Holocaust

1. Holocaust Tasha & Emily

2. Introduction “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.”

3. The “Final Solution” The Nazis used cipher to evade the public finding out about their cold-blooded treatment against the Jews and other minority groups. “Final Solution” was the term used in reference to the massacre of the Jewish people that was occurring in concentration camps. There is no certain date in which the slaughter was decided upon. The genocide was the pinnacle of years of built up hatred and blame towards the Jewish people. When the Nazi party achieved power in 1933, they began to segregate and persecute Jews in phases. The Nazi government created anti-Jewish legislation, economic boycotts, and violence, including the “Night of Broken Glass”, where anti-Jewish groups broke hundreds of Jewish owned shop windows. It wasn’t until the beginning of World War 2, that they began creating concentration camps, where they were forced to live in unsanitary environments with insufficient nutrition. The first camp created was in the Generalgouvernement, a place in eastern and central Poland administered by Germans. “Approximately six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust -- two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II.”

4. Killing Centers Established by the Nazis, killing centers, also known as “extermination camps” or “death camps”, were used for proficient mass execution. Whereas concentration camps were used as detention and labor camps, killing centers were used solely for slaughter. Nearly 2,700,000 Jewish people were killed in these centers controlled by the German SS and police by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting. Most were sent directly to the gas chambers upon arrival with exception of small groups chosen to join work teams known as Sonderkommandos. “The largest killing center was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which by spring 1943 had four gas chambers (using Zyklon B poison gas) in operation. At the height of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.” The camps were considered clandestine by the SS. The Jewish work teams were in charge of clearing and disposing of the bodies in the gas chambers by incinerating them. Some killing centers had to be re landscaped to mask the execution of millions.

5. Soviet officials view stacked corpses of victims at the Klooga camp. Due to the rapid advance of Soviet forces, the Germans did not have time to burn the corpses. Klooga, Estonia, 1944. — BeitLohameiHaghettaot Jewish lawyers line up to apply for permission to appear before the Berlin courts. New regulations set forth in the Aryan Paragraph (a series of laws enacted in April 1933 to purge Jews from various spheres of state and society) allowed only 35 to appear before the court. Berlin, Germany, April 11, 1933. — Wide World Photo Jewish refugee boys at the Maison des Pupilles de la Nation children's home in Aspet. These children reached the home through the efforts of the Children's Aid Society (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants; OSE) and the American Friends Service Committee. Aspet, France, ca. 1942. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum A mass grave at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Mauthasuen, Austria, May 10-15, 1945. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum German Jewish refugees disembark in the port of Shanghai, one of the few places without visa requirements. Shanghai, China, 1940. — Leo Baeck Institute Two survivors at one of the human-ash pits in the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, located near Nordhausen. Germany, April-May 1945. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Pictures

7. Aryan Race

8. Rights Article The holocaust impugned each and every liberty within “The Declaration of Human Rights”. Articles 1 through 30 were denied in some shape or form.

9. The aftermath of the Holocaust The Anglo-American and soviet soldiers stormed the concentration camps to find heaps of bodies, bones and human ashes, proof of the horrors the Nazi’s had inflicted on the Jewish race. They also found thousands of survivors, suffering from malnutrition and disease. These survivors had the intimidating task of reconstructing a live after the terrors they had witnessed. The Jewish faced discrimination upon returning home after liberation. Many were without homes and relied on refugee centers. They had little hope of emigration so they migrated to Western Europe. Jewish agencies helped in finding displaced persons.

11. Bibliography