The Jews were specifically singled out to be killed by the Nazi’s. The Nazi’s also killed gypsies, homosexuals, etc. but the Nazi’s were trying to completely erase the “race” of Jews. According to Six Million Crucifixions most Germans had been raised to just naturally hate Jews and blame them (“The Holocaust”). Hitler blamed the Jews for everything, including losing World War I, and most people saw them as being different so they singled them out and blamed them for all chaos that happened in Germany (“The Holocaust”). According to A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust, Hitler passed the Nuremburg Laws which were laws that described who was Jewish (“Victims”). Some people who weren’t even Jewish were under Nazi suspicion because of these laws that he passed (“Victims”). In my opinion, this was obviously unfair for the Jews because no one would listen to them. Children are told to always obey their parents and listen to what they have to say, so you can see how this opinion to hate Jews caught on fast.
When you are little you don’t know about politics. Since you don’t know anything about politics, it’s common to just go along with whatever your parents believe since they are older and wiser. This same kind of process happened in Germany during the Holocaust. Most little kids didn’t know much about the Nazi’s or Hitler so they went along with what their parents told them. Parents told their kids whatever the Nazi’s told them to tell their kids. So the children grew up loving Hitler and hating the Jews. If you are raised believing a certain way then you won’t understand anything different. For example, if I came up to you and told you that pigs could fly you wouldn’t believe me because you have always been told that pigs could never fly...
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... some of them should’ve thought about it a little more. People also gave in to peer pressure when they believed the rumors about the Jews. Rumors would go around about how bad and evil the Jews were, and no one gave them a chance. Obviously, this was all Hitler’s fault for setting up this scheme. Personally, I believe the Germans should receive some of the blame too. The Holocaust was a very appalling period in history, and it is something that we can learn about today.
Works Cited
"The German Churches and the Nazi State." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council,
10 June 2013. Web. 14 May 2014.
"Why Did Hitler Hate Jews?" Anne Frank House.
Web. 15 May 2014.
“Victims.” A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust. University of South
Florida. 2005. Web. 14 May 2014.
"The Holocaust." Six Million Crucifixions.
Web. 14 May 2014.
If Hitler and the Germans weren’t so concerned about killing the Jewish people, why would they kill? millions of them for no reason? The evidence shows “Nazi racial doctrine defined Jews as ‘race defilers’ who schemed to destroy the Master race through intermarriage and seduction” (Judge and Langdon, Connection A World History, 793). This idea was obviously just an excuse to the Germans; the German leader hypnotized them all. They went through ridiculous, unnecessary actions, just so they can kill innocent people.
Or they asserted that they were just being directed (Rensmann 170). This is actually unethical, he said. It is obvious that the responsibility is not able to rest completely on Nazi heads, as it remains apparent that the ordinary German resident was as well among the attempted genocide put in force by the individuals who provided Hitler’s cause. Most people appreciate the Holocaust’s nature, other than they fail to hold the whole country accountable. It remains impracticable to believe that the crime committed could have been focused entirely on one meticulous force movement.
To understand the Holocaust you need to understand six words, definition, expropriation, einsatzgruppen, concentration, deportation, and death camps. The Germans define the Jews biologically based on religion of their grandparents. When the regime came to power in January 1933 part of the Nazi movement wanted to out rid or Jews overnight, what they did was they began to legislate against the Jews and rapidly the Jews were kick out not only in civil service but also in education, universities, teachers lawyers and doctors. The Jews became something that was not needed. The climax of this early period of legislation was the Nuremberg laws. The laws were there to determine officially citizenship in Germany, however the only definition that were given who is a citizen were definition for who was not a citizen and the only people define as not citizen of Germany were the Jews. In other time in history Jews could convert, they could hide themselves by assimilating within the host country. However under racial theory during the Nazi period Jews were Jews because of the blood that was coursing thought their veins. So the ultimate theory was that if you wanted to get rids of Jews that you couldn’t do it through conversion or any other way then to murder them.
After the Great Depression and World War I, Germany was left in a fragile state. The economy was ruined, many people were unemployed and all hope was lost. The Nazis believed it wasn’t their own fault for the mess, but those who were inferior to the German people. These Nazi beliefs lead to and result in cruelty and suffering for the Jewish people. The Nazis wanted to purify Germany and put an end to all the inferior races, including Jews, because they considered them a race.
“The United States and the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
Holocaust Facts The Holocaust has many reasons for it. Some peoples’ questions are never answered about the Holocaust, and some answers are. The Holocaust killed over 6 million Jews (Byers.p.10.) Over 1.5 million children (Byers, p. 10). They were all sent to concentration camps to do hard labor work.
When people first hear about the Holocaust, they are so surprised to hear how horrible and sick the whole time period was for Jews. Everyone is really shocked to know that so many horrible and hateful things could be done. The idea that countries were taken over, families and children were torn apart and people were tortured and murdered, is unbelievable. Propaganda and psychological conditioning played a large role in the genocide and overall indifference towards Jews during the holocaust. Not only was Hitler and his troops able to control armies, but he was able to influence other countries through precise planning and strategic moves.
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Superiority and discrimination have been the underlying problem in many world-wide events throughout history leading into present day. Whether it be a caste system issue or a race issue, there’s always a group that labels themselves greater than that of another. This affair was apparent in 1940s Germany. The German people would be persuaded into a dictatorship led by Adolf Hitler, who while in power would give rise to Nazism, allowing the mistreatment of Jews to commence. This extermination would be known as “The Holocaust” translated to “sacrifice by fire” and would affect many different people groups during and after the event.
The phrase "a lesson to be learned and a tragedy to behold" has been indelibly attached to the Holocaust that to think of it in any other way is thought to insult all those of the Jewish community who lost their lives to the attempted genocide of their race by the Nazi regime. Despite such brevity attached to learning lessons from the Holocaust one must wonder whether the lesson has actually been learned or if people will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Angela Merkel, the current German Chancellor, has stated that the German experiment towards multi-culturalism has failed, those who wish to migrate into the country must learn the German way whether it is the language they speak, the culture they have or the very religion they hold dear . Such sentiments seem to echo those of the former Third Reich which held the German way, the Aryan way, as the only path to which people should attempt to pursue. While this paper is not trying to vilify the current German government nor is it trying to compare it to the Third Reich, the fact remains that the steps their government is taking fall uneasily close to that of their vilified predecessor. The fact is though, the German government is merely following through with the popular sentiment of its citizenry who believe immigrants coming into the country disrupts the German way of life and all attempts to live side by side in peace have failed. Despite being a predominantly Christian nation who supposedly follow the way of Christ, to hear them say that makes one wonder whether their claims truly reflects their deeds. It is from this situation that the essay of Eckardt and its view that the Holocaust is a "Christian Problem" becomes relevant to what is happening in the world today.
Beginning in 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party targeted not only those of the Jewish religion but many other sets. Hitler was motivated by religion and nationalism to eradicate any threats to his state. It was Hitler’s ideology that his Aryan race was superior to any other. Hitler’s goal was to create a “master race” by eliminating the chance for “inferiors” to reproduce. Besides the Jews the other victims of the genocide include the Roma (Gypsies), African-Germans, the mentally disabled, handicapped, Poles, Slavs, Anti-Nazi political parties, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Homosexuals. In Hitler’s eyes all of these groups needed to be eliminated in order for his master race to be a success.
Jews were constantly persecuted before the Holocaust because they were deemed racially inferior. During the 1930’s, the Nazis sent thousands of Jews to concentration camps. Hitler wanted to
Through the events of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazis, is responsible for the executions of nearly six million Jewish people. The Holocaust was caused by a strong sense of racism, or the belief that the German race was superior to the Jewish race. The Germans, however, were not the first group to develop a strong hatred for the Jewish people; throughout history, Jews have often served as scapegoat for the rest of the world’s problems. Hilter was able to convince the Germans to kill the Jews by using propaganda, building upon the European hatred for Jews, and by exercising his power over the Germans.
Of all the examples of injustice against Jews or rather, humanity in history, the Jewish Holocaust has to be one of the most prominent. In the period of 1933 to 1945, the Nazis waged a vicious war against Jews and other "lesser races". This war came to a head with the "Final Solution" in 1938. One of the end results of the Final Solution was the horrible concentration and death camps of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Nazi-controlled Europe. Nearly 5,933,900 Jews were annihilated during the whole process which was termed by historians as “THE HOLOCAUST”. In this process, Polish and Soviet civilians, Slavs, Romani, Soviet prisoners of war and other political, religious opponents of the Nazi were also exterminated. This sums up the total deaths to somewhere between 11 million-17 million people.