The Holocaust Essay Example for Free

The Holocaust Essay The pain and conditions experienced by the victims is unimaginable by any standards. (spicenter. org) In the early 1930’s, Eastern Europe was on the verge of power, and in a small western European country called Germany, trouble was occurring. In 1933, Europeans had no worries beyond their daily struggle to earn money, put food on their familys table, and clothes on their childrens backs. This would all change in a matter of months. Whatever type of life a person had built for themselves, it was all to come to a crashing down, if they did not conform to Hitler’s specifications. www. ushmm. org) On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. In March 1933, with the building of the Dachau concentration camp, (thinkquest. org) Adolf Hitlers rising became one of the most destructive leaderships in recorded human existence. After his inception as ruler of Germany, Adolf Hitler had one thing on his mind, a pure Aryan race with complete world domination. Jews were subjected to humiliation through the Anti-Jewish Laws. (theholocaustexplained. rg) The seven most established laws in Germany were: Jews were forced from jobs in civil service and history, Jews were barred from most other professions, Jews were excluded from schools and universities, Jews were forced to carry cards identifying themselves as Jews, Jews were forced to have a J stamped on their passports, Jews were excluded from dining and sleeping cars on German trains, and Jews were barred from public areas such as parks, sporting arenas, and baths. (theholocaustexplained. org) Hit ler’s goal was to eliminate all of the things he did not desire for Europe. worldpress. com) This included: Jews, mentally and physically ill, non supporters of Nazism, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else who did not fit the mandatory code. (www. ushmm. org) He wanted to create a â€Å"superior race† called the Aryan Nation. To accomplish his mission he had concentration camps created. (library. thinkquest. org) The most significant sign of the troubles looming ahead was the â€Å"Kristallnacht-night of the broken glass. † On November 9, 1938, Nazis attacked Jewish communities; destroying, and burning over 1000 synagogues. (theholocaustexplained. rg) Over 700 businesses were wrecked, as were hospitals, schools, cemeteries, and homes. From Poland, Czechoslovakia, eastern European provinces, and of course Germany, a great migration was going to begin. (worldpress. com)Nazis transported victims to concentration camps by means of railroad, which was the cheapest a nd easiest method. The trip was horrible. People were packed in as tightly as possible. In the summer, the cars became sweaty, smelling, and seriously hot. Many died of heat stroke. On the other hand, winter was even worse. When the temperatures decreased, these cars were sent place to place without heat. Death from hypothermia and starvation was common. (spicenter. org) Camps were set up for various purposes. These included labor, medical experiments, and death. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps. (Saucher) At the beginning of camp, prisoners usually had marks on their clothes or numbers on their arms to identify them. Things such as: jewelry, clothes, shoes, gold fillings, eyeglasses, shawls, baby bottles, and anything with value was taken and sold. (Saucher) They were then put into the inhumane conditions of the camps. Many times families would be split up. Women and men were separated, and grouped according to age. (library. thinkquest. org) There was only one bathroom for hundreds of people. At some camps these were long wooden boards with round holes. While they are in the bathroom, they would be watched by the soldiers to make sure they would not stay in too long. (Saucher) There was no toilet paper, so the prisoners used the linings of jackets. If they did not have one, they often stole one from someone else. Sleeping conditions were equally bad. The beds of the prisoners were usually wooden boards. The diet of the prisoners was poor. (thinkquest. rg) A standard daily meal would consist of watery soup and a piece of bread. Occasionally, an extra allowance was permitted and prisoners received a piece of cheese, some margarine, or some watered jam. (thinkquest. org) The prisoners had to stand for hours in snow, rain, heat, or cold for role-call, which occurred twice a day. Within the first few days of being at a camp many people woul d die of hunger, disease, or a beating. (thinkquest. org) The main disease was typhus, which was carried by flies. When infected by disease, prisoners were still required to work. They did not see that sickness necessarily meant death. spicenter. org) If the prisoners did not obey the guards every order then they would be beaten, put in solitary confinement or shot. It was extremely hard for prisoners to escape these camps. If caught, a prisoner was either shot or beaten severely. (Saucher) Many times, when someone escaped from a camp, all of the prisoners in that group would be shot. (Dinnerstein) If a person was caught planning a rebellion or escape, and the prisoner refused to give the names of the other associates, the Nazis would