Research Paper Holocaust Overview

Brandy Renfro

Mr. Neuburger English Comp 102-127 18 October 2012

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The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in history. It is hard to believe humanity could ethically allow systematically killing of approximately twelve million people. That one leader named Adolf Hitler could lead so many people into so much hate and to become murderers. The consequence of the event still haunts mankind today. Some believe that the Holocaust did not even take place. In order to prevent this horrific event from reoccurring one has to acknowledge all the events that led the Nazis rise to power. Nazi rise to power At the end of World War 1, Germany was not prepared for the aftermath. According to A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust (TGH), German propaganda had not prepared for such a huge defeat and the upper officials and politicians who were responsible claimed Germany had been bamboozled by its leftwing politicians, communists and Jews. Furthermore after the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, the Germans were disarmed and forced to pay reparations to France and Britain for their immense war costs, therefore leaving the German
Adolf Hitler shortly after his rise in power. Source: www.azishistory.com

Community in a state of poverty and growing resentment. Meanwhile Adolf Hitler joined a small political party called The

German Workers Party. Hitler rapidly made it to the top of the leadership ranks due to his talent in emotional and captivating speeches. Within two years Hitler changed the name of the party to National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), and eventually had a following of 3,000 members. Hitler encouraged national pride, militarism a commitment to the Volk and racially pure. Hitler condemned the Jews, exploiting antisemtitic feelings that had prevailed in Europe

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for centuries. A year later after that in 1920 Hitler was the appointed the official leader also known as the Fhrer (The Rise of the Nazi Party). Nazis views on Jews While Adolf Hitler was building his empire he was instilling anti-sematic beliefs into his followers. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Hitler released a book titled Mein Kampf (My Struggle) it contained details of what he considered necessary removal of the Jews. Moreover a potent component of political anti-Semitism was nationalism, whose adherents often denounced Jews as disloyal citizens. Hitler described the need for expansion of the German master race, and he explained his beliefs why the Jews were a hindrance to his plan. Hitler believed everything reverted back to genetics. Furthermore Hitler only wanted the Germanic race as the master race and it that the
The Nazis used public displays to spread their ideas of race. This is of the Nordic race. Source: http://bit.ly/RyPhYM

German race should remain pure in order for the Germans to one day take over the world (Antisemitism).

Nuremberg Laws In 1933 President Hindenburg gave Hitler the power needed to start acting out and dictating to the German people the plans he had on getting the Jewish people out of Germany and making the German race pure when he named Hitler Chancellor of Germany. According to TGH, Hitler announced the Nuremberg laws in 1935, which contained over 120 ordnances; the laws stripped the Jews of their civil rights as German Citizens and separated them from the Germans legally, socially, and politically. Furthermore the law used ancestry to define race and not religious beliefs. Many thousands of Germans who had not previously considered themselves

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as Jews found themselves defined as nonAryans. Hitler warned in a menacingly manner that if the law did not resolve the problem, he will turn to the Nazi Part for a final Solution (The Nazification of Germany).

A Hitler youth teaching Nuremberg laws in school. Source: Propaganda http://bit.ly/SY2R9A

Propaganda Propaganda had become a powerful weapon for shaping public opinion and behaviors during World War 1. According to USHMM the Nazi propagandists drew upon successful techniques and strategies used by the Allies, Socialists, Communists and Italian Fascist to advance their political campaigns, win public support, and to wage war. Once in power, the Nazis eliminated the marketplace of ideas through terror
Power of Deception using Propaganda Source: http://bit.ly/T0T2s9

and media manipulation a mobilized propaganda as a weapon to

unite the German people around a leader and to facilitate aggression, mass murder, and genocide (Propaganda).

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Kristallnacht Following the Nuremberg Laws, the decided Jewish citizens were being gathered and exiled from the German Reich, often leaving family members disoriented or alone. According to USHMM, Herschel Grynszpan in an act of retribution lashed out against the Nazi party and shot the Ernst Vom Roth November 7th, 1938. Within a two day time span the Nazi party began its retribution known as the night of broken glass, translated to Kristallnacht. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the
The burning of the ceremonial hall at the Jewish cemetery in Graz during Kristallnacht. Source: http://bit.ly/Txk5t2

