Diana_Raylyanu_102-102 Holocaust Overview

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Research Paper

Holocaust Overview

Diana Raylyanu

English Comp 102-102

Mr. Neuberger

2 April 2012


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Adolf Hitler inprisonSource:http://bit.ly/HDGYD7

The Holocaust is used to refer to the systematic killing of around twelve million

people by the Nazis, over a period of two and a half years. But the events leading up to the

Holocaust spanned a much longer period of time, beginning some twenty or thirty years before.

These events allowed Hitler to gain enough power to put his plans into action. The consequences

of these actions can be felt even today. By taking an in-depth at the Holocaust and the events

prior to it, one can hope that such an atrocious event can be prevented from ever happening

again.

Nazi rise to power

According to an article titled Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution found on

the Yad Vashem website, Adolf Hitler, a soldier wounded in

World War One, joined the insignificant National Socialist

Party in 1919. He became the groups leader due to his orators

skills, and in 1923 even led a revolt in Munich to try to take

over power. He failed and was arrested. It was while he was in

prison that he wrote his book Mein Kampf, in which he

expressed his ideas about racial theory and Nazi global

dominion (Rise of the Nazis). After Hitler was released he

organized the Nazi Party and by 1932 they were the leading group in the House. Some may be

surprised to learn that Hitler and the Nazi party came by their power legitimately. The article

goes on to say that on January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany (Rise of

the Nazis).

Nazis views on Jews-Anti-Semitism


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Samples of Nuremberg Race Laws

Source:http://bit.ly/INcdg1

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

(USHMM) defines anti-Semitism as prejudice against

or hatred of Jews (Antisemitism). The Holocaust can

easily be defined as the worst example of Anti-Semitism

in our history. The specific hatred of Jews existed even

before modern times, but it wasnt until the 19th

century

that this hatred took on political dimensions, in the

emergence anti-Semitic political parties in Austria, Germany, and France. The article on

Antisemtism goes on to say With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, the party ordered anti-Jewish

economic boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted discriminatory anti-Jewish legislation.

The anti-Semitic feelings that existed in Europe came to a head when the Nazis came to power

and enabled them to carry out their plans, which eventually led to the planned massacre of

almost six million Jews (Antisemitism).

Nuremberg Laws

An article titled The Nuremberg Race Laws states that

on November 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were instituted at the

Nazis annual party rally. The Nuremberg laws defined a Jew as

anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents,

regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself

as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community

(USHMM). These laws went as far as to revoke Reich citizenship

to Jews, and forbade Jews from having sexual relations or

marrying someone who was considered German. The same article goes on to say that in the years

Found in Germanchildrensprimer. Sign saysJews are notwanted here.Source: http://bit.ly/hI6aZd


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Movie poster for the Eternal JewSource:http://bit.ly/HR7T1R

following the institution of the Nuremberg laws, the German government set about

impoverishing Jewish businesses. This was done by dismissing Jewish workers and managers,

and Jewish businesses were sold to non-Jews at a bargain thanks to the price fixing done by the

Nazis (USHMM).

Propaganda

According to an article titled Nazi Propaganda, Adolf Hitler first advocated the

use of propaganda in his book Mein Kampf. In his book, he writes "Propaganda tries to force a

doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general

public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for

the victory of this idea (USHMM). Hitler and the Nazi party

used propaganda to spread their ideas about racism, anti-

Bolshevism, and anti-Semitism. Hitler created a Reich Ministry

of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with the aim to ensure

that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through

art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials,

and the press (USHMM). Films were used in particular to

portray Jews as subhuman, or glorify Hitler and the National Socialist movement. The German

newspapers were also used in the Nazi propaganda movement by printing cartoons or caricatures

that were anti-Semitic. Just one example of disturbing Nazi propaganda can be found in the film

Der ewige Jude, the Eternal Jew, where the Jews were compared to rats. According to Dr. Stig

Hornshj-Mller, the Eternal Jew is the most well known Nazi propaganda film (Der ewige

Jude). Dr. Hornshj-Mller goes on to say that that It depicts the Jews of Poland as corrupt,

filthy, lazy, ugly, and perverse: they are an alien people which have taken over the world through


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The New York Times report on

Kristallnacht

Source:http://bit.ly/fZq529

their control of banking and commerce, yet which still live like anima ls (Der ewige Jude). The

purpose of the film was to legitimize the exclusion and

eventually the destruction of a whole group of people.

