the death camps were Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. These were only three of many spread across Europe.
Nazis in death camps made efficient use of the technology of death. Victims were forced to undress and herded into isolated buildings. Once inside the doors were locked and cyanide gas pumped in. Within seconds, hundreds of people could be killed.
Dachau Auschwitz
The bodies would then be disposed of. At first, mass unmarked graves were used, but to save time and money, the Nazis started burning the bodies, first in piles on the open ground, then in massive ovens. The ashes of those people burned were used to fertilize area gardens.
Though the number is sometimes disputed, it is generally agreed that around 6 million European Jews were murdered during World War II by German Nazis.
Possibly most horrific, though, were the terrible experiments performed by Nazis on Jewish prisoners. Just a few of these atrocities were: *Limbs were removed and exchanged, both on the individual and between different prisoners. *Men were exposed to heavy air pressure, then zero air pressure , to determine how much a human could take before dying. *Men were placed tanks of sub-freezing water until they died, then revived again and again to test methods of CPR. *Wounds were cut into the flesh of victims, and filled with bacteria, shards of metal, and glass. *The Nazis, due to perverted genetics theories, seemed to love experimenting on unborn fetuses and twins of all ages.
