Holocaust

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Holocaust

Introduction

What, when, where, and why was the Holocaust? The Holocaust was first called a

religious rite in which an offer that gave to some one was burned in a fire. The current definition

of holocaust is any widespread human massacre. When it is written Holocaust, it means when

Nazi Germany completely destroyed the Jewish. The Holocaust was during the period of

January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945. Hitler became Germany’s chancellor when it first started and

the war ended on the last day of the Holocaust, or known as V-E Day. During that time frame,

Jews in Europe were killed in the worst way possibly and led to the death of 6,000,000 Jews and

5,000 communities destroyed. 1.5 million of those Jews killed were children.

After Germany’s lost in World War I, they were embarrassed by the Versailles Treaty,

which lowered its prewar territory and armed forces. The German Empire demolished, a new

government of parliament called the Weimar Republic was born. The republic suffered from

economic instability, which grew worse when the great depression was happening. The great

depression was when the stock market crashed in New York in 1929.

Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi(National Socialist German Workers Party)

on January 30, 1933. He was named chancellor by president Paul von Hidenburg after the Nazi

won a election by the majority of the votes in 1932.

Propaganda: “The Jews Are Our Misfortune”

The Nazi newspaper, Der Sturmer (The Attacker), was a major tool in the Nazi’s

propaganda assault. The paper said, “The Jews are our misfortune”, in bold print, on the bottom

of the front page of each issue. In the Der Sturmer, the Jews were regularly drawn as

hooked-nosed and ape-like cartoons. By 1938, about a half a million copies were sold weekly

because the influence of the paper was far reaching.

A little after Hitler became chancellor, he called for a new election for a effort to gain

complete control of the Reicstag. Reicstag was a German parliament for the Nazi. The Nazi

used the government to mess with the other parties. They banned their political meetings and

arrested their leaders. The Reichstag building burned down February 27, 1933 during the middle

of the election campaign. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutchman, was arrested for burning the

building and he swore he di...

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... were able to hide

nearly 7,200 Jews and transported them to safety in neutral Sweden. A young Swedish diplomat

named Raoul Wallenberg, saved 1000,000 Hungarian Jews by issuing them passports so they

would not be deported. A German factory owner, Oscar Schindler, saved his Jewish slave

laborers by getting them from transports to the concentration camps. He kept them and fed them

until the war was over. Some of the righteous gentiles saved the Jewish children by taking and

raising them as their own.

Liberation and the End of the War

Gradually the camps were liberated, as the Allies advanced on the German Army. As the

war ended, between 50,000 and 100,00 Jewish survivors were living in three areas of occupation:

British, American, and Soviet. That figure grew to 200,000 within a year. The American

occupation had more than 90 percent of the Jewish displaced persons. The Jewish displaced

persons could not return to their homes, this brought back horrible memories and fear of danger

from anti-Semitic neighbors. Until emigration could be arranged to Palestine, and later Israel,

United States, South America, and other countries the displaced Jews remained in camps.

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