Kristallnacht

According to an article titled Kristallnacht, this event

took place on November 9, 1938 throughout Germany (PBS). It

is known as the night of breaking glass because the sound of

shattering glass filled the night air as gangs of Nazi storm

troopers burned synagogues and other Jewish institutions and businesses. The article records the

consequences of that night which included the burning of more than 900 synagogues, the

destruction of 7,000 Jewish businesses and the killing of 91 Jews. Also, more than 30,000 Jews

were deported to concentration camps.

The article also explains how a desperate act by a young a 17-year-old Polish Jewish

student named Hershel Grynszpan gave the Nazis an excuse to instigate such violence against the

Jews. Grynszpan shot the Third Secretary to the Embassy, Ernst vom Rath, on November 7 th in

Paris. He did this because he was enraged at the deportation of his parents from Germany to

Poland, and he hoped his actions would draw the worlds attention to the plight of Europes

Jews. He is quoted in the article as saying Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a

right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on earth. Wherever I have been I have

been chased like an animal" (Kristallnacht).

Finally, the article describes how Rath died on November 9 th, and news of his death

reached leading Nazi party figures later that same day. They responded with the very clear

message that the Jews of Germany would have to pay for Raths assassination. Later that night


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Children eating in the ghetto street.

Source:http://bit.ly/aCXPoy

all state police officers were given permission to loot Jewish businesses and arrest as many

wealthy Jews as the jails could hold. The night of broken glass provided the German government

with the perfect opportunity to finally remove Jews from German public life. Jewish children

could not attend school anymore, and Jews were prohibited to sell or provide services, in an

attempt to remove them from German economic life. The article Kristallnacht also states that

the Jewish community was fined one billion marks as compensation for Raths death (PBS).

Rounding up Jews-ghettos

The USHMM website defines ghettos during World War II as city districts (often

enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the

municipal and sometimes regional Jewish

population and forced them to live under miserable

conditions (Ghettos). These ghettos succeeded in

isolating the Jewish community from the rest of the

city, and the surrounding non-Jewish community.

The first ghetto was established in October of 1939

inPoland in Piotrkw Trybunalski.The ghettos were used to segregate and control the Jewishpopulations while the Nazi party leaders in Berlin worked to come up with a solution to the

Jewish problem. According to the USHMM website, as the Nazis came up with the Final

Solution to the Jewish problem, ghettos were systematically destroyed as residents were either

shot and buried in mass graves, or deported to killing camps on cattle trains (Ghettos).

Living conditions in the ghettos were close to unbearable. According to another article

titled Life in the Ghettos, overcrowding, hunger, and contagious diseases were a part of daily

life (USHMM). Starvation was deliberately enforced by the Germans since the Jews were only


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Germans burning buildings to the ground in theWarsaw Ghetto

Source:http://bit.ly/HEJleK

allowed to buy small amounts of food. Children were easily orphaned and then forced to beg on

the streets for a bite of food. Many froze in the winters, or died from starvation and disease.

According to the holocaust survivors website, the Warsaw ghetto was the largest ghetto,

housing 400,000 inhabitants at its highest. The Jewish residents tried to survive on a daily food

ration of 181 calories a day. The website goes on to say that Initially, some 30% of Warsaw's

population was being crammed into 2.4% of the city's area (Warsaw). One can understand how

difficult it would be to live under such conditions.

