...The Holocaust The Holocaust remains, and will continue to remain as one of the most horrific things that has happened to a group of people. The absolute inhumanity of the Holocaust puzzles people even today. Contemporary people wonder just how it happened, how people could be systematically killed, tortured, murdered. The answer will probably never be found, but future generations can avoid something like the Holocaust by studying it, and never forgetting. The Nazi’s did not start out with “The Final Solution”, which did not come till later. The distinction of who was “Aryan” and who were not was very important to Hitler. This distinction allowed the Jews and others to be discriminated against. At this time the German people probably have no idea what these laws will lead to. Next came the exclusion of the Jew from the arts by the Reich Chamber of Culture, every time a right was stripped away from a Jew it was easier to view them as not human. In September of 1933 the Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land; the rights of the Jewish people were being taken away at a frightening pace. In 1934 Jews are banned from the German Labor Front, not allowed national health insurance, and prohibited from getting legal qualifications. The following year Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military. Jews were prohibited from trading and providing a variety of specified commercial services, the Nazis ordered Jews over age 15 to apply for identity cards from the police. Jewish doctors were...
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...or their survival by the Germans. 11 million victims were killed during the Holocaust. Half of those individuals were non-Jewish. Not only adults were sent to these concentration camps, but also kids, relatives, poles, gypsies and more the German citizens did not accept, for the blame for them losing the first war. In The Night by Elie Wiesel and Death Marches in the Holocaust by The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, humankind could be good but it is led more to evil because majority of people during the Holocaust only think for themselves rather than others in these type of situations and with these Nazi German officers tormenting and...
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...The death marches that took place during the Holocaust were a cruel and unusual form of torture for the Jewish prisoners that were caused by the notorious Nazis. These marches affected Elie Wiesel, the main character and author of the book, Night, and his father. The prisoners were forced to march for over 42 miles away from the soon-to-be-invaded Auschwitz and as far from the Red Army as possible. The unbearable task presented to the Jews was, in a way, an exodus from an awful place, but an entry into something just as bad or possibly worse. At the end of the march a friend of Elie’s plays Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on his violin. This work of music represents a lot during this time. Similarly, the death marches represent the heartless actions taken against the poor victims of the Holocaust. The death marches were horrendous punishments inflicted for no reason. Near the end of World War II, death marches became a common way of...
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...Raphael Lemkin created the word Genocide because he lost his family in the Holocaust. Genocide is a mass murder that develop in ten stages: classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization,...
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...Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland in the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. It took place from April of 1915 to 1923 (during and after WWI), and was implemented in two phases: The wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches to the Syrian Desert. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 million to 1.5 million. But people may ask why? Armenia had come largely under Ottoman rule during the 15th and 16th centuries. The majority of Armenians were grouped together under the name Armenian Millet (community) and they were led by their spiritual head, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. This community was made up of three religious denominations: The Armenian Apostolic, The Armenian Catholic and The Armenian Protestant, meanwhile the Turkish were Muslim. Basically the Armenian community were persecuted and killed by the Turkish because a religion matter. The Armenian Genocide it is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides. It have been pointed as an organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most studied case of genocide after the Jew Holocaust. The starting date of this genocide is held...
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...INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLOCAUST * Related Articles * Related Links * Comments * How to cite this article Two German Jewish families at a gathering before the war. Only two people in this group survived the Holocaust. Germany, 1928. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum * VIEW PHOTOGRAPHS * VIEW PERSONAL HISTORIES * VIEW ARTIFACTS * VIEW MAPS * VIEW HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE 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. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every...
