Persecutions Of Jews

The first persecutions of Jews did not start at the beginning of World War II. During the Middle Ages, the 11th century, are the first recorded massacres of the Jews, when the French and English murdered over 10,000 in an effort to exterminate a large majority. To distinguish them from other citizens, the Jews were first forced to wear badges and distinctive clothing in 1215 as well as in World War II (Levy 8). In Poland on November 23, 1939, Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on a white armband to separate them from anyone else they would come into contact with (Hogan 180). In the ghettos in Poland during World War II, Jews were forced to wear a white square with a black “J” over a yellow circle on their left shoulder to signify that

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau Am Inn, Austria. Hitler believed that his family line was an embarrassment to him and did all to his ability to stay away from them (“Rise of Hitler”). In 1908 he moved to Vienna to Vienna after dropping out of school in Linz. He continued his lazy lifestyle and in 1914 he joined the army to fight in World War I. People and other soldiers noticed his bravery during the war (Levy 20). After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was signed to punish Germany for the damage the created during the war. Germany lost 13% of the land including colonies overseas, and also had to pay $33 billion to Great Britain, France, and Italy (Levy15). In January 1933 Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany (Sheehan 11). He formed the National German Socialist Worker Party also known as the Nazi Party (Sheehan 4). On September 1, 1939, Hitler stormed the Polish border and started to raise tensions of possibly having another world war (Ward 17). He named himself “fuhrer” which means leader. He created his own part of the army and named them the Nazi Storm Troopers and it is known that these troopers were not people to come into contact with. The Nazi Storm Troopers were very violent and fierce (Fiscus

By autumn the largest gas chambers were under construction (Sheehan 15). Four new concentration camps were built in Poland between December 1941 to the end of 1942 (Sheehan 11). When arriving at the concentration camp, Jews would get off the train at the “deportation square,” where they would be separated into men, women, and children. There was a large storage room off of the square to hold any possessions that they would confiscate. Those possessions were sent to Germany to be sold. The German officers that were in charge of Treblinka were trained at Trawniki training camp (“Treblinka”). Any men over 40, women, children, or sickly would be sent to death immediately when they arrived at the deportation square (Sheehan 33). At Treblinka the method to killing was called the “brain buster.” German officers would tell the people to separate into two lines and both would be killed (Steiner 22). After this technique they moved to one similar. They would tell them to separate and the left line would go to the gas chambers and the right line would go to work at the camp (Sheehan 33). Franz Suchomel, a former guard at Treblinka, describes the path to the camp as, “woven into the barbed wire were braches of pine trees . . . people couldn’t see anything to the left or the right. Nothing. You couldn’t see through it. Impossible (Sheehan 15).” Around the Treblinka camp there were watch towers at all four corners which stood 26 feet high to