The Holocaust

Who were the victims?

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The name of Adolf Hitler has inspired both admiration and mortal dread. When Hitler became the Führer (the leader), the short, powerful word "Hitler" not only identified the man who carried it, but the word turned into a symbol of strength and loyalty.
Adolf Hitler was leader of Germany during the Third Reich (1933 – 1945) and the primary instigator of both the Second World War in Europe and the mass execution of millions of people deemed to be "enemies" or inferior to the Aryan ideal. Born: April 20, 1889, died: April 30, 1945.

Hitler and the Nazi Killed Jews ,Soviet, POW's ,non Jewish poles, Romans,homosexuals, Jehovah witnesses, and disabled. They killed over  9,793,700 Jews and other raises.Hitler killed more than 8,000,000 of Jews and other kind of people every single minute.Although, the children died because of starvation, disease, sick, or shelling. Therefore, 5.9 million Jews, 3.3 million soviet POW’s, 1.8-2 million non Jewish poles, 220,000-270,000 Romans, 200,000-250,000 disabled, 5,000-15,000 homosexuals, and 2,500-5,000 Jehovah’s witnesses died. the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. However, there was a hero who saved hundreds of Jews from gas chambers.And yet, in 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Nazi, Germany during world war II. As a result, three quarters of Hitler’s victims died within an eleven month period alone(march 1942-February 1943. The areas of soviet territory conquered by the Nazis after the (June 22,1941 Russia) attack.By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. Also there was result of as high as 1.5 million murdered children. And yet, there were eventually three million persons who were killed through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting, and burning, etc. Between(“Auschwitz may 14 and July 8,1994,”) 437,402 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in 148 trains.He wanted all Jews gone and mostly homosexuals, gypsies, Russians…etc. Therefore, seriously individual Nazis took these illusion and conspiracy theonies is another matter. This notion of the Jews as dangerous, cunning conspirators doesn’t fit the Nazi of them an inferior. The sobering fact about this latter conflict is how close t5he fuehrer came to total victory. As an estimate 5 to 6 million Jews comprised two thirds of all European Jewry.The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War 2. In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be military occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. 1.5 million children were murdered. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children.
The Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg has said: "There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times."
The Holocaust is a history of enduring horror and sorrow. It seems as though there is no spark of human concern, no act of humanity, to lighten that dark history. Read the story of Rivka Yosselevska, the story of the children of Bullenhuser Damm or the story the children of Izieu.



The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War 2. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.

The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust. But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler’s Nazi regime. As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

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. Some 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 who were murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.

Holocaust Deaths

Country/Region

Estimate

Germany (1938 Borders)

130,000

Austria

65,000

Belgium & Luxembourg

29,000

Bulgaria

7,000

Czechoslovakia

277,000

France

83,000

Greece

65,000

Hungary & Ukraine

402,000

Italy

8,000

Netherlands

106,000

Norway

760

Poland & USSR

4,565,000

Romania

220,000

Yugoslavia

60,000

TOTAL

6,017,760

Source: Nizkor Project statistics derived from Yad Vashem and Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution.

The world outside Nazi Europe received numerous press reports in the 1930s about the persecution of Jews. By 1942 the governments of the United States and Great Britain had confirmed reports about the Final Solution - Germany's intent to kill all the Jews of Europe. However, influenced by antisemitism and fear of a massive influx of refugees, neither country modified their refugee politics. No specific attempts to stop or slow the genocide were made until mounting pressure eventually forced the United States to undertake limited rescue efforts in 1944.

In Europe, rampant antisemitism incited citizens of many German-occupied countries to collaborate with the Nazis in their genocidal policies. There were, however, individuals and groups in every occupied nation who, at great personal risk, helped hide those targeted by the Nazis.

One nation, Denmark, saved most of its Jews in a nighttime rescue operation in 1943 in which Jews were ferried in fishing boats to safety in neutral Sweden.

