The Holocaust: Victims Of The Holocaust

Because the bystanders silence, encouraged the

World War II started on the first day of September in 1939. The ending of World War I is thought to have greatly contributed to the upcoming of the second world war. Adolf Hitler, a German politician, is the man that promoted most of the deaths and destruction that the war had to offer. Despite how complicated the war was, the fighting was split into two general groups, the Axis and Allied Powers. The Allied Powers consisted of the United States, Britain, France, and many other countries. Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria made up the Axis Powers. Despite not having as many nations join them in battle, the Axis Powers did a great damage to the world's population. Hitler was the

When many think of the Holocaust as a solely negative experience, and while it may seem easy to write the event off as a dark time in history that seems remote and unlikely to affect us today, there are some positive results, including the lessons that it brings for current and future humanity. The lessons that the Holocaust brings are applicable to every person in the world. While many of these lessons do focus on the negative aspects of the Holocaust, like what circumstances permit such a vast genocide and how many people can die because of widespread racial hatred, there are also those that focus on how some people, in all parts of Europe and throughout the world, retained their good human nature during the Holocaust. For example, what made some gentiles in Europe during that time willing and able to help Jews. Currently, Yad Vashem has recognized 26,513 rescuers throughout the world (Names), and the actual number of rescuers could likely be close to twice that amount (Baron,1). It is important that we analyze the reasons behind these rescuers’ choices to be upstanders instead of bystanders because we can learn about our own motivations when we face decisions between helping others and protecting ourselves, and possibly those we love, from harm. Fulfilling one’s self-interest was a potential motivation for helping Jews that will only be briefly addressed. This type of rescue potentially benefitted both the Jews and the Gentile rescuers; these Gentiles only helped Jews survive because they found personal gain, likely social or economic, in the action (Baron). However, in the situation that existed while rescuing the Jews, most efforts included the high possibility that both the rescuer and the rescued would end up worse off than they had begun with no potential for personal gain on either side. So those rescuers’ motivations are less easily explainable.

During the reign of the Third Reich, the symbolization of the pink triangle was used to identify the thousands of gay prisoners who were sent to extermination camps under Paragraph 175, the law that criminalized homosexuality between men. Researchers say that an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 gay men died in these camps, however this figure does not include those who were interned and later released, let alone those who died undocumented and forever forgotten to history.¹ These thousands of men were forced through excruciating cruelties with little to no reprieve or recognition of the atrocities perpetrated against them. It is because of this that while they are not a distinct racial, ethnic, or religious group, the treatment of those who bore the pink triangle during the Holocaust follows the genocidal process and as such gay Holocaust victims should be considered sufferers of genocide.

In 1933 the Nazis established concentration camps for people who weren’t like Germans. When Hitler came to lead Germany he started sending people to Concentration Camps. He thought German was the best religious belief and culture. Hitler created Concentration Camps for the people who weren’t German because he thought they were bad people.

The children in the Holocaust were more significant than most would think, because they are just children right? Well I disagree, I have been doing research about the children of the Holocaust and people should know a little about what happened to them… The Nazis occupied Europe and one of the first things they did was gather up all the kids they could find. Some were luckily taken away from where the Nazis were looking for the children , and some were hidden because that’s how they would keep the Jewish population alive. They were forced to work in concentration camps or were murdered, and not all of them were even Jewish, some were gypsies, mentally or physically ill German children (Yes,the Nazis DID kill their own German blood!), and Polish

There were many groups of people, other than the Jews, that were victims of persecution and murdered by the Nazis. The groups affected by the Holocaust were the Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other Slavs, political dissidents and dissenting clergy, people with physical or mental disabilities, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals. According to A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust, There is evidence as early as 1919 that Hitler had a strong hatred of Jews. As Chancellor and later Reichsfuhrer, Hitler translated these intense feelings into a series of policies and statutes which progressively eroded the rights of German Jews from 1933-1939 (“Victims”).