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..."Men to the left! Women to the right!" (page 27). At the time of WWII, the Holocaust involves the mass murder of millions of Jews. During this dark time, Jews are forced to work at harsh concentration camps and his chance of surviving the camps is very small. Elie Wiesel lives to tell his horrifying experiences during this time, meanwhile his faith, mankind, and his responsibility to his father struggles to thrive. As time goes on during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel witnesses more human beings diminishing by the day. This causes a mental pain, but he soon realizes that the death of humans is normal and it doesn’t affect him anymore. The death of the Pipel brings down Elie’s hope of survival. According to Elie, God doesn’t even exist anymore because the gruesome events that occur are only imaginable by him and other survivors. "I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice" (page 42).Without God, Elie loses hope and faith to survive and struggles to keep his father alive. For instance, he almost loses his father in the train, but manages to wake his father up by slapping him. On the other hand, a boy beats up his own father for a small ration of bread. These events inspire Elie to not give up hope. Unfortunately, his father dies near the end of the text. It is the only thing that touches Elie’s heart. "After my father's death, nothing could touch me anymore." (page 107). Futhermore, Elie faces many external conflicts. Hunger, thirst, physical pain, sickness...
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...Holocaust Midterm Dana Bob Mercy College 1. Explain the origins and development of modern anti-Semitism Throughout history the Jewish community has been subject to a violent history which can be traced as far back as their expulsion from Carthage in 250 C.E. For centuries, Jews have endured slavery, land confiscations, massacres, pogroms, blood baths, mass arrests, public torture, banishments, inquisition, slaughter, mass murders and finally, the Holocaust in the 20th century (Grossman, 2014). The Holocaust by far has been the most odious experience that the Jewish community has endured and yet there are many who deny it even took place. The rise of anti-Semitism in early 20th century Germany surely did not begin with Adolf Hitler; however, he was the fulcrum on which it intensified. This hatred for the Jews was not always the case as prior to World War I Jews in Eastern Europe “enjoyed a period of comparative peace, tranquility and the flowering of Jewish religious life” (Jones, 2011). It was after the defeat and subsequent peace settlement at Versailles in 1919, which was followed by a period of depression and burdensome reparations, that nation began to look for a scapegoat. The Jews were seen as the leaders of the parties which had surrendered and ‘stabbed’ Germany in the back by agreeing to the peace accord. Germany slipped into a great depression in the early 1920’s with widespread unemployment and rampant inflation. Hitler and the Nazi party began...
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...The Holocaust is one of the biggest and most widely known genocides in history. The Holocaust is famous for introducing many killing methods, such as the infamous gas chambers. One thing the Nazis were notorious for, other than the mass killings, was the horrible treatment of their prisoners. Millions of prisoners died under the Nazis due to various factors, such as disease, abuse by the guards, and the weather. Firstly, the prisoners were severely abused by the prison guards. The guards were quiet sadistic towards the prisoners and abusing them was a manifestation of it. The guard’s and prison staff’s abuse towards the prisoners varied. It would range from beatings to medical experiments. The guards would look for various reasons to beat the...
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...Gabriel Jam English January 15, 2015 The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel is about teenage boy overcoming his obstacles he faced during the holocaust. Elie’s hope and motivation to survive the holocaust was his father because Elie’s father was the only family member left and they supported each other to keep on going. They watched each other physically and mentally. Elie and his father encourage one another mentally to survive the holocaust. No matter what obstacle was thrown at them, they always stayed together. The Russians were expected to go where Elie and his father were located. The head of the block made the prisoner clean the area where they were staying because they didn’t want the Russians to think that they were living like pigs. When they were finished cleaning, they were evacuated to another location. The prisoners were ordered to run nonstop and whoever stopped running got shot to death. While Elie ran, his foot was aching but it wouldn’t stop him to keep moving forward. His “father’s presence was the only thing that stopped him” to keep going how his father was “running at my side, out of breath, end of his strength at his wits end.” Elie’s mindset is that he has “no right to die” and no matter what, Elie is his fathers “only support” to keep going on and not to be shot to the death. Survival with his father is his motivation. When Elie thought “no right to die” and “only support”, it showed dhow much love and inspiration to keep on going and not to give up...
