Research Paper 2: Major Event
March 21, 2011
The Inhumane Holocaust
One of the most devastating events in world history was the Holocaust. To this day, some do not even believe that the Holocaust occurred but how do they explain the 11 million people that were brutally murdered? More than likely, there will not be an event in world history that comes close to the Holocaust.
To understand the Holocaust one must understand a few events that occurred. World War I devastated Europe, especially Germany. 8.5 million men died on battlegrounds during World War I, which lasted from 1914-1918. Many of the European Jews lived in the Russian Pale of Settlement in Eastern Poland, which is where the armies fought and struggled a lot here. In 1915 the Tsarist command actually blamed the Jews for the defeat and even expelled them from certain border areas. World War I was one of the first times that there was such a large mass killing by civilized countries. In 1933 there were 9.4 million Jews living in Europe. More than 78% lived in Poland, the USSR, Rumania, and Hungary. In the western industrialized countries the Jews were economically integrated with jobs that were merchants, industrialists, craftsmen, and professionals. On the other hand, in the east where they were less industrialized they were not able to become economically integrated. Although in the Poland population Jews were only 10%, they paid 40% of the taxes. In May 1919 a peace treaty was presented to Germany by the Allies and it was later signed the next month. It was an ultimatum which stated that Germany was solely responsible for the war, the army would be limited to 100,000 men, the army to 15,000, unification with Austria would not be allowed, they would pay reparations at an unknown amount, and will lose all overseas colonies in both the East and the West (Bauer, 2001).
October 1919 Adolf Hitler began speaking to Drexler DAP where he eventually became a leader of the small group. The group name eventually was changed to National Socialist German Worker’s Party. They had various beliefs including Jews were the major source of Germany’s problems, and all recent Jewish immigrants of Germany should return to the countries that they had came from. January 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany with Hitler as the chancellor. April 1, 1933 it was ordered to have an economic boycott with the Jews (Bauer, 2001).
In the late 1930s ghettoes were created, which was mainly where all the Jews went, so that they were removed from society, even more than they had been. The ghettoes were terrible living conditions- old homes made of wood, with no toilets or running water or sewage. March 5, 1940 all Jews in Poland were ordered to move to the ghettoes. They were also overcrowded, had a lack of food, lack of sanitation which created typhus epidemic. The first internment camp was created in March 1933 at Dachau. In 1938 the use of the camps increased which basically would work people until they died or were killed sadistically. There were three types of camps: transition camps, labor camps, and concentration camps. They also believed that chronically ill people, habitual criminals, and mental patients had no right to live (Bauer, 2001).
Auschwitz was created in 1942 as a death camp for Jews. October 1942 it was ordered that all Jews from all other camps should be concentrated here. In 1944 it is estimated that 1 million Jews were killed by the gas chambers. At the Auschwitz camp complex there were five gas chambers. Normally, they were deceived in thinking that they were going to the showers, but were actually getting gassed, which would lead to their deaths. Afterwards, the bodies would be burned in a crematorium. At Auschwitz there were two crematoria which would burn 2,000 bodies in less than 24 hours. Before burning the bodies they would extract the gold from teeth, remove rings, remove women’s hair to be used for mattresses and submarines, and the clothing from them that was removed would be distributed in Germany. The inmates at the camps were also used for medical experiments such as sterilization of inmates, twin and dwarf ones, the effects on altitude on pilots, injected with viruses, and many other brutal experiments. In 1941 there were 18,000 prisoners but by 1945 there were 714,211 prisoners. 70 to 80% of Auschwitz inmates were Jews (Bauer, 2001).
Many of the countries stood by and let the Holocaust occur. Although they did not do anything necessarily bad they did try to stop the Holocaust either. Towards the end of the war SS guards transported inmates by trains or “death marches.” They did this on hopes that the Allies would not be able to free the large amounts of prisoners. March 7, 1945 the German armed forces unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. Many survivors would be placed in displaced persons camps. 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel between the years 1948 and 1951. In 1957 the last displaced persons camp was closed (USHMM, 2011).
The Holocaust was the worst event in world history. Many people when they think about the Holocaust they say that 6 million Jews died but 5 million “forgotten” people died as well. Jehovah Witnesses, Gypsies, priests and pastors, homosexuals, disabled, black children, and those in inter-racial marriages were also brutally murdered. In total the rough estimate of those murdered is 11 million. Those people did not have an easy death but were humiliated, removed from their homes, tortured, starved, ordered to do hard labor, and various other things just because they were not of the Aryan race- “blond hair, blue eyes” (Pencak Schwartz, 2002).
References
Arad, Y. (1990). The pictorial history of the holocaust. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Bauer, Y. (2001). A history of the holocaust revised edition. Danbury: Franklin Watts.
Pencak Schwartz, T. (2002). Five million forgotten- holocaust's non-jewish victims. Retrieved from http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/fivmil.htm
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/?ModuleId=10005143. Accessed on March 18, 2011.
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