Sudetenland. SA and Hitler youth members across the country shattered the shop windows of an estimated 7,500 Jewish owned

commercial establishments, and looted their wares. Moreover USHMM explains that kristallnacht represented one of the most important turning points in National Socialist antiesemitic policy. Due to the Germans civilians response their passivity of the violence signaled to the Nazi regime that the German public was prepared for more radical measures. This was the start of the free of Jews by deportation of the Jewish population to the East known as Jewish capture and placement into concentration camps or into the ghettos (Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938). Resistance All though the Jews were the primary victims there were others groups that resisted the oppression of the Nazis. The TCH states resistance against the Nazis planned or spontaneous, armed or unarmed took many forms throughout WW11 and the Holocaust. For many, the resistance was a struggle for physical existence. Some escaped through legal and illegal

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emigration. Others hid. Those that remained struggled to obtain lifes needs by smuggling food, clothing and medicine to survive. Furthermore as the war continued the conditions worsened in Europe for the Jews, but their resistance intensified. With a growing awareness of the Final Solution the resistance turned to forms of guerrilla warfare. The partisans were relatively few in number, but they were able to move within enemy territory and disrupt the Nazi
Jewish partisans, survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, at a family camp in Wyszkow forest. Poland, 1944 Source: http://bit.ly/ZiYSqR

activity, by cutting telephone, telegraph, and electrical lines and by destroying power stations. They also

destroyed transportation links by blowing up bridges, roads, and railway equipment; also they would sabotage factories that produced materials for the Axis war effort. Moreover by April 19, 1943 was the beginning of an armed revolt by brave and a determined group of the Warsaw ghetto dwellers. The Jewish Fighter Organization (ZOB) led the insurgency and they had fought for a month, using the weapons smuggled into the ghetto. The retribution by the Nazis was that they brought in tanks and machine guns, burning blocks of buildings, destroying the ghetto, and ultimately killing the last 60,000 Warsaw Jewish ghetto residents (Resistance). Wannsee Conference The Final Solution On January 20th, 1942, fifteen high-ranking Nazi Party and German officials gathered at the Villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate of what they call the Final Solution of the Jewish Question According to USHMM the Final Solution was the code name for systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. Heydrich convened the Wannsee conference to (1) to inform and secure support from the government ministries and other interested agencies relevant to the implementation of the Final Solution and (2) to

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disclose to the participants that Hitler himself had tasked Heydrich and the RSHA with coordinating the operation. The men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be taken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime. Moreover the participates were already aware that National Socialist regime were already engaging in mass murder
The Villa Source: http://bit.ly/X16wI7

of the Jews and other civilians, some through Einsatzgruppen ,

police and other military units were slaughtering tens of thousands of Jews daily. Under this provision there were approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe that would fall into the Final Solution (Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution") Selection: Selektion Not long after the Wannsee Conference the transportation of the Jews from the Ghettos to the concentration camps and killing centers was put in place at a rapid pace. The Nazis started liquidating the ghettos by using their organized train system to transport the Jews. The Jews would be overly stuffed into cattle cars and forced to endure hundreds of miles without food and water, not knowing the final destination and their fate. The Holocaust Explained states that the selection process was, once the Jews were unloaded they were separated into
Jews from Subcarpathian Rus sit in a large group on one side of the ramp at AuschwitzBirkenau before undergoing the selection process. Source: http://bit.ly/SREnMY

male and female lines. The SS doctors carried out this selection. Usually, those over the age of 14 and deemed fit for work was sent to one side of the unloading ramp,

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the rest were sent to the other side. The elderly and children were sent directly to the line of prisoners who were selected for the gas chambers. Furthermore the Jews that were selected for work they would be registered and tattooed with an identification number, stripped of their clothes, shaved of all body hair and disinfected. Once showered, they were given the horrid striped pajamas, to begin their lives in the work camps. (Selection) Extermination methods The Nazis tried several methods before they went to their method of choice which was gassing known as Zyklon B for mass murdering. According to USHMM the first of the methods for the Nazis to use was the German mobile killing squads, a special duty unit called Einsatzgruppen, they followed the German army as it advances deep into Soviet territory, and carry out mass-murders. By spring of 1943, they mobile killing squads killed more than a million Jews and tens of thousands partisans, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet political officials. The other inefficient method was gas vans, it was determined that it had
Hartheim castle, a euthanasia killing center where people with physical and mental disabilities were killed by gassing and lethal injection. Hartheim, Austria Source: http://bit.ly/TWVUGt

adverse effects on the soldiers and with a great number of bodies they had to dispose of it added more of a workload. Moreover

after the Final Solution was put in place there were six extermination camps established in former Polish territory: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. There were about three million Jews killed in these death camps. (The Final Solution) Liberation June, 1944 brought about a wonderful change stop the oppression of the Nazis in power. According to USHMM on June 6th, the western Allies launched the single largest invasion in

