What was the Holocaust?
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The holocaust refers to the time in which there was a mass genocide in Nazi German occupied Europe between 1933 and 1945. It marked a time when 6 million Jews were systematically murdered for the reasons of “ethnic cleansing” (as well as others including disabled, homosexual, dissident, and Romani people). The terrible event was orchestrated by the German leader, Adolf Hitler, who believed in building a master race.
Hitler believed that Jewish people were an inferior race, and that they were a threat to Germany. Jews were thrown into ghettos and concentration camps with terrible conditions. The ghettos were neighbourhoods surrounded by tall walls, barbed wire, and patrolling guards. These ghettos were put in place by Hitler and the Nazi’s in order to separate Jewish people from the so called “master race”, or Aryan race. The ghettos were overcrowded and unsanitary, the largest one in Poland holding 500,000 Jews.
Jews were later on shipped to concentration camps which had even worse conditions. In those camps they were starved, tortured, and beaten. During World War 2 Hitler took his “Final Solution” into action, which was the mass murder of 6 million Jews. The Concentration camps were constructed into death camps. Among the most notorious death camp was Auschwitz in Poland. These death camps were constructed in 1942, and prisoners would die of exhaustion and starvation or in the gas chambers. At the end of the holocaust two thirds of European Jews lost their lives and the terrible atrocities left a mark in human history.
Adolf Hitler:
Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party, who rose to power and became a dictator of Germany. He is known for initiating World War II by invading Poland in 1939. He is also known for orchestrating the Holocaust. Hitler was an inhumane leader whose goal was to conquer enough land for lebensraum, or “living space for the Aryan race”. He used propaganda and extreme nationalism as well as manipulation and coercion to gain and maintain power. In most of his propaganda he blamed Jews on all of Germanys problems and intended on exterminating all Jews.
