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Essay about Evidence for the Holocaust

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Evidence for the Holocaust

The reason for the development of the final solution is under much historical debate. There is the structuralists who believe it was a result of wartime problems, that it was a improvised response to the problems. However there is the intentionalists who believe Hitler planned the holocaust due to his pathological hatred of the Jews. Now in this essay I am going to present the evidence for both schools of thought.

There is substantial evidence to support the structuralists. Nazi policy previous to 1939 towards the jews were concentrated on social exclusion, legislation and encouraged emigration. It can be seen that emigration was encouraged when in 1939 the Reich …show more content…

This sharp increase of Jews and no way to deport them this led to the 'final solution'.

However, other solutions were attempted before the development o9f the Final Solution. In Poland the problem of so many Jews was met by the establishment of ghettoes. The ghettos were situated in the poor slum part of the city (about 2% of the city) which were designed to kill Jews by natural attrition. However regional leaders in Poland considered them distasteful and too public. They also feared the spread of disease from the ghettos to the other areas of the city.

However when the nazis invaded the USSR it trapped a further 4 million Jews and made existing policies of transportation to ghettos and death by natural attrition impossible. There was also a plan drawn up to transport the Jews east of the Urals, but this option of emigration was again made impossible as the USSR put up a lot of resistance so they couldn't get to eastern Russia. This proves though that the nazis intention to emigrate the Jews, rather than kill them, was still present in 1941.

Also another factor in the development of the 'final solution' is the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen was used to execute Jews. It is estimated that they killed 2 million Jews, with the help of the army & the local Slav population, who also shared the anti-semitic feelings of the Nazis (seen in pogroms

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