Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, believed the Aryan race was the superior race. Nazis created a group of people called asocials that consisted of people they believed to be problematic. Although Jew were the main victims of the Holocaust, they were not the only victims. Physically and mentally disabled people, homosexuals, and Roma were also victims of the Holocaust.
The mass killings first started with the physically in mentally disabled people. The Nazis decided that it was a waste of time and money to support the disabled. (Schwartz) Nazi leaders believed they could keep the killings of the disabled a secret because most were institutionalized and isolated from the rest of the world. Hitler created the “Sterilization Law”, forcing people with certain physical and mental disabilities were to be sterilized. The “Sterilization Law” was followed by the Marriage Law of 1935, which required for all marriages proof that and offspring from the union would not be afflicted with a disabling hereditary disease. (Nazi Euthanasia Program: Persecution of the Mentally & Physically Disabled) The Nazi regime use the term as a euphemism: its aim was to exterminate the mentally ill and the handicapped, thus “cleaning” the “Aryan” race of
…show more content…
They passed the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals and Measures for Protection and Recovery. This law gave German judges the power to order compulsory castrations in cases involving…the committing of indecent acts in public including homosexual acts, murder or manslaughter of a victim, if they were committed to arouse or gratify the sex drive, or homosexual acts with boys under 14. (Austin) Nazis viewed homosexuality as a threat to the Aryan racial health because they did not take part in producing children. The punishment for "chronic homosexuals" was incarceration in a concentration camp. (Austin) An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 homosexuals were murdered in Nazi death
"Don't worry. Everything will be fine." I assured her as a bend to whisper in her ear. I pray my words of comfort are correct.
The Nazis believed that the Nordic or Aryan races, were superior and that they should rule the world. They also believed that parts of the world, particularly Europe, should be cleansed of inferior races, including Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, through genocide,. In some of their earlier experiments, they determined that other races had different blood and were inclined to criminal behavior.(Bennet) One Nazi doctor whose wife was found to be sterile adopted two children of another race, and later was investigated and beheaded for the crime.(Bennet) The Nazi’s extreme beliefs led
Hitler believed that the German people were part of an 'Aryan race,' a superior group that should be kept pure to fulfill their mission of ruling the world. He felt that the Jewish people were 'sub-human,' when in actuality they were virtually the same as his 'Aryan race.' Not only did Hitler have a personal hatred toward the Jewish people, but he also blamed them for 'stabbing Germany in the back' after Germany's defeat in World War I. Hitler used them as scapegoats because they were a minority and were easy to put the blame on. 'Historians agree that the Holocaust resulted from a confluence of various factors in a complex historical situation. That anti-Semitism festered throughout the centuries in European culture is centrally important; the Jews were (and are) a minority civilization in a majority environment. In periods of crisis, instead of searching for the solution of
This technique was used mainly to kill young children, but some adults were also mercilessly killed this way as well. Some of the types of persecution inflicted upon the disabled and the Jews was starvation and gassings. Jews were starved in the camps, eating a little soup and bread a day (Wiesel). The food was not fit for all the work they were doing all day. One major thing that separates the disabled Germans experience was that they were forced to sterilization. “...Hitler with overseeing the radical restructuring of Poland along ethnic lines… compulsory sterilization” (Law or the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary
Most of these people were Jews. Terrible things were happening but they were being ignored. This chaos was all because of one person, Adolf Hitler. When Adolf Hitler rose to power, he promised Germans he would bring them power. Hitler thought that Germans who had blond hair and blue eyes were a superior race and that the Jews would ruin their superiority. In the article, The Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims, the text states, “Hitler had a vision of a Master Race of Aryans that would control Europe. He used very powerful propaganda techniques to convince not only the German people, but countless others that if they eliminated the people who stood in their way and the degenerates and racially inferior, they - the great Germans would prosper.” Hitler did this because when he rose to power the Germans were going through hardships and he promised to fix it. When you think of the Holocaust, you think of Jewish people being
During the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted others groups because of their race. Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma. At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called Euthanasia Program. The Nazis sent 10,000-15,000 homosexuals to concentration camps where they were forced to wear pink triangles. The Nazis also carried out pseudo-research to find out if homosexuality was inherited by injecting them with male hormones. They offered homosexuals their freedom if they would agree to be castrated or submit themselves to sexual abuse and prostitution. Under these conditions, an estimated 6,000-9,000 homosexual inmates died in the camps
Anxiety washed over the poor boy. It was dark, darker than Zerdek had ever know. With each second that passed, a low mumble could be heard from the corner. Something or someone else was here with him. Wherever here was. He shut his eyes thinking about the light. Thinking about anything that would make it seem like he was back at home. Home. He tried to remember the faces. He tried to remember each of the tree top building. Yet it was a blur. Everything that had happen with-in the last few hours, day, months was a giant blur from him. He had no concept of time. A click came from afar, as light came barreling in. Zerdek let out a low growl as he covered his eyes, unable to adjust to the light quickly enough. Arms reached out and pulled to two