The Holocaust was one of, if not the worst mass murder in history. The Nazis did one of the most horrifying things you could think of, killing so many innocent people. Many different groups of people other than jews were also victims of this tragic event. Some of those other groups were: LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, slavs, and members of opposing political groups. These groups of people were ripped from their homes and put into concentration camps. The Nazis would either separate them from their family or they would keep them together and they would have to watch the Nazis torture their family and friends. During this very tragic point in history, more than six million Jewish lives were taken, in total there were over 12 million victims of the Holocaust. Not only did this affect the survivors it also affected families of the victims, survivors and anybody else that was connected through this tragedy. The Nazis, came to “power” in January 1933, which was during a time Germany was going through an economic hardship. They believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, were "inferior.” Adolf Hitler played a very big factor in everything that went down. Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party and was also known as the dictator of the Holocaust. The Nazis did have others that were Hitler’s “army” and they took orders from Hitler to do awful things to the victims and they were commonly known as

When people elevate to the status of citizen in their respective country, it’s surely a momentous occasion. However, once the title of citizen is acquired there are certain responsibilities that must be fulfilled. Tim Holden said "The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction"(Holden). Holden’s quote has a specific point that is incredibly important which is confronting the consequences of inaction. Anger and revulsion can arise from a variety of epicenters, but one that undoubtedly protrudes is Adolf Hitler throughout World War II. Inaction can be a godsend, but definitely has a dangerous side which held true during the Holocaust and still holds true today.

The Holocaust began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe officially was over. About six million Jewish civilians perished because of it. There were some people that survived. What impact did the Holocaust have on its survivors? When the Holocaust ended, all survivors suffered from different emotions because they survived the tragedy. The survivors lost loved ones, and they had to keep that memory of the event with them for the rest of their lives. As a result of these emotions, they coped in many negative ways. Survivors of the Holocaust experienced guilt, isolated themselves, and suffered from a mental illness.

Sit back, and imagine this: you’re sitting on a hard mattress. You can smell the smoke. The screams and tears of adults and children, just the same, fill the dirty air you breathe. Outside, acres upon acres of barbed wire and fortified walls. Platforms, cremation ovens, gallows, and gas chambers. The year is 1945, January 27th to be exact. This is a day that will be remembered for years to come. This is the day that the prisoners at camp Auschwitz being held by Nazi German soldiers were liberated.

Next things next, obviously if there is a cause to an issue or situation, then inevitably there is an effect. Since there are multiple causes, multiple effects can occur as well. For each of the causes given, there is not one specific effect designated for those causes. Each of the causes have multiple effects. Therefore, a list of the possible effects is necessary in order to understand what can occur when those causes are present in reality. One possible effect is that certain groups of people may be ostracized. If an individual does not stand up for his or herself about what he or she believes and follows what the commander orders, then a catastrophe such as the Holocaust could occur. In the Holocaust, millions of Jews were scrutinized by Hitler and Germany and later massacred anonymously with people discovering this years after it had been taking place. People were hurt because of people not recognizing the difference between right and wrong. Saul McLeod, a Psychology Tutor at the University of Manchester, discusses of an individual who did not recognize the wrong in a command given to him. That individual was Adolf Eichmann who was told by a higher authority that his duty in the Holocaust was “planning of the efficient collection, transportation and extermination of those to be killed” (McLeod). Eichmann stated, according to McLeod, that “he had merely obeyed orders, and surely obeying orders could only be a good thing” (McLeod). Eichmann, obviously did not recognize the magnitude of the effect when he thought obeying orders was necessary. He probably wanted to make his leader happy so he followed the command. I guarantee that deep down inside, Eichmann thought that what he was doing was unethical but the satisfaction he received from pleasing his leader just outweighed his conscious. Because Eichmann followed orders, millions were murdered and later Eichmann himself was executed for his role in the Holocaust. Erich Fromm, who once was a psychoanalyst and philosopher, wrote an article entitled “Disobedience as a psychological and moral problem”. In this article he makes a point relative to that of Eichmann and the Holocaust. Fromm argues that “if mankind commits suicide it will be because people will obey

One of the most prominent examples of a country acting as a bystander to grave injustices was during the Rwandan Genocide when the United refused to act because it could safely avoid the humanitarian crisis at no political cost. At the time of the crisis, editorial boards of the major American newspapers discouraged U.S. intervention during the genocide. They, much like the administration, deplored the genocide but believed, in the words of a Washington Post editorial," The United States has no recognizable national interest in taking a role, certainly not a leading role." Washington was silent. Lawmakers refused to lobby for U.S. involvement on the

Many victims of the Holocaust, regardless of race, endured the same unethical punishment for having what the Nazi’s believed to be wrong beliefs. Though Jewish people were the main target by the Nazi’s, groups such as homosexuals, Gypsies, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also targeted. Locