The Little Known Victims of the Holocaust
Many people look back on the Holocaust today and realize that so many abysmal and hideous things happened. The genocide of the Jews is known but what may be less well documented is Hitler’s design to eradicate all groups other than the blue-eyed, fair-haired Aryans. So many of them were forgotten and just pushed in with the major race of the Jews, who were said to be unworthy of life. The people were not ready, nor expecting to be forced into such an egregious state of being. Adolf Hitler excruciatingly persecuted every race that he thought was unsuitable for his dream of a Master Race.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler began the start of World War II. He decided that he wanted to build what he called a Master Race. With that decision, he made up a legal document to exterminate whomever he thought was not suitable for his Master Race. The only suitable ones were the white people with blue eyes and blonde hair, otherwise known as the Aryans. Hitler had all the full-blood Germans under his command and he promised to have them all together in unison to regain peace. He had all of the educated people teach that their race was superior to others (Friedman 2).
Hitler, to keep his promise to the Germans, created the Nazi party to maintain order and to wipe out the unwanted. To go along with Hitler, the Nazis promoted Anti-Semitism. There were many laws that forbade harsh treatment to the human race but those laws did not mean anything to the Nazis; they broke every law and even beyond. Creating an ideal race began with having only Aryans present on Earth. Hitler’s desire was to have only people of Aryan descent, being somehow part of a past Iranian civilization from Europe. Even if they were ...
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...dreadful man. Having an idea to exterminate everyone except himself and full blood Germans was an outrageous thing to try to do. He managed to kill countless people, but thankfully someone realized that something needed to be done to stop him and his awful endeavors. The Holocaust left Hitler’s hideous stamp on history and needs to be remembered so it will never be repeated.
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Friedman, Ina R. The Other Victims. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Print.
Gottfried, Ted. Martyrs to Madness: The Victims of the Holocaust. Brookfield, CT: Twenty First Century Book, 2000. Print.
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.
Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
Many religious conflicts are built from bigotry; however, only few will forever have an imprint on the world’s history. While some may leave a smear on the world’s past, some – like the homicide of Semitic people – may leave a scar. The Holocaust, closely tied to World War II, was a devastating and systematic persecution of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and allies. Hitler, an anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, believed that the Jewish race made the Aryan race impure. The Nazis did all in their power to annihilate the followers of Judaism, while the Jews attempted to rebel, rioted against the government, and united as one. Furthermore, the genocide had many social science factors that caused the opposition between the Jews and Nazis. Both the German economy and the Nuremberg Laws stimulated the Holocaust; nevertheless, a majority of the Nazis’ and Hitler’s actions towards Jews were because of the victims’ ethnicity.
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Hitler had thought that the Jews did not believe in the “right” thing so he tried to eliminate the race. He did not want them to believe in what they did and still do. He thought that the Jewish race was inferior and did not mean anything. The way that Hitler treated the Jews were crimes against humanity and I know that many non Jews saw that but did...
So Hitler’s Plan of a “Perfect Race” never was able to hit the land and roll into play, how he wanted. He targeted the Jewish, along with many others because he didn’t like them, But soon it led to Hitler’s death and the freeing of the Jewish and along with many others including, The Gypsies, Gays, Blacks, and The Mental and Physical Handicapped, By the English and Russian troops.
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.