bring everyone from his or her barracks and force him or her to watch to mutilation of the others. Dinnerstein) When a prisoner died, the remains were usually thrown on the side of the street. Later, most of the bodies were burned. (library. thinkquest . org) There was often a severe lack of food. This was overcome by the cooks, who sometimes used the dead bodies as food for the prisoners. (thinkquest. org) Many of the activities practiced by the Nazi soldiers were horrifying. (thinkquest. org) Prisoners were fed to bears in private zoos. Husbands were forced to have sex with others men’s wives in front of their children. Women were forced to have sexual relations with animals. thinkquest. org)Jewish babies were launched into the air and fasten together by bayonets in front of their mothers. Soldiers practiced their gunmanship by shooting the Jews finger tips and noses. Prisoners were put through terrifying experiments without their consent. The first tests performed were sterilization tests. (A,2) Three methods were tried, including sterilization by medication, sterilization by x-rays, and sterilization by injection. Next came saltwater tests. Prisoners were forced to drink saltwater until they went insane. They were performed in order to find a way for downed pilots and sailors to drink the surrounding sea water. The third set of tests were high altitude tests. (A,4) Test subjects were put in low pressure chambers and then the oxygen was slowly removed. After the subject died, the Nazis put the body under water and did an autopsy to find out how much oxygen was left in the brain cavity. (B,2) Another set of tests were performed to find information on hypothermia. The Nazis took subjects and put flight suits on them. After being properly adjusted, the men were put in 36 degree Fahrenheit water. Then they would be able to find a way to save pilots stranded in the North and Baltic Seas. (thinkquest. org) Before they could be revived, many of the men died of severe brain excessive bleeding. The Nazis used quite a few methods of extermination, but the most common were gassing, burning, shooting, beating, and inhumane testing. (spicenter. org) Gassing was the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way of destruction. Jews were put in chambers disguised as showers and then gas was let in. They were all sent to the showers, naked with a bar of soap, so as to deceive them into believing that they were truly going into a shower. B,1) Most people smelled the burning bodies and knew the truth. To most people the Holocaust represents an extremely harmful event, and perhaps the cruelest crime in history. (thinkquest. org) What many fail to consider is the pain and misery these prisoners endured throughout these unfortunate times. The truth is that all prisoners were treated wrongly; from the time that they were captured and separated from their family, until the moment they were forced into death. Concentration camps were camps that the Jewish, Gypsies, or other people were forced to go to, to be tortured or forced to do work. Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi Soldiers did not like those kinds of people so they decided to put them in camps, called Concentration camps. They put them in these camps mostly because of their looks and their religion. By 1942, Germans had built 6 death camps. Some death camps were located in Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and T. II. Some other concentration camps were Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Treblinka, and Theresienstadt. These camps were work camps not killing camps. The worst death camp was Auschwitz. (thinkquest. org) It was the largest concentration camp. Auschwitz was located in Poland. It was made up of 3 concentration camps in one. About 1 ? million people were killed at Auschwitz during World War II. (C,2) The second camp was Bergen-Belsen. It was built in 1943 as a prison camp. It was meant for 10,000 people, but it held 41,000. (thinkquest. org) There were no gas chambers but 37,000 prisoners died from either diseases or just being overworked. Anne Frank, one of the most famous victims died there. The third camp was Dachau. This was the first concentration camp built in 1933. This camp was meant to perform experiments on prisoners but it wasn’t meant for a killing camp. It was still known as one of the harshest camps because of its horrible living conditions and experiments. (thinkquest. org) The fourth camp was Sachsenhausen. This camp was built in 1936. It was apart of three camps, including Buchenwald and Dachau. (thinkquest. org) Early prisoners were 10,000 Jews from Berlin and Hamburg. 200. 000 people were in the camp. 100,000 ended up dying from diseases, exhaustion, or over working. (C,3) The fifth camp was Theresienstadt. 33,500 people died from the crowding in the ghetto. 