The Holocaust

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The Holocaust
By Courtney C
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What is the Holocaust?

• Dictionary Definition-The genocide of European
  Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II
  under Hitler
• The Holocaust refers to the time period from
  January 30, 1933 when Hitler became chancellor of
  Germany, to May 8, 1945 when the war ended in
  Europe.
• Hitler was a horrible man who hated Jews. He came
  up with the Final Solution. The final solution
  refers to the Germans' plan to physically
  liquidate all the Jews in Europe, it was first
  brought up at the Wannasee Conference in Berlin
  on January 20, 1942.

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Even though Hitler had already brought up his
plan of the final solution he didnt just start
going around killing Jews.
He first started a boycott of all Jewish owned
shops
"All Jews' businesses are closed. SA men are
posted outside their entrances. The public has
everywhere proclaimed its solidarity. The
discipline is exemplary...The boycott is a great
moral victory for Germany." Josef Goebbels,
Diary. April 1, 1933
Then eventually he started sending Jews, and
other people such as handicaps, gays, and gypsies
to the death camps or concentration camps.
A concentration camp is a camp with special
apparatus specifically designed for mass murder.
Six such camps existed Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka.
All of them were located in Poland.
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Approximately six million Jews , and five million
non Jews were murdered in the camps. Either by
starvation, being put in the gas chambers, shot,
and burned
The Germans classified people as Jewish if they
had three Jewish grandparents someone with two
Jewish grandparents who belonged to the Jewish
community on September 15, 1935 or married to a
Jew or Jewess on September 15, 1935.
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Why The Jews?
The Nazis considered the Jews a race whose goal
was world domination and who, therefore, were an
obstruction to Aryan dominance. They believed
that all of history was a fight between races
which should culminate in the triumph of the
superior Aryan race. Therefore, they considered
it their duty to eliminate the Jews, who they
regarded as a threat. In their eyes, the Jews'
racial origin made them criminals who could never
be rehabilitated and were, therefore, hopelessly
corrupt and inferior.
During the time of my struggle for power. the
Jewish race received my prophecies with laughter
when I said that I would one day take over the
leadership of the State...and that I would then,
among other things, settle the Jewish problem."
Adolf Hitler, January 30, 1939
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An End To a Horrible Era

• The Holocaust finally ended May 8, 1945, when the
  Germans unconditionally surrendered and all
  remaining concentration camps were accessed by
  Allied forces, after news leaked about what was
  happening in the camps.

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Life After Concentration Camps

• Survivors of the Holocaust had to rebuild their
  lives and also rediscover their very reason for
  living so much was gone, missing and because of
  the Holocaust. The Jewish people had lost an
  important part of their heritage. The elders and
  rabbis, the traditions of thousands of years were
  gone. And the youth,was also gone. While two out
  of ever three European Jews had been murdered,
  children and the elderly were especially
  vulnerable and few had survived. The people did
  not know where to go or how to get on with their
  lives.
• People like me don't need houses. We lost more
  than houses. We lost more than families--we lost
  belief in humanity, in friendship. in justice,
  and without these, I could not begin anew." Simon
  Wiesenthal, 1945.
• The Jews suddenly faced themselves....They saw
  that they were different from all other inmates
  of the camp. For them things were not so simple.
  To go back to Poland? To Hungary? To streets
  empty of Jews, towns empty of Jews, a world
  without Jews. To wander in those lands, lonely,
  homeless, always the tragedy before one's
  eyes...and to meet again a Gentile neighbor who
  would open his eyes wide and smile, remarking
  with double meaning 'What, Yankel! You're still
  alive.'" Meyer Levin, Author, June 1946

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• Take heed...lest you forget the things which your
  eyes have seen, and...teach them to your children
  and to your children's children." Deuteronomy 49

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Works Cited

• "Definition Of Holocaust." 14 Mar. 1988. hyper
  dictionary . 02 DEC 2004 ry.com/dictionary/holocaust.
• c, . History Of Holocaust. About.com. 01 april
  2004 .
• c, . 23 jan. 1997. Our History. The Jewish
  Network. 1 dec. 2004 .

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The END