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world history, landing about 150,000 soldiers under the command of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower. By the end of that month, more than 850,000 American, British, and Canadian troops had come ashore of the beaches of Normandy, France. Eisenhower called it the Great Crusade the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Furthermore as the Allied and Soviet troops moved across Europe they were able to
U.S. assault troops, laden with equipment, wade through the surf to a Normandy beach from landing craft in June 1944 Source: http://bit.ly/PQA86F

witness the destruction that the Nazis had tried to cover up, by locating several concentration camps, running into mass graves

sites. The Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz concentration camp some 7,000 prisoners, including young children, who had not been evacuated by the SS. Even though liberation of Nazi camps was not the primary objective of the Allied military campaign, U.S, British, Canadian, and Soviet troops freed prisoners, fed them and were able to secure most needed medical attention. However, before the liberation of Auschwitz, the remaining Nazi soldiers forced the majority of its prisoners on death marches. They were forced to march for miles upon miles and many died just days before the liberation (Liberation). After Liberation until 1948 when Israel is formed After the liberation of the Jews from the concentration camps there were issues to resolve. According to the TGH, there were two large and on-going international needs that emerged as World War 11 was ending: (1) retribution for perpetrators, and (2) the re-settlement of people uprooted by the war. Furthermore there were International and national trails conducted in the Soviet Union, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and other Europeans countries

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indicted hundreds of war criminals. The defendants ranged from Hitlers deputy minister, to the editor-in-chief of a malicious antisemitic newspaper, to concentration camp guards and the members of the Einsatzgruppen. The Allied troops were so outraged at what they found at concentration camps that they demanded German civilians to directly confront the
An American soldier and liberated prisoners of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Austria, May 1945. Source: http://bit.ly/RQnOmX

atrocities. Some Germans citizens were forced to partake in the burial of many corpses that were found in the camps. Furthermore after the war, the International

Military Tribunal was chartered, it members consisted of the United States, Great Britain, France and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and they were charged with the task of prosecuting the major Nazi war criminals. Moreover in Nuremberg there were 22 high ranking Nazi officials named and brought to trail before the world. Robert Jackson was the Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials. Half the defendants were sentenced to death, three were acquitted, and the remaining was imprisoned. Hitler himself had committed suicide therefore escaping retribution and justice. Meanwhile there were one million displaced people, about 80 % Christian and 20% Jewish. Many of the survivors were displaced and they felt they could no longer live in their former villages which during the war had become Jewish graveyards. Many of the Jewish refugees turned to the American DP camps for temporary housing. In the meantime the British turned to the United Nations, hoping they could resolve the issue, On November 29, 1794, the United Nations general Assembly adopted a plan that divided Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem under international control. TGH later states

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that on May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel as theirs and then the British had withdrawn from Palestine (Aftermath). With the laws that have been put in place and with continued education of this horrific event. It is hopeful that humanity has learned and evolved, that there is more empathy in mankind due to how diversity is being celebrated and accepted in most cultures.

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Works Cited "Aftermath." The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. "Antisemitism." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. "The "Final Solution"" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 05 Nov. 2012. "Holocaust History." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 23 Oct. 2012. "Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 03 Nov. 2012. "Liberation." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. "The Nazification of Germany." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. "Propaganda." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 04 Nov. 2012. "Resistance." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web. 29 Oct. 2012. "The Rise of the Nazi Party." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web. 01 Nov. 2012. "Selection." The Holocaust Explained. The Holocaust Explained. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.

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"Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

Brandy, This is a pretty decent paper. Other than numerous typos and the one place where you need to put into your own words, your paper is done quite well. You organize your writing quite well. Work on comma usage. For example, those signal words like furthermore and more over should always be followed by a comma. Good work. See below for score.

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Score Points Available

40

Content paper demonstrates understanding and confidence about topic

35

20

Sources uses only primary and secondary sources

20

40

In-Text Citations integrates sources within text with effective use of signal words and phrases

32

35

Formatting properly uses MLA formatting

33

25

Works Cited works cited page has the required number of sources and is properly formatted

25

15

Pictures uses pictures to enhance the text with effective captions and source information

15

25

Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errors in spelling, punctuation, etc.

18 Total Score

Total = 200

178