Resistance

According to the Jewish Virtual Library (JVL) website, Hitler started to liquidate the

ghettos in 1942. During this time 300,000 men, women, and children were deported and sent to

Treblinka where most of them were killed in the gas chambers. Around 55,000 to 60,000 Jews

were left in the Warsaw ghetto. But in April of 1943, the Jews in Warsaw learned that the Nazis

planned to transport the remaining Jews to Treblinka as well. An organization called the Z.O.B.

was formed, with Mordecai Anielewicz as its leader. In January of 1943, the Z.OB. had used a

small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the

Warsaw ghetto, to open fire on German troops who were

trying to gather up Jews for deportation. This skirmish

ended in victory for the Jews as the German troops

retreated after a few days. The article goes on to say that

from January until April both German troops and the

Jewish resistance prepared for the possibility of a fight. In the article, it says that On the

morning of April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police

entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants (Warsaw). 2,000 well armed and well-


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trained German troops faced seven hundred and fifty-five Jewish fighters. The Jews managaed to

hold out for twenty-seven days despite being outnumbered, and undertrained. In the end only

three hundred Germans were dead, while 7,000 Jews had died in the uprising, and another 7,000

Jews were deported to Treblinka. This brave and dramatic resistance managed to raise the

morale, for a breif time, of Jews everywhere.

Another type of resistance took the form of individaul men and women who could not

stand by and do nothing while such atrocities against human beings were taking place around.

An example of such an individual is Oskar Schindler. According to an article on the USHMM

website, Oscar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908. The article states that Schindler was An

opportunist businessman with a taste for the finer things in life, he seemed an unlikely candidate

to become a wartime rescuer (USHMM). In 1939, he even joined the Nazi party and in

November of the same year, he came in to possession of an enamelware factory, which also

employed Jewish forced laborers from the nearby Krakow ghetto. In 1944, Oscar Schindler was

employing almost one thousand Jewish workers at his factory. Using bribes and personal

diplomacy worked hard to keep his Jewish workers from being deported until about 1944. He

was arrested three times, but the Germans were unable to charge him with anything. After 1944,

when his Jewish workers were deported to Plaszow, he relocated his factory to Brnenec, and

reopened it as an armaments factory. His assistant made up a list of Jewish prisoners needed to

work in his new factory and in this way; Oscar Schindler facilitated the survival of 800 Jewish

men and 300 to 400 Jewish women. According to the same article, In 1962, Yad Vashem

awarded Schindler the title "Righteous Among the Nations" in recognition of his efforts to save

Jews during the Holocaust at great personal risk (USHMM). Schindlers story finally became

well-known with the release of the film based on his heroic actions, Schindlers List, in 1993.


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Heydrich Letter concerning the Final

Solution to the Jewish question.

Source:http://bit.ly/INtvON

Gassing chamber at Auschwitz.

Source: http://bit.ly/njL6AL

The Wannsee Conference-The Final Solution

The article titled Wannsee Conference and the Final

Solution states that On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi

Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the

Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the

implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the

Jewish Question. The Final Solution was the code name that

was given to the systematic and brutal annihilation of Jews in

Europe. At some point in 1941, Hitler authorized this plan for

mass murder. Issues such as selection of the able-bodied to be

used for manual labor and the many more that would be lost through natural reduction, were

discussed at this meeting. Fifteen men put into plan an action that would mean the end of

thousands upon thousands of innocent lives (USHMM).

Extermination methods

According to the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (DCHGS) website,

there are three main methods of extermination that the Nazis used to carry out the Final Solution

(Methods). At first, the Nazis used mass shootings to

carry out their plans. Some of the victims were even

forced to dig their own graves before they were shot.

Another possibility included the Jews being placed

alongside a mass grave, and than being shot so that

they fell into the grave. Another method of

extermination was mobile gassing trucks. The same article goes on to state the Jews were
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Heydrich%20letter%20concerning%20the%20Final%20Solution.jpghttp://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Heydrich%20letter%20concerning%20the%20Final%20Solution.jpghttp://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Heydrich%20letter%20concerning%20the%20Final%20Solution.jpghttp://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Heydrich%20letter%20concerning%20the%20Final%20Solution.jpghttp://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Heydrich%20letter%20concerning%20the%20Final%20Solution.jpg


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Mass grave at Treblinka

Source:http://bit.ly/IJ2msH

forced into a hermetically sealed truck, and then exhaust gas from the engine was led into the

truck. The Jews were thus suffocated (Methods). But these two methods were not effective

enough for the Nazis. The third extermination method the Nazis used was gas chambers using

exhaust fumes or Zyklon B gas. Jews, gypsies, and other undesirables were told they would be

taking showers, but instead they were forced into gassing chambers and gassed to death. To

remove the evidence, the Nazis would burn the bodies in crematoriums (Methods).

The Death Camps

According to an article by Caren Kellar Niss, Treblinka II was used by the Nazis as a

death camp. It was built shortly after Treblinka I, only one mile away from the original camp,

near Warsaw Poland. The camp opened on July 23, 1942 just as the Warsaw ghetto was being

evacuated. The Treblinka death camp would lead to the

extermination of more than 265,000 Warsaw Jews. Niss

goes on to say that Details were added in each of the death

centers to support the lie of Jewish resettlement

(Treblinka). This was done in order to suppress resistance

and rebellion. The Jews did not know that once they arrived

at a death camp such as Treblinka, they would face certain death. An example of such a detail

was the Star of David which was placed on the front wall of Treblinkas gas house. Once victims

arrived at Treblinka, they were quickly moved through the selection process. Men were

separated from women and children. The ones picked for the gas chambers were sent to the

barracks where their hair was cut, and then they were directed to the gas chambers. Prisoners

were told they were to be cleansed, and then packed into gassing chambers, made to resemble

showers. Niss continues by saying that after the victims were gassed to death, the bodies were


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removed and searched for valuables. At first, the Nazis would bury the bodies in mass graves.

But that was too inefficient a method, so the Nazis progressed to burning the bodies. Niss states

that Jews from the Polish Districts of Warsaw, Radom, Bialystok and Lublin as well as others

from Theresienstadt concentration camp, Macedonia and the Reich comprised The nearly

750,000 people who would die in the gas chambers of Treblinka between July 1942 and April

1943 (Treblinka).

Ursula Levy was a young child when she arrived at a camp in April of 1943. The only

family she had left was her brother George. Both she and her brother survived the Holocaust and

went on to live productive lives. She says she didnt have that fear of death that the adults had.

When interviewed, she confesses that I never had these additional fears that the adults had about

the crematorium and what might happen. I never thought that we would get killed. I had no ideas

about the crematoriums. I didnt have those fears(Levy). She credits her survival to hope, and

to luck. Many more were not as lucky as she was.

According to an article titled Extermination Camps on the DCHGS website, Chelmno

was the first of the six extermination camps to be established as part of the Final Solution. The

same article goes on to say that Auschwitz-Birkenau, which also functioned as a concentration

camp and a work camp, became the largest killing centre as far as the number of victims is

concerned. It is estimated that between 1 and 2 million were killed in the extermination camp

Auschwitz-Birkenau during its day (DCHGS). Half ofthe Jewish deaths that occurred during

the Holocaust were due to these six brutal extermination camps.

Liberation

According to an article written by Dr. Stephen Hart titled Liberation of Concentration

Camps, the Red army reached the Sobibor and Majdanek camps in the summer of 1944


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Children survivors of the Holocaust

Source:http://bbc.in/9gKqSb

(Liberation). In early 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets. This was the only camp that

was still used in the extermination of the Jews in the final months of World War II. Dr. Hart

continues by stating that

During the last months of the war, however, as the Allies advanced towards Auschwitz,

the Germans force-marched or transported many of the camp's Jewish inmates by rail to

other, already over-full, concentration camps. This redistribution of Jewish prisoners,

when combined with the administrative chaos that had engulfed the Third Reich, led to

some concentration camps degenerating further into living visions of hell, packed with

starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners. (Liberation)

According to the USHMM website, as the Allies moved across Europe, they began to

meet thousands of starved and diseased concentration

camp prisoners. They encountered hundreds of

concentrations camps, and even worse, the

extermination camps. The Nazis had tried to cover up

the evidence of their atrocities, but enough evidence

remained to shock the world with what was found in

war torn Europe.