Victims

Today there are more than 7,000 descendants of Schindler's Jews living in US and Europe, many in Israel. Before the Second World War, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. Today there are between 3,000 and 4,000 left.
Oscar Schindler's name is known to millions as a household word for courage in a world of brutality - a hero who saved hundreds of Jews from Hitler's gas chambers. Schindler died in Hildesheim in Germany October 9, 1974. He wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. As he said: My children are here ..
His wife Emilie Schindler was an inspiring evidence of human nobility. She was not only a strong woman working alongside her husband but a heroine in her own right. This remarkable woman worked indefatigably to save the Schindler-Jews.
You find the stories of Irena Sendler, who defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto .. Maria von Maltzan, who risked everything to defy Hitler and the Nazi Régime .. Miep Gies, who risked her life daily to hide Anne Frank and her family .. the Rescue of the Danish Jews, Varian Fry, the American Schindler,  Kurt Gerstein SS Officer, the site Courage and Survival ..
And you find the story of an incredible man and his amazing gift to mankind - the English stockbroker, Sir Nicholas Winton. On holiday in Prague, he recognized the advancing danger and courageously rescued 669 Czech children from their doomed fate in the Nazi death camps - but his achievement went unrecognized for over half a century.
The words of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, stand as a testament to why we must never forget this dark period of human history:when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V­E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called thel“FinalfinalSolution” (Endlosung).
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Victims of the Holocaust

There were many different kinds of victims, and each had a different colored triangle with a letter on it that they had to wear. Some of the victims were the Jews, Gypsies, people with physical or mental disabilities, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. These victims were selected simply because they were disliked by Hitler and the other Germans.

Survivors

Some of the victims that were eventually killed found out that they were in trouble too late. Others thought that the Nazi group would not be able to survive. Many of them thought they were just as German, Dutch, French, or Polish as anyone else.

Many of the survivors either sensed the danger, or they were forced to leave their homes. For the people that left, it often meant that they would never see their friends and relatives again. The survivors lived because they were always a step ahead of the Nazis and had a lot of luck.

Life in hiding from the Nazis was always a struggle. The people that hid were always in terror of being found by the Nazis. People that were hiding were constantly being found. The consequence of being found for the person in hiding, as well as the people hiding them was often death.

The chances of surviving the war were incredibly small. The people that did survive and are witnesses of the Holocaust are left with memories of horror. The stories they tell remind us of how terrible humans can act when they think people who are different from them are not needed.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank was a Jewish German girl who lived until the very end of World War II. On her 13th birthday, right before she and her family received a message telling them to go into hiding, she got a diary. When she and her family eventually went into hiding, she brought her diary with her to the hiding place, which was right behind her father’s work office. She wrote in it every day, telling about her feelings of the situation and what it was like to be in the position that she was in. In 1944, the Nazis found her, her family, and the other people that were hiding with them because some Germans who disliked the Jews reported to the Nazis where they were. In 1945, Anne Frank, at the age of 16, died in the concentration camps. Her diary was found and is now an amazing book of all of the terrifying situations that she went through called The Diary of Anne Frank

Jews

The Jews were the main victims of the Holocaust because they were hated the most by the Nazis because Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Their triangle was yellow, and it had a "P" on it. Many people who were Jewish but never considered themselves to be a Jew (they considered themselves Germans) suddenly became a target of the Nazis. German Jews weren’t allowed to go to theaters, swimming pools, and resorts. Jews had to carry identification cards around with them, and they always had to wear a Star of David badge everywhere they went. There was a time called Kristallnacht, when the Nazis burned down synagogues, places where the Jews practiced their religion, and they destroyed Jewish businesses and homes. Jewish children were not allowed to go to school anymore. The Jews had curfews for how late they could be out, and then they weren’t allowed in public places. Finally, Germany started kicking them out of the country. The next step for the Nazis was to send the Jews to concentration and death camps. About six million Jews died for one simple reason: they were Jewish.

Gypsies

The Gypsies, a group of people who moved around a lot, are believed to have originally come from northwest India, and had been getting killed for centuries by other people because they were also disliked. The Nazis just continued to kill them, seeing the Gypsies as both selfish and pests to Germans because they thought that the Gypsies practiced witchcraft. Their triangle was black and had a "T" on it. The Nazis began sending the Gypsies to concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust.