the holocaust
The genocide of millions of Jewish people and other minorities across Europe by the Nazis
Throughout World War II, it is estimated that over 5,600,000 European Jews were killed during the Holocaust, including 3,000,000 Soviet POWs, 3,000,000 Polish Catholics, 700,000 Serbians, 230,000 gypsies, 150,000 Germans who opposed the Nazis/were handicapped, and 2,500 Jehovah's Witnesses.
Individual concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau (1.1 to 1.6 million), Belzec (601,500), and Treblinka (800,000), all located in Poland, killed people in brutal and terrifying ways including working to death and gas chambers (as pictured above).
Individual concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau (1.1 to 1.6 million), Belzec (601,500), and Treblinka (800,000), all located in Poland, killed people in brutal and terrifying ways including working to death and gas chambers (as pictured above).
However, antisemitism in Germany and in Europe had been going on for quite a long time, when the Nazi party took over Germany in 1933. Adolf Hitler had accused Jews of all of the problems Germany was facing. "... the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of a Jew." - Adolf Hitler. The Jewish population had been removed of many rights, including citizenship. Jewish businesses were boycotted, Jewish newspapers were not allowed to be sold publicly, Jewish people could not attend the cinema, segregated into separate schools, and many more.
kristallnachtCalled the "Night of Broken Glass," on November 9-10, 1939, Nazi's, members of the SA, and Hitler's Youth terrorized Jews in Austria and Germany.
They were given orders to attack only Jewish people; they were told not to pose a threat to non-Jewish Germans, and even non-German Jews. The Nazis also indicated to the police to arrest as many Jewish men as possible. Many Jewish synagogues were destroyed in this attack - over 267. Some burned in the sight of firefighters, who did nothing to intervene. Approximately 7,500 Jewish businesses were attacked and destroyed during Kristallnacht, and some Jews were forced to perform acts of public humiliation. In some regions, Jewish cemeteries were destroyed and vandalized as well. It was called the "Night of Broken Glass" because of all of the glass that was broken from the destruction of Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues. Though there was a small death toll (91) compared to what would come in the future. After Kristallnacht, antisemitism became much more common as Germany created many more laws and decrees depriving Jews of their freedoms. |
The st. louisThe St. Louis was a passenger ship carrying 938 Jews from Germany, looking for safety in various countries.
The St. Louis looked for sanctuary in Cuba, Canada, USA, Mexico, and was turned down by every single country. Originally, the majority Jews on the St. Louis had applied for US visas, and planned to only stay in Cuba until they could get into the United States. The denial of Jewish people into all of these countries - forcing its return to Europe - only proved and justified the Nazis anti-Jewish goals. For Jewish immigration during WWII, Canada would be one of the worst countries in the world, and admit very few into Canada and had harsh immigration policies. Countries such as the Dominican Republic and Bolivia would admit high numbers of Jewish refugees during the war. |
Jewish ghettosIn 1941, Western European Jews were forced into ghettos, which were surrounded by high walls and barbed wire.
In these ghettos, problems included unemployment, and diseases such as typhus, caused by the overpopulation of these ghettos. The first ghetto was created in Poland in 1939, and in total, the Nazis would end up creating over 1,000 of these ghettos. The largest of these ghettos would be the Warsaw ghetto, in Warsaw, Poland - over 400,000 Jews were packed into a ghetto only 1.3 square miles in space. In 1943, the people of the ghetto staged an armed uprising, called the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Several other large ghettos had uprisings as well, including the one in Vilna, Lithuania. Most of the Jewish ghettos were destroyed in 1941, and Jews were mostly shot inside the ghettos or deported to killing camps. Very few Jews who lived in the ghettos during WWII survived the war. |
concentration campsConcentration camps were made by Germany for the death of the Jewish population
These brutal and harsh concentration camps resulted in the death of millions of people across Europe, most of them being Jews. The first people shipped to these concentration camps to be gassed were the sick, the old/weak, and the young, in March of 1942. Eventually, millions of Jews would be killed at these concentration camps, the largest being Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, which would cause the deaths of an estimated 1.1 to 1.6 million people. Terrible medical experiments were done by Nazis to the Jews by people such as Josef Mengele, who often did horrific medical experiments on people such as twins and dwarfs. Upon the liberation of the concentration camps, Allies discovered piles of things collected from the victims, such as piles of shoes. After VE-Day in spring of 1945, these concentration camps were liberated, but the terrible things that have happened in these camps still affect us today, and we can't forget the millions of people that died during this horrific time. |
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