Dr. Stephen Hart continues with the British liberation of Belsen, which is just an example

of what liberators encountered. The British discovered 20,000 corpses just lying on the ground,

unburied. They also found 50,000 survivors. The British Armys first task was to face the

medical nightmare of treating 20,000 seriously ill inmates. Despite all the efforts made by the

British medical teams, many were too ill to be saved. The British also had to dispose of the

20,000 corpses in order to prevent the spread of disease such as typhus.


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The photographs and news reel footage from Belsen and other camps greatly impacted

western opinion. Because of such footage, the world clamoured for justice and the Nuremberg

War Crimes process took place. Justice was sought out, but it could never make up for all the

lives that were uselessly lost in the Holocaust.

One can now understand how the Nazis were able to take advantage of the attitudes and

prejudices of the time to come to power. Once legally in power, they did everything they could

to put their plans and policies into action. This led to the mass murder of six million Jews, and

three million of those died in a two and a half year period in the extermination camps. By

learning about these events, people can try to prevent something like this from happening again.


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Works Cited

":Antisemitism." United States Holocaust Memorial Muesem. United States Holocaust Memorial

Muesem, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

Bard, Mitchell. "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising."Jewish Virtual Library. The American Israeli

Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

"Ghettos." United States Holocaust Memorial Muesem. United StatesHolocaustMemorial

Muesem, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

Hart, Stephen A. "Liberation of the Concentration Camps."BBC.co.uk. 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 15

Apr. 2012.

Hornshoj-Moller, Stig. "Papers on 'The Eternal Jew'" The Holocaust History Project Homepage.

The HolocaustHistory Project, 21 Feb. 1999. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

"Kristallnacht." PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation.Web. 15 Apr. 2012

"Liberation of Nazi Camps." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

"Life in the Ghettos." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

"Nazi Propaganda." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museumx, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

Niss, Caren K. "Treblinka (Poland)."JewsihGen.org. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

Oskar Schindler." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

"Rise of the Nazis and the Beginning of Persecution." Yad Vashem.Yad Vashem. Web. 15 Apr.

2012.
http://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/viewhttp://www.easybib.com/cite/view


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"The Nuremberg Race Laws." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States

Holocaust MemorialMuseum.Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

USCShoahFoundation. Holocaust Survivor Ursula Levy Testimony. Beverly Hills. YouTube.

YouTube, 3 March 1997. Web. 24 March 2012.

Vogelslang, Peter, and Brain Larsen. "Extermination Camps."Holocaust Education. The Danish

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2002. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

Vogelslang, Peter, and Brain Larsen. "Methods of Mass Murder."Holocaust Education. The

Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2002. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

"Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

"Warsaw Ghetto."Holocaust Survivors. HolocaustSurvivors. Web. 15 Apr. 2012

Diana, you have a very informative paper here. Outside of the redundant use of

parenthical citations, I enjoyed your paper very much. Even with the over use of

the citations, I appreciate the fact you want to give credit where credit is due. It is

better to have too many citations than not enough. I also wondered what happened

on the conclusion, but I know that is just an oversight or something. I can tell from

your writing that you understand what you have researched and the importance of

it.

.
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Points

Available

Score

40Contentpaper demonstrates

understanding and confidence about topic

39

20Sourcesuses only primary and

secondary sources

20

40In-Text Citationsintegrates sources

within text with effective use of signal words

and phrases

28

35Formattingproperly uses MLA

formatting

32

25Works Citedworks cited page has the

required number of sources and is properly

formatted

25

15Picturesuses pictures to enhance the

text with effective captions and source

information

15

25Writing MechanicsPaper is free

from errors in spelling, punctuation, etc.20

Total

= 200

Total Score

179

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