88,000 Jews were sent to killing camps. (thinkquest. org) The sixth camp was Treblinka and T. II. In 1941 it opened to be a slavery camp. Close by another camp called T. II opened in 1942. That camp was meant to be a killing camp. (thinkquest. org) In Treblinka, there were bath houses which were used to kill people by a poisonous gas called carbon monoxide. About 700,000 to 900,000 were killed. (thinkquest. org) In 1943, a group of prisoners tried to escape but some were killed or recaptured. T. II camp was closed in October of 1943. (thinkquest. org) Treblinka was closed in July of 1944. In 1945, the war ended. Many died due to the harsh conditions of the camps. (thinkquest. org) Very few survived. If you survived you were very lucky! (C,4) There is a lot of information about the Holocaust. Some propagandists use partial knowledge to suggest that it didnt happen and they have their own statistics to make their audience believe so. Some people feel guilty. It was a very dark time and lots of lives were lost. (library. thinkquest. org) Others would like to escape from what they did because I think deep down they all knew it was wrong. Some people are just ignorant and feel superior and are racist so they dont regard it as something bad but something that should have continued happening. (spicenter. rg) Those types of people are horrible. Then, there are always skeptics. I believe the holocaust happened because first of all, who would fake something like that? And second of all, if people dont learn the lessons of history, people will be forced to repeat them. And who would want to repeat that? Maybe some people are just scared and dont quite understand what the holocaust was. I m ean, there are even some people who called Anne Franks diary fake and thats just wrong. (Saucher) But its not necessarily that people are stupid or idiotic but they just werent taught the normal way. Maybe they were taught to ignore things like that. Fear things like that. Laugh, gloat, and cheer at things like that. (Saucher) What disgusts me is that, people should know to frown upon those things but also have to accept them too to make sure that nothing like that ever occurs again. The Holocaust was absolutely real. Did they starve people and pile their bodies just to take convincing pictures? Theres real evidence. What about all the concentration camps? There are millions of bodies there. (Saucher) Im sure its possible to count them all, and the numbers would be well into the millions, of course, not all Jews died in concentration camps, but the numbers are very high. Prisoners liberated from camps. (Dinnerstein) It means Jews were alive and being fed. You don’t feed or protect a person you want to kill. If they were killed then who was liberated. (thinkquest. org) There are countless testimonies to see that the Holocaust did happen. Just go to Poland, Germany and other European countries in order to see the horror that the Nazis had made. (Saucher) The same people who say the Holocaust never happened are called Holocaust deniers. Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews during World War II, Holocaust denial is a criminal offense, punishable by fine and imprisonment in different countries in the world. Israel, Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium have enacted laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. Italy has a similar law that is being ratified. Quite simply the reason that many people no longer believe the holocaust happened is the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that it did. (Dinnerstein) The proof is always on those making the accusations. Many of the photos that were taken intentionally held those showing diseased prisoners were released. The fact that there was allied bombings and lack of food was the true reason for the deaths of those at the concentration camps. The scale of which has dropped at first being as high as 6 million people to the now accepted number of 200,000 to 1 million. (thinkquest. org) Quite simply we dont know exactly how many people died in the camps in Poland because there was never an investigation allowed. However the thing that many people dont understand is that there were no death camps or gas chambers. Even at the most horrific camp, Auschwitz, the only proof of there being a gas chamber was a reconstructed air raid shelter made by the Russians post war. (thinkquest. org) That right there is opinions being listed. (spicenter. org) People don’t believe the Holocaust never happened because of the facts not being more clear and official. What else do people want? Humans just like us suffered a tragic death or memory from the Holocaust and because evidence was either destroyed or just not there anymore people want to question or doubt that the Holocaust never happened. That’s wrong. (thinkquest. rg) What about Anne Frank’s diary. Is that fake? Did someone just waste their time faking a diary and going fully out of their way to express deep feelings on something so horrific? There’s a museum in Germany and a website to the people that they have identified and found during the Holocaust. Real people look for their loved ones or a family member that they lost o r may have an idea that the person was involved during the Holocaust. (Saucher) You can go online send whatever information you know and if they have the information you can find out a family member that was in the Holocaust. C,5) If people want to deny it because the number is too big and they think it’s impossible that a human can ever pull something like that off their wrong. Pearl Harbor, Princess