The Holocaust was a tragic event that affected millions of people and still affects people today. The Holocaust is known as the genocide of over 6 million Jewish people and millions of others. This horrific event was led by Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party. This political party used totalitarian methods of using power starting in 1933 and lasting until 1945. This group had radical ideas how to reform Germany and wanted to become the superior nation. This party also promoted the idea of anti-Semitism, creating a hatred for those who did not fit their definition of the Aryan race. The Aryan race in Hitler’s opinion would have the physical features of blue eyes, being blonde and having a great height. Since not many fit the description of …show more content…
It made them believe that they should be ashamed of who they are and that death would be better than being tortured continuously. Survivors of this event were compared to others to see how well they could adjust back into a normal functioning society and the results were surprising. It was found that Holocaust survivors had “poorer psychological well-being, more post-traumatic symptoms and more psychopathological symptoms. There were no significant differences between cognitive functioning or physical health. Survivors that lived in Israel a better sense of well-being and social adjustment than the others.” (Hamilton, 2010) This event left families broken and extinct, it tested their faith and how they viewed the world. The holocaust impacted many communities and spread fear to those who were neighbors or had similar characteristics and beliefs. Many people did not feel safe in their own homes and complied with their superior out of fear of what might happen to them. It destroyed populations and reputations of countries if people did not die they tried to flee for their lives. It left the world shocked and made World War II that much more worth fighting and going against each other. As for the Nazi officers, this event made them realize just what their destructive obedience did and try to figure out how to live with the …show more content…
These men protected their leader, Adolf Hitler and carried out his plans against the Jews. These officers were also in charge of running the concentration camps and held responsible for tormenting and killing millions. One man of significance was Heinrich Himmler, who gave the S.S officers their orders and even created a secret police force called the Gestapo, an elite police force dedicated to hunting Hitlers enemies. Under all these commands, officers forced millions of people into hard labor, where they could die from exhaustion, starvation or disease. Officers of the Nazi party exposed weak people to the harshest elements of weather and provided inadequate care for them. On occasion people were experimented on to provide research on medical subjects. The ‘superiors’ also shot and poisoned the ‘inferior’ people with gas. In recent years social psychologists and experiments have been done in hopes to understand why these people were so obedient to their leader and how they were able to perform such horrible acts. Social psychologists have concluded that the pressure to conform come from two sources. One can be convinced by others to modify their behavior or they can perceive the behavior is a norm and start to change their behavior to fit in. In the case of Hitler and the Nazi party murdering millions of people, Hitler convinced others to believe that the Jewish population needed to be controlled and made to
The Holocaust represents 11 million lives that abruptly ended, the extermination of people not for who they were but for what they were. Groups such as handicaps, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents and others were persecuted by the Nazis because of their religious/political beliefs, physical defects, or failure to fall into the Aryan ideal. The Holocaust was lead by a man named Adolf Hitler who was born in 1889, and died in 1945.
Another method of dehumanizing the Jews was to make sure they turned on one another. Once the Jews began turning on each other, it kept them in their place and allowed them to mistrust one another even though the Germans were the real culprits. Since goods were scarce, it did not take long for the ghettos to descend into chaos. Stealing became a common practice amongst those who could not afford to buy illegally on the black market. Another way to make sure Jews constantly mistrusted one another was to make sure Jews were the ones who kept the ghettos running. Within the ghettos, a Jewish police force called Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst was created to keep Jews from escaping the ghettos. They wore armbands with an identifying marker and a badge. They were not permitted to use guns but were allowed to carry batons. The Jewish police reported any mishaps to the German police who were assigned to check perimeters outside the ghettos. They were recruited from two groups: lawyers and criminals. The criminal group was larger and soon became the dominating force behind the police and life inside the ghettos. In the Warsaw ghetto, a special group called Group 13 was created for the purpose of combatting the black market that thrived during this time. The group was also known as the Jewish Gestapo and had orders to report back to the German Gestapo. While officially the group’s job was to fight off the black market, unofficially the group extorted and blackmailed Polish sympathizers. They also were very skilled in tracking down Jews who had managed to not be sent to the ghettos. The Jewish Police were also in charge of a prison that allowed them to continue their illegal operations
The Holocaust not only affected the areas where it took place, it affected the entire world. Even though Jewish people were the main victims in the Holocaust, it also left lasting effects on other groups of people. Both the Nazi and Jewish decedents still feel the aftermath of one of the most horrific counts of genocide that the world has ever encountered. The cries of the victims in concentration camps still ring around the globe today, and they are not easily ignored. Although the Holocaust took place during World War Two, the effects that it had on the world are still prominent today.
