Imagine being shoved off of an old, dirty train and not having a clue where you were headed. Everyone on the train is in incredible shock, and not much is heard except horrifying screams and cries from those around you. No one has access to food or water. Believe it or not, that is what you would have experienced if you lived in Germany, Poland, or Hungary about seventy years ago. Nearly six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was much more than a cruel, belittling era; it was an atrocity beyond measure.
On September 11, 2001, three thousand people were killed from a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in New York City. That is not even a comparison to the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered. The word “holocaust” has multiple meanings. In the early times, it meant a burnt offering to the gods (Downing 4). Middle Age citizens referred to it as a huge sacrifice or destruction (4).
Between June 1941- March 1945, there were approximately four thousand Jews murdered each day (4). There is no way anyone can grasp how bad it must have been. Death, around camps, was expressed in many ways; starved, froze or worked to death, gassed in death chambers, or even shot for no reason at all. As the death rates rose, finding a place to bury everyone was becoming a perplexing challenge.
With Hitler’s wish for living space, his goal for world domination and World War II as a cover, Hitler and his Nazi regime were able to carry out one of the greatest crimes in human history with about three and half million Jews being murdered at the death camps. All Hitler wanted was to eliminate defective genetic diseases, which in the end could endanger his wish for the Aryan race worldwide. ...
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...sign was up above that read “Arbeit Machttrei” or work will make you free. This was a trick to the prisoners to make them believe they were going to an actual work camp. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire fence and had nine watch towers. The first few days at camp were spent in quarantine. Meaningless tasks were done and they were given very little food. Sleeping conditions were beyond awful. Some people even considered camp “a living hell” (Downing 31).
The Holocaust was by far one of the worst events in history. So many people were killed for no reason at all. Hitler’s gal was not only to kill all Jews, but also to have a worldwide race of Aryans, blonde hair and blue eyes. There will never be enough horrifying words to describe the physical and mental pain each and every prisoner went through. Do you think you could have survived the Holocaust?
Being confined in a concentration camp was beyond unpleasant. Mortality encumbered the prisons effortlessly. Every day was a struggle for food, survival, and sanity. Fear of being led into the gas chambers or lined up for shooting was a constant. Hard labor and inadequate amounts of rest and nutrition took a toll on prisoners. They also endured beatings from members of the SS, or they were forced to watch the killings of others. “I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Night Quotes). Small, infrequent, rations of a broth like soup left bodies to perish which in return left no energy for labor. If one wasn’t killed by starvation or exhaustion they were murdered by fellow detainees. It was a survival of the fittest between the Jews. Death seemed to be inevitable, for there were emaciated corpses lying around and the smell...
Not even the most powerful Germans could keep up with the deaths of so many people, and to this day there is no single wartime document that contains the numbers of all the deaths during the Holocaust. Although people always look at the numbers of people that were directly killed throughout the Holocaust, there were so many more that were affected because of lost family. Assuming that 11 million people died in the Holocaust, and half of those people had a family of 3, 16.5 million people were affected by the Holocaust. Throughout the books and documentaries that we have watched, these key factors of hate and intolerance are overcome. The cause of the Holocaust was hate and intolerance, and many people fighting against it overcame this hate
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One is considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself.
Life in Auschwitz was definitely not what many people think it was. Life was hard, housing was rough, the guards were mean and brutal and the different things that could happen to you were terrifying. One day in there would have killed most people and they lived like that for years. Every day was a constant battle for their lives and they never got a break. So many people died from getting sick or from the things the guards would do and no one could save them. The food was bad and they had to hurt each other to get more food so that they wouldn’t starve. They were forced to turn against each other to survive when they never should have had to. Life was never the same for those who went to Auschwitz and survived. As for those who didn’t survive; they never saw a better day.
The Holocaust has many reasons to 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. Jewish people weren’t the only ones sent to concentration camps. People such as people with disabilities, Homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, and Socialists (Byers.p.12). Everyone that was sent to concentration camps was sent via Train cars (www.historychannel.com). They had no food, water, or rest rooms up to 18 days. Many people died from the lack of food and water (Byers, p.15.). They children under 12 and elderly were sent to death camps because they were too weak or young too do the hard labor work so they were exterminated quickly (Byers, p.17.). Everybody at the camps were ordered to wear a certain colored star so they were easily spotted. The Holocaust went on from 1939 to 1945. Throughout all those years it was BAD.
“A typical concentration camp consisted of barracks that were secured from escape by barbed wire, watchtowers and guards. The inmates usually lived in overcrowded barracks and slept in bunk “beds”. In the forced labour camps, for
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, shear terror, brutality, inhumanity, injustice, irresponsibility, immorality, stupidity, hatred, and pure evil are but a few words to describe the Holocaust.
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
The Holocaust was an extremely horrific period of history. Millions were killed and lost everything, including money, family, and dignity. However, it has taught many lessons. We can study it today to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
The Holocaust was a horrible time for everyone involved, but for the Jews it was the worst. The Jews no longer had names they became numbers. Also they would fight and the S.S. would watch and enjoy. They lost all personal items, then forced to look and dress the same. This was an extremely painful and agonizing process to dehumanize the Jews. Which made it easier to take control of the Jews and get rid of them.
During the Holocaust the Jewish people and other prisoners in the camps had to face many issues. The Holocaust started in 1933 and finally ended in 1945. During these 12 years all kinds of people in Europe and many other places had so many different problems to suffer through. These people were starved, attacked, and transported like they were animals.
The Holocaust was the murder and persecution of approximately 6 million Jews and many others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January of 1933. The Nazis thought that the “inferior” Jews were a threat to the “racially superior” German racial community. The death camps were operated from 1941 to 1945, and many people lost their lives or were forced to work in concentration camps during these years. The story leading up to the Holocaust, how the terrible event affected people’s lives, and how it came to and end are all topics that make this historic event worth learning about.
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.
Hitler used propaganda and manufacturing enemies such as Jews and five million other people, to prepare the country for war. This shows Hitler’s attempt of genocide toward the Jewish race and other races.
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic and trying times for the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities that the Nazis considered undesirable were detained in concentration camps, death camps, or labor camps. There, they were forced to work and live in the harshest of conditions, starved, and brutally murdered. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek during the Holocaust that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” –Fidel Castro