The+Holocaust

=**__T__****__he Holocaust__**=

By: Cindy Sangha-June 2013
The Holocaust was also known as a mass murder or a Genocide, that killed approximately six million Jews during World War II. This mass murder was organized by Hitler and the Nazi party, who at the time occupied Germany. Jews, Blacks, Homosexuals, Gypsies, Mentally handicapped people, physically handicapped people (who were not German war veterans), Communist, Socialist and Jehovah's Witnesses's were considered to be inferior to the Germans. The Nazi party believed that Germans were a racially superior and that especially Jews were a alien threat to the so-called German racial community. In 1933 the Jewish population in Europe stood at over nine millions, their residences would later be influences or occupied by Nazi's in World War II.

**__Beginning of Unfortunate Events__**
The Nazi powers came to power in 1933. In the 1930's a series of Nazi laws were introduced aimed at removing the civil and economic rights of Jews and other parties.

1. Law against overcrowding in German schools and universities. (April 25, 1933 that restricted the number of Jewish children to 1.5 percent of the total number of students.

2. After 1935, close friends suddenly avoided the company of their Jewish classmates sometimes becoming hostile. After 1939 the first group of children to be targeted by the Nazis for extermination were disabled children. They were taken away from their parents, as the parents were told they would be receiving the latest medical attention and maybe a cure. Though they were really part of a new euthanasia programme.

1. Those killed immediately on arrival in concentration camps and killing centers;

2. Those killed shortly after birth ( 870 infants that were born in the Ravensbruck concentration camp; largely to Jewish or Gypsy women between 1943 and 1945)

3. Those few born in Ghettos and camps and surviving such as the three year old Stefan Georg Zweig born in Cracow Ghetto and carried in aprepared rucksack through the concentration camp at Plaszow to Buchenwald in 1944.

4. those children usually above the age of 10, utilized as prisoners, laborers and subject for Nazi Medical experiments.

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Jewish men, women and children were rounded up and forced to live in Ghetto's established by the Germans, many of which who lived there died or starvation or disease.

People were systematically killed in variety of ways, some from starvation or diseases and others from gas chambers or being shot by Germans.

In 1933 the Jewish population in Europe was over nine million, most of which lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or have a strong influences over in World War II. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been murdered by Nazi's.

====**__The Ghetto's__**====

The Nazi's established Ghetto's that occupied Poland, polish and western European Jews were rounded up from German cities and deported to Nazi built Ghetto's. The Soviet Union in 1941, began killing entire Jewish communities, mainly shooting or gas vans. Nazi's later deemed shooting and gas vans as inefficient as they began psychological burden on the killers. At first the ghetto's were opened which meant the Jews were allowed to leave during the daytime but had a curfew. Eventually the Ghetto's were "closed" Jews were no longer allowedto leave. Nazi's demanded Jews establish a Judenrant (a jewish council) to both administer Nazi demands and to regulate the life inside the Ghetto's. 1,000 people per day were loaded up in trains and sent to either a concentration camp or a death camp (extermination camp). To get the Jews to willingly leave the Ghetto's they were told that they were going to Labour camps. Some of the major ghettos were located int he cities of Bialystok, Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Riga, Vilna and Warsaw.

__**Concentration Camps and**__ __**Extermination Camps**__
There was a variety of different camps including concentration, extermination, labor, prisoner-of-war and transit camps. Concentration Camps were meant to work and starve the prisoners to death (making them look inhumane). Extermination Camps were built for the sole purpose to kill mass amounts of people, quickly and efficiently. The first concentration camp opened March 20, 1933 in Dachau. From 1933 to 1938 majority of the prisoners in concentration camps were political prisoners (people who were against the Nazi, Hitler or Germany, as well as Communist or Socialist). After 1938 Kristallnacht the Jews became more organized as they increased the number of Jews that were sent to Concentration camps. At a number of Concentration camps their was Medic al Experiments conducted on prisoners. The use of camps equipped with gas chambers for the purpose of systematic mass exterminations of people was a unique feature of the Holocaust. Extermination camps were set up in Auschwitz, Belzec's, Chelmno, Jasenovac, Maly, Majdanek, Trostenets, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Auschwitz and majdanek were both Concentration and Extermination Camps.

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**__Medical Experiments__**
A distinctive feature of Nazi genocide was the drastic measures that were taken in "medical" media type="youtube" key="WWVKaYtxlns" width="415" height="311" align="left" experiments. These experiments were carried out in Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwalk, Ravensbruck, Sashsenhausen, and Natzwiler concentration camps. One of the most ruthless physicians was Dr. Josef Mengele who worked in Auschwitz, his experiments included placing "human subjects" in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, attempting to change their eye colour by injecting chemicals into childrens eyes and a various amputations and other surgeries. However how far he took his experiments will never fully be known, as all his record's that were to be sent to Kaiser Wilhelm Institute got destoryed by von Verschuer.

A quotes that was taken from a Jewish inmate Vera Alexander, she said that Dr. Josef Mengele was conducting inhuman experiments:

"I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents- I remember the mother's name was Stella- managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering."

**__The Final Solution__**
This was an attempt (some may argue it was successful) final attempt to murder all Jews in Europe. It was a plan to exterminate the Jewish people that remained, this plan was implemented in stages; Nazi rise to power, Anti-Jewish legislation (boycott) and the finally was the "Night of the Broken Glass." The sole purpose of these three stages was to eliminate Jews from German Society.

**__Who was targeted?__**
200,000 mental or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans living in institutional settings were murdered in a Euthanasia Program that the Nazi's had set up. The Germans targeted "inferior" races; Roma (Gypsies), The disabled and some of the Slavic Peoples (Polish, Ru ssian and others). Others were executed because of political, ideological thoughts, behavioural grounds, communist, socialist, Jehovah witnesses and homosexuals, were all considered to be inferior to Nazi's (Germans) who thought of themselves as "racially superior."

**__Results of the Holocaust__**
The SS guard moved camps inmates by train or on forced marched often called death marches in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners, as the allied forced moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany. The marches continued until May 7th, 1945 the day that the Germany armed forced surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. Many of the survivors found shelter in displaced person (DP) camp administered by the Allied powers. More than 1.5 million children from across Europe were Murdered under the Nazi regime, thisfigure included 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were murdered under Nazi rules in Germany and occupied Europe.

Sources: History 12 Student work book, Mrs. Ellett's slideshow information, Mrs. Ellett's Worksheets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/?ModuleId=10005143 http://www.holocaust-history.org http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143