Adolf Hitler came to power over Germany in January of 1933. He hated Jews and blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened to Germany. Hitler’s goal in life was to eliminate the Jewish population. With his rise to power in Germany, he would put into action his plan of elimination. This is not only why German Jews were the main target of the Holocaust, but why they were a large part of the years before, during, and after the Holocaust. Hitler’s “final solution” almost eliminated the Jewish population in Europe during World War II. At the end of the war and along with his suicide, the Jewish population would survive the horror known as the Holocaust and the Jews would eventually find their way back to their homeland of Israel as well as find new communities to call home.
The Holocaust was the mass murder of over ten million European 'undesireables' between 1941 and 1945 by the Nazi regime. Hitler and his Nazis established a large number of labor and death camps throughout Nazi occupied countries. A holocaust, by definition, is a mass human slaughter caused by fire. These events Hitler authorized were categorized as a holocaust because after the prisoners in the camps died, or, if they were at a labor camp, close enough to death that they were no longer of any use to the Nazi guards stationed at the camp they were at, the guards would burn the bodies in mass. The purpose, center and essence of the Holocaust lies within one man, Adolf Hitler.
Causes & Effects of the Holocaust There are times in history when desperate people, plagued by desperate situations, blindly give evil men power. These men, once given power, have only their own evil agendas to carry out. The Holocaust was the result of one such man's agenda. In short, simplicity, sheer terror, brutality, inhumanity, injustice, irresponsibility, immorality, stupidity, hatred, and pure evil are but a few words to describe the Holocaust. A holocaust is defined as a disaster that results in the tremendous loss of human life.
The Holocaust could best be defined as the mass killing of about 6 million Jewish people during World War II. A lot of events led up to the Holocaust, during the Holocaust, and even after the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party and was held most responsible for this terrible genocide. The Holocaust was a terrible time in our world’s history.
The aftermath of the Holocaust left over six million Jews perished and the survivors in pain and anguish, each of their lives impacted forever by reliving the horrid events of this unspeakable tragedy every day. They needed to pick up the pieces to continue living by fleeing to different countries, assimilating into new cultures, and beginning new families to create happy memories. This being challenging for many of them, forced some of the survivors to suppress their emotions about the past in order to accomplish these newer lives while others to talk about it frequently. Each of them had their own methods to cope with the affects and thoughts they had after the Holocaust; their methods having its own advantages and disadvantages. This goes to show that the Holocaust survivors were affected more than ones mind
In conclusion the Holocaust was a horrible thing. It created a world war that could only be stopped by someone winning. The Jews and other prisoners got caught in the crossfire of this world war. The Jewish people and many other prisoners that were in the camps face starvation, selection, transport, and many other
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.
He thought that those “inherited characteristics (did not only affect) outward appearance and physical structure”, but also determined a person’s physical, emotional/social, and mental state. Besides these ideas, the Nazi’s believed that certain ethnic races and certain people were inferior.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million people of innocent Jewish decent by the Nazi government. The Holocaust was a very tragic time in history due to the idealism that people were taken from their surroundings, persecuted and murdered due to the belief that German Nazi’s were superior to Jews. During the Holocaust, many people suffered both physically and mentally. Tragic events in people’s lives cause a change in their outlook on the world and their future. Due to the tragic events that had taken place being deceased in their lives, survivors often felt that death was a better option than freedom.
Approximately 6 million Jews and 5 million other people starting from the year 1933 were killed. They were put to death. There was one main person responsible for all of this. Adolf Hitler was a Nazi German leader who attempted genocide and was part of one of the worst wars in history, WWII. Hitler took up the role of initiating the holocaust.
The Gestapo captured Jews and sent them to ghettos where they would later be sent to concentration camps while the SS worked in the camps, they were both well known for spreading fear and shared in the killing of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other social classes. The SS were originally created as personal bodyguards for Nazi leaders such as Adolf Hitler, but soon began rising in power. As the SS starting rising in power, they soon commanded all concentration camps in Germany and in German-occupied territory, according to SS and the Camp System United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Gestapo took the role of capturing and sending Jews to ghettos where they would soon be sent off to concentration camps, facing hardships such as disease, starvation and overwork; thus leading to one of the few similarities of working with concentration camps. The work of the SS and gestapo rapidly spread fear throughout the people. According to History learning site it states that, “The Gestapo’s greatest weapon was the fear that it created,” thus giving the gestapo more power over the people; the SS were also known for spreading fear throughout the population. The third similarity includes the deaths of millions. The main targets of the gestapo and Nazi party were those who posed as a threat to the Nazi party. Within those target groups were “gay people, priests, gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, communists…”
The treatment of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi’s can be described as actions that could only be done by a totalitarian state. Hitler believed in eugenics, the idea of improving a race by selective breeding. Nazi ideology of the Jewish race was severe anti-Semitism and pure hatred. The Nazi policy towards the Jews has been said to be the most brutal and horrific example of anti-Semitism in history.