The Nazi’s started a huge propaganda campaign against the mentally and physically disabled Germans. In 1939 and 1941, a program of mercy killing ordered by the state, led to murder, doctors and medical staff killing about 70,000 people. According to The Holocaust Explained, “They were viewed as a burden on society, as they were unable to work, and drained resources from the state.” The Physically and Mentally disabled did not fit into the Nazi’s stereotype of the pure Aryan. The pure Aryan is a race that has been used by people who promoted ideas about racial hierarchy. In July, 1933, the Nazi’s passed a law that allowed the sterilization of 350 men and women so they could not produce mutant and unusual children. Overall, the fact that the mentally and physically disabled were thought of as misplaced in th, changed the view on them at that
There are many questions as to why the Nazis decided to do what they did to the Jews, gays, and ill during World War II and Holocaust. Nazis after the Holocaust had been interviewed by psychologists, such as Leon Goldensohn and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, to see and try to better understand the reasons behind Fascism and why these acts were performed. Leon Goldensohn was an American psychiatrist and also one of the prison psychiatrists at Nuremberg that helped perform the interviews on prisoners from January 1946 to late July that same year. In order to better understand why the Germans did what they did, there needs to be an understanding of their minds through the psychoanalysis of their beliefs on Fascism, race theory and the interviews that help relay their actions throughout WW2 and the Holocaust.
The Nazis wartime perception of the Holocaust was due to a gradual build up during the preceding years. As World War Two drew closer the Nazis treatment of the Jews became increasingly harsh. The Nazis believed in a racial hierarchy and that what they considered to be ethnic Germans were pure and at the top; Jews were at the bottom and subhuman. They did not begin with the notion of killing all the Jews, but rather gradually reached that point after time and circumstance. During wartime however their view evolved to killing all the Jews as the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’. They Created ghettos concentration camps, labor camps, and death camps to separate, exploit and murder Jews. The death camps were the Nazis main mode of operation in the carrying out of mass murders. The Nazis were very paranoid of the Jews and in their eyes they were doing the right thing and believed in the irradiation of the Jews; and they saw the death camps as the most efficient way to do so.
Carrying Chaim close to her body, and fearfully looking around, she ran home, the first place she could think of. For the first few minutes, her husband, Victor was relieved to see her alive; his moods changed drastically when he realized the danger they will face with Chaim at home.
Hitler took this hatred he possessed for the Jews and his pursues of Aryan supremacy to an extensive degree. Between 1939-1945 Hitler took action, extermination, or death camps were established for the sole purpose of killing men, women, and children. Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis during World War II, The Nazis also imprisoned and killed people who opposed their regime on grounds of their ideology; Roma (Gypsies); Germans who were mentally impaired or physically disabled; homosexuals; and captured Soviet soldiers. Heinous crimes inflicted upon the prisoners within the concentration camps and during Hitler’s reign were intense beyond belief. So called camp doctors would torture and inflict incredible suffering on Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. Patients were put
I was born and raised in Gaukönigshofen, a small Bavarian village in southern Germany. Life in German villages was very traditional. Women and girls wore elaborate folk costumes on Sundays and special occasions. The women wore their long hair in the traditional style. Families lived together in large homes built of stone. All the different generations of the family shared the same house. They shared the household chores and the joys and troubles of everyday life.
At first, the Nazis were only killing political opponents like Communists and/or Social Democrats, for which their harshest persecution was used. Many of the first prisoners sent to Dachau (The first official concentration camp opened near Munich in March of 1933) were communists. By July, the concentration camps run by the Germans held around 27,000 people in what they called “protective custody.” The Nazis had huge rallies and acts of symbolism such as burning of books by Jews. During the years of 1933 to 1939, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany got out quickly, but many were left behind, and they lived their lives in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. During the fall of 1939, Hitler started the so-called Euthanasia Program. The Euthanasia Program allowed Nazi officials to select around 70,000 German citizens institutionalized for mental illnesses or disabilities. These Germans were to be gassed to death. After prominent German
Eighteen million Europeans went through the Nazi concentration camps. Eleven million of them died, almost half of them at Auschwitz alone.1 Concentration camps are a revolting and embarrassing part of the world’s history. There is no doubt that concentration camps are a dark and depressing topic. Despite this, it is a subject that needs to be brought out into the open. The world needs to be educated on the tragedies of the concentration camps to prevent the reoccurrence of the Holocaust. Hitler’s camps imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of Jews for over five years. Life in the Nazi concentration camps was full of terror and death for its individual prisoners as well as the entire Jewish