The
Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews during the Nazi genocide - in 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Nazi Germany during World War 2. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.
The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized handicapped children.
In his book
Sheltering The Jews the Holocaust historian Mordecai Paldiel later wrote:
"Never before in history had children been singled out for destruction for no other reason than having been born. Children, of course, were no match for the Nazis' mighty and sophisticated killing machine .."
KZ Dachau was the first concentration camp established in Nazi Germany - the camp was opened on March 22, 1933. The camp's first inmates were primarily political prisoners, Social Democrats, Communists, trade unionists, habitual criminals, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, beggars, vagrants, hawkers.
In the late 1930's the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection and poisonous gas. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units following in the wake of the German Army began shooting massive numbers of Jews and Gypsies in open fields and ravines on the outskirts of conquered cities and towns.
Eventually the Nazis created a more secluded and organized method of killing.
Extermination centers were established in occupied Poland with special apparatus especially designed for mass murder. Giant death machines.
Millions of people died during the Holocaust, some were killed by machine guns while others died because their bodies just stopped working for starvation and abuse. This is how people that were disliked by the Nazis were treated. Today we refer to this large scale destruction and killing of millions of Jews and other people by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II as the Holocaust. Jews and others were put to death just because they were disliked by other people because of what they believed in. This was the first time there was a Holocaust for this reason. Usually, there is a Holocaust because people are fighting for land and resources or an attempt to win a war. In this case, millions of people were killed because they practiced a different religion and were disliked by other people. Hitler and his Nazi troops killed a total of 11 million people, six million of them were Jews, and five million of them were non-Jews that were disliked by the Nazis.The groundwork for the Holocaust
was laid in 1933, when Germans elected Adolf Hitler as their
Chancellor. Many Germans welcomed Hitler's plans to revitalize the
German economy, which was suffering after the First World War. However,
Hitler had a more sinister plan for Germany; he wanted to develop a
“master race” of Aryan people, getting rid of people he viewed as
undesirable and eventually conquering all of Europe.
Hitler began enacting his scheme slowly, first using the law to
force “undesirables” such as Jews out of German society. The gradual
acceleration of his plans for Germany may have masked the reality of
what he was doing to many people, including ranking members of the
German military. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, triggering the Second
World War, and the Nazi regime also embarked on a “final solution” for
the Jews, embarking on one of the most horrific examples of mass
genocide in human history.
While many accounts of the Holocaust
focus specifically on the atrocities perpetrated against the European
Jewish community, Hitler's “final solution” included the extermination
of a number of other undesirable groups as well. He attempted to
eliminate the Slavs and Serbs, whom he viewed as racially impure, and he
was intolerant of other religions as well, including some branches of
Christianity. Hitler also viewed his final solution as an opportunity to
get rid of social undesirables, like homosexuals, political activists,
and people who were disabled or mentally ill.
Many people were killed outright during the Holocaust,
while others were sent to forced labor camps where they were used as
slaves to produce a variety of goods, ranging from shoes to food. In
1942, Hitler became impatient with the progress of his scheme, and
several extermination camps were established. These camps were
specifically designed for the purpose of
mass murder, and their
inmates
were first shot and buried and later gassed and burned en masse when
burial proved inefficient. Residents of the camps ranged from prisoners
of war to enemies of the state, and some of them endured medical
experimentation and other abuses before they were murdered.
Evidence suggests that the Allied powers were well aware of what
was happening in Germany before decisive action was taken, but they may
not have been aware of the extent of the Holocaust.
The first Allied troops to enter the camps were horrified by the things
they found there, ranging from inmates who were so thin that they
looked like walking skeletons to the evidence of mass graves. Numerous
images of the Holocaust can be seen in museums around the world, including several museums established specifically to commemorate the events of the Holocaust.
Looking back on the events of the Holocaust,
some people have accused the German people of complacency, arguing that
they must have known about the events occurring in forced labor and
concentration camps in Germany. However, this does not give the German
people enough credit. Many individual Germans spoke up for their Jewish
neighbors and friends, and some risked their lives to help people escape
from the Nazis. While some sectors of German society may have been
complacent or even tolerant of the events of the Holocaust,
others were disturbed by Hitler's regime, and modern Germans still deal
with the legacy of this terrible event in European history. If
anything, the Holocaust is a grim illustration of what can happen when people become afraid of their government.
Many people hope that by publicizing the events of the Holocaust
and keeping it in the minds of all citizens, a repeat of this event
will never occur. It is the fervent hope of this wiseGEEK author that
this is the case.