The Holocaust: A Crime Against Humanity

The Holocaust is one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity. At first, the Nazi’s put pressure on the Jews by forcing them out of high statuses by boycotting their stores, and eventually by physically persecuting them. However, several Jews did emigrate, more so to North America. After the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Poland in 1939, Nazi control eventually spread to Holland, Norway, northern France, and Czechoslovakia; as the Nazi’s power spread, the more executions occurred. Those Jews, who wanted to flee, found it difficult, because several countries refused to take in massive amounts of Jews, including the United States. The Jews were without defenders, and when World War II was declared, they were trapped. Hitler then began to exterminate all European Jews.

Jews in countries under Nazi control, were identified, and forced to wear yellow stars in public, and eventually were deported to concentration camps. When the Jews arrived at these camps, the SS, or whoever was in charge at that camp divided them into two groups. One group consisted of those individuals who were strong enough to work, mainly men, in which either they had to help carry the bodies from the executions to the crematoria or they had to search the bodies of the deceased for any valuables. The second group included mainly women, children, the sick, and the elderly, who were immediately sent to be gassed, or shot in the camp hospital. Upon arriving at these camps in overcrowded trains, they were herded out by strong thuggish guards onto the arrival ramp, where German SS-men and Ukrainian guards forced them to hand over their belongings and their clothes. Most of the individuals thought that they were going to move to the east for bet...

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