Diana, Twin Towers, etc. Were those wrong was that a lie? It was right. It’s a lie because so many lies are said about it. Does it mean that we need to agree with what everyone else says or look up things and educate yourself more about a subject you’re not so sure about? The Holocaust will forever be in our history for many more generations to come. It doesn’t matter if lies are said or doubts. There is no person that can change the fact that the Holocaust did happen. Since there are some that deny it, we can’t change it. Jews are not known for lying there are known for their honesty, But the person who started the Holocaust Denial was Harry Elmer Barnes. He was a respected historical revisionist known for his anti-war perspectives. He was warned against placing an amount of blame on the Nazis during the early 1960s. He says the World Wars were aggression against Germany, and that the Holocaust was propaganda for aggression. He then joined with European deniers in order to spread it; unfortunately, their efforts were successful. B,4) The Holocaust happened. It has been proven, many times over. But some people, American Nazis for example, claim that it never happened. It is easy to say things that are not true. It is easy to believe things that are not true. What kind of evidence is there, at this late date? There is a lot. There are eyewitness accounts, of Jews and N azis and bystanders. There are confessions. There are mountains of documents. There are graves and crematoriums. And there are missing people, individuals and huge parts of populations, gone, murdered. A person, who says that the Holocaust did not happen, says more about himself/herself than about history. You can claim that man never walked on the moon, and that Jesus never existed, that Mohamed was a pedophile and that the CIA killed JFK, yet if you claim that Jews were not murdered in gas chambers, you are facing a criminal record. The Holocaust was a major event in history. The millions of Jews who were tortured and killed by the Nazi are still being remembered today. The Holocaust was a terrible genocide and it leaves an impact on modern day history event, though it was a long time ago, before my time, it hurts. Even today, the damage still has not been repaired. It can’t be. No amount of money or anything can equal what was done. When I look back and identify with the holocaust, reading the history of the holocaust I could identify with what was happening and it was and still is horrifying. Never again, should this ever happen! I believe that if anyone knew what was to come, they would rather die than go through  the torture that they went through. Death was the only choice once in the hands of the enemy. The Nazis at that time  brutalized the idea of a Jewish person being a human being. It scares me to think that a world would allow such a horrible thing, but they went along with it. It makes me wonder, where God was when this happened. Any belief was judged if not deleted at a time like this. To look at the past, and see the live tapes of how it was, makes me want to close my eyes and pretend it didnt really happen, because to believe it shows just how evil,  a  man can be when given the opportunity. Families destroyed, records destroyed, being pulled apart, burned, shot, babies being cut out of the tummy of mothers and the wars. (library. thinkquest. org) My opinion on the holocaust is that it happened, and it is real. As horrible as it was, it happened. We as a nation and as people should never give anyone the power to do what was done. Just like slavery in America. It sickens me to say the least, that a man can justify killing another. They didnt just kill them, that would have been better if they just killed them, but that wasnt good enough. They had to torture  them, a  race of people who didnt deserve it. To those who deny the holocaust, well they will face serious consequences when it comes to the government. It’s a law that any person who denies the holocaust will be punished. There is no point in denying the Holocaust. (worldpress. com) After the Holocaust, the aftermath with the Jews, they were terrified after everything. So terrified they did not want to return back to their homes. (Dinnerstein) Some Jews were murdered when they tried to return to their homes in Poland. The problem was complicated because many countries refused to allow the survivors to enter. (Dinnerstein) A large number of Jewish survivors wanted to go to Palestine; the British were against such immigration and allowed fewer than 100,000 Jews to enter before Israel declared its independence in May, 1948. Looking for new homes approximately 137,000 Jews came to the United States (which admitted almost 400,000 refugees). Other countries where Jews found new homes were France, Canada, Great Britain, and Israel. The two countries receiving the largest numbers were the United States and Israel. (Dinnerstein) Works Cited Dinnerstein, Leonard. Survivors of the Holocaust. New York, 1982. Print. library. thinkquest. org. n. d. Saucher, Abraham. The Redemption OfThe Unwanted. 1987. Print. spicenter. org. 2013. theholocaustexplained. org. n. d. thinkquest. org. 2001. worldpress. com. n. d. www. ushmm. org. n. d.