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...of the Holocaust Between 1933 and 1945, an event took place that would greatly affect the world forever. Jews, homosexuals, and even Jehovah’s Witnesses were stripped of their rights, mistreated continuously, and forced to complete hard manual labor. This horrendous event led by Adolf Hitler is known as the Holocaust. The Holocaust was an event in which “Jews were separated from their communities and persecuted; and finally they were treated as less than human beings and murdered” (What Was The Holocaust?). Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany and the soldiers who were set out to annihilate anyone who did not follow social normalities. Even though there are various pictures and documents in existence showing proof...
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...Outline Introduction/Thesis: I. Holocaust at Auschwitz A. Concentration Camp 1. Life in camp 2. Countless murders 3. Rescue Conclusion/Closing: The Holocaust at Auschwitz By Writing 1 Introduction The story of the Holocaust at Auschwitz is a hard and very heart breaking story to tell. Millions Jews were murdered by the hands of the Nazis. The train arrived in the middle of the night, so we were greeted by very bright lights shining down on us. We were greeted by soldiers, SS men, as well as women. We were greeted by dogs and whips, by shouting and screaming, orders to try to empty the train, by confusion... There is no way to describe your first coming to Auschwitz. Hitler established the first concentration camp soon after he came to power in 1933. The system grew to include about 100 camps divided into two types concentration camps for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the systematic extermination of undesirables including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and others. No words can really describe the scenes that took place at Auschwitz once a Jew entered the gates of a camp. The SS would beat the Jews with wipes, rebar, butts of their weapons anything the SS could get their hands on to beat them to death. Do to overcrowding these beatings...
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...The Holocaust The rise of the Nazi Party began in 1930 when Adolf Hitler’s National Social party gained 107 seats in the New German Reichstag (Rogasky 20). Over a period of a few years the Nazi Party received enough votes so the government had to take it seriously and offer it power. Many believed Hitler and the Nazi Party was like any other political party, so on January 30, 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany (Nelson, English.illinois.edu). Shortly after Hitler assumed the role as chancellor, the wheels began churning to begin a terrible tragedy. This tragedy, known as “The Holocaust”, targeted a variety of people. The Nazis persecuted anyone who dared to oppose them as well as the disabled, African Americans, Gypsies, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses; they reserved their strong hatred for the Jews. Many people cannot grasp how such a tragic phenomenon, like “The Holocaust”, could occur. In order for one to truly understand the Holocaust, one must understand how Hitler rose to power and killed so many people in such little time. Within a year and a half, Hitler and the Nazis Party had taken absolute power of Germany. It became possible to arrest opponents of the regime and lock them up with no charge filed, no warrant and no real evidence. The first concentration camp Dachau was opened in March 1933 to hold all the prisoners (Wood 42). In August 1933 Hitler declared himself both president and chancellor of the Third Reich and commander-in-chief of the military...
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...The Death of Jews During War World II,(change to World War) Nazi Germany’s leader at the time, Adolf Hitler, wanted to kill Jews, war prisoners, Gypsies;(change to a comma and add and) even children. The Nazi death camps had brutal ways to kill the Gypsies, and many more in the death camps. There are many survivors of this tragedy, which is now known as the Holocaust. A survivor is Elie Wiesel;(change to a period) he was fifteen at the time, along with his family that he was shortly with after arriving. He was separated from most of his family. He only had his father left, and then went to the work camps. He wrote his novel, Night, a story of his tragedy, losing his family at a young age, and the inside story of what was going on in the death camps. A quote form the story Night is “I could never forget the smoke, the faces on the children; I could never forget the flames that consumes my faith” (34 Wiesel). An example of mankind being evil as shown in the novel Night is by staving(Starving?) most of the prisoners to death. Mankind, being an inhering evil, is shown by the deaths of innocent people by...
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...“I died in Auschwitz, but no one knows it”. These are the words of Charlotte Delbo, a survivor of Auschwitz. For many men and women Auschwitz was a time of great fear, death and despair. The Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, and commanded by Rudolf Hoss (1900-1947). It included three main camps. All three camps used prisoners for forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. These concentration camps were made up of mainly Jewish people. An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, and at least 1.1 million died. Around 90 percent of those were Jews. As a matter of fact,...
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