Gay and Lesbian Issues - The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals

Horror struck on January 30, 1933, when Germany assigned Adolf Hitler as their chancellor. Once Hitler had finally reached power he set out to complete one goal, create a Greater Germany free from the Jews (“The reasons for the Holocaust,” 2009). This tragedy is known today as, “The Holocaust,” that explains the terrors of our histories past. The face of the Holocaust, master of death, and leader of Germany; Adolf Hitler the most deceitful, powerful, well spoken, and intelligent person that acted as the key to this mass murder. According to a research study at the University of South Florida, nearly eleven million people were targeted and killed. This disaster is a genocide that was meant to ethnically cleanse Germany of the Jews. Although Jewish people were the main target they were not the only ones targeted; gypsies, African Americans, homosexuals, socialists, political enemies, communists, and the mentally disabled were killed (Simpson, 2012, p. 113). The word to describe this hatred for Jewish people is known as antisemitism. It was brought about when German philosophers denounced that “Jewish spirit is alien to Germandom” (“Antisemitism”) which states that a Jew is non-German. Many people notice the horrible things the Germans did, but most don’t truly understand why the Holocaust occurred. To truly understand the Holocaust, you must first know the Nazis motivations. Their motivations fell into two categories including cultural explanations that focused on ideology and

This statement depicts a glimpse of what the Jewish people had to endure during the holocaust. The holocaust was an extreme form of massacre. It is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. The duration of the holocaust was from January 30th, 1933 to May 8th, 1945. The holocaust began in the year of 1933 when the Nazi party came to power, the leader Adolf Hitler believed that the Jewish people belonged to a 'low' and 'evil' race, and they were affecting the lives of the Germans pessimistically. Hitler's motto was to punish, alienate, and torture anyone who differed from him, with religion being a main factor. The Nazi’s blamed the Jews for all the social and economic problems

The Holocaust was one of the saddest moments in our history. The Holocaust was the destruction of a racial, ethnic, religious and national group. Approximately six million individuals were killed by the Nazi’s under the command of Adolf Hitler’s and his collaborators. Most of these killings took place throughout Germany. The Nazis only targeted three major groups for their killings: Jews, Gypsies and people with disabilities; such as metal illness, learning disabilities, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness and deafness.

They were saw as impure to the Germans that had wanted a pure race and thought that they got in the way of the German nation (1). Before the war, Nazis kept lists of questionable homosexuals on lists called "Pink Lists." Nearly 1.2 million known homosexuals were in Germany in 1928 (Persecution 1). At the beginning of the war, brown-shirted troopers raided gay associations and congregations (Mosaic 1). Instead of being organized like the Jews, homosexuals were simply rounded uo and taken to the concentration camps. While in the concentration camps, homosexuals were treated especially harsh (Persecution 1). They were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothing to be easily recognized and for easy humiliation (Brittanica 1). Some homosexuals were raped and others endured brutal medical experiments. To find an easy fix to homosexuality, doctors would try to make them release more male testosterone or put them through castration (Persecution 1). Because Hitler hated homosexuals so much, he even sent suspected gay SS men to camps in their uniforms. Nearly 15,000 homosexuals were killed during World War II (Holocaust 1). Although lesbian bars were shut down, there was no precise killing of them (Brittanica

<br>The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirables" was through the use of concentration camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials, the 'final solution' was decided". The Jewish population was to be eliminated. In this paper I will discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the worst one prior to World War II, Buchenwald.

Over the past few years, several deadly genocides have occurred. However, one of the most infamous genocides to occur was the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the “massive destruction of European Jewry during World War II, when millions were systematically persecuted and exterminated solely because of their social, cultural, ethnic, or religious characteristics” (Barel, Van Ijzendoorn, Sagi-Schwartz, Bakermans-Kranenburg). Contrary to popular belief, Jews were not the only group targeted in the Holocaust, as five million more lives were taken in groups other than the Jews. Three other groups targeted during his deadly event were the homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, and the ethnic minorities, whose death toll equaled 2,285,000, a combined total that clearly showed how determined the Nazis were in destroying their targeted victims in the Holocaust..

Countless events in the world have been caught in history books but between the ones that have held to the memory of people is the holocaust. The Holocaust was a very disturbing event that triggered an eye-opener for individuals about how harsh humans can be. The purpose for this is since the vast number of victims and questions as to what was the actual motive behind the need to defeat a whole community. Holocaust is an organized, state financed torment and slaying of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi government run by Adolf Hitler. Separately from Jews, other groups considered lesser or anti-establishment, such as Polish, Gypsies, and Romans were killed. There were numerous reasons for these gruesome murders, insensitive imprisonment and enslavements of victims who were forced into labor while starving.

The Holocaust of 1933-1945, was the systematic killing of millions of European Jews by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis) (Webster, 430). This project showed the treacherous treatment towards all Jews of that era. Though many fought against this horrific genocide, the officials had already determined in their minds to exterminate the Jews. Thus, the Holocaust was a malicious movement that broke up many homes, brought immense despair, and congregated great discrimination. The Holocaust was an act of Hell on earth.

It is a well-known fact that the Holocaust happened to the Jewish people during World War II. However, many don’t know why the Holocaust began, or that the Jews were not the only group targeted and killed in the Holocaust. Also, there were different types of camps that the Germans placed the victims. All of these facts can be linked together to show the treatment of people in Nazi Germany.

The Jewish Holocaust could be, and is, widely accepted as one of the most brutal and damaging atrocities ever to occur in the history of humanity. The level of brutality brought on by this atrocity is to such a degree that whenever the word “Holocaust” is mentioned it is not the Greek origins of “offer burning” that comes to mind; but, instead, the thought that resonates is the death of approximately 6 million Jews and other minorities brought on by racial hatred, radical ideology, and established prejudice (p. vii). There is no question that a main goal, and often argued by historians as Hitler’s topmost priority, in order to create Third Reich, that would supposedly last 1,000 years, was to expel Europe of any Jewish presence. Nonetheless, similar to that of any large scale operation, an expulsion of Jews from Europe would take time and different phases to achieve efficiently and effectively. The Nazi program, according to Bergen’s ‘War and Genocide”, would attempt to accomplish this through five phases: support and encourage public oppression of Jews, isolation of Jews from the community, mass killings, and, lastly, the “Final Solution.”

During the Holocaust, the persecution of homosexuals were ignored, but they had not only been persecuted by German Soldiers. There were also reports of most people from the gay community were beaten to death. German soldiers had made some of the people from the gay community wear a pink triangle, and used them for target practice. Female homosexuality was not technically a crime, and thus gay women were not treated as poorly as gay men. Still, there are reports of gay women being imprisoned for their sexuality. Most would have been imprisoned for other reasons, i.e. “antisocial” behavior.

Defined by the dehumanizing treatment and horrific murder of the Jewish people, the Holocaust was a significant conflict that contributed to the militant period of the twentieth century. As the spearhead of the Nazi Party of Germany from 1934 to 1945, Adolf Hitler led the brutal, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of six million Jewish people, along with many other casualties. Fueled by a sense of extreme nationalism, the German people fiercely believed that they were superior to the Jewish people that they found as an inferior race that threatened their community. Many individuals who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust and survived, passed on their harrowing experiences through writing that still endures to this day. Through the

Homosexuals were even the forgotten victims of the Nazi regime. We do not know exactly how many of them died in the concentration camps because of the destruction of some data in the archives and because many of them were captured and persecuted by the Nazi Germany’s secret police: the Gestapo. The decree “Nacht und Nebel” ("Night and Fog"), a directive that Hitler signed on December 7, allowed the elimination of these people “without leaving any trace.” The Nazi regime persecuted Jehovah's Witnesses between 1933 and 1945 since they refused to join the army and to swear loyalty to it. In the Nazi Germany lived almost 25,000 of them and it is estimated that about 10,000 were killed in the concentration camps. Since 1923, Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Holocaust is most well-known for the organized and inhumane extermination of more than six million Jews. The death total of the Jews is this most staggering; however, other groups such as Gypsies, Poles, Russians, political groups, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals were targeted as well (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Introduction to the Holocaust). The initial idea of persecuting select groups of people began with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. In January 1930, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany after winning over its people with powerful and moving speeches. From this point forward, it was a goal for both Hitler and his Nazi Party to rid the world of deemed “inferior” groups of people (Holocaust Encyclopedia: Timeline

The holocaust was a bleak and unrecoverable part of the history of the twentieth century that will always be remembered. Millions died for no reason except for one man’s madness. Although many people know why this war happened many don’t know when and what events lead up to this: the way Hitler came into power, or when the first concentration camp was established, and what city it was in, why Jews were hated so much by Hitler, and why the rest of the country also hated them as well as, and what the chronology of the Holocaust. These are some of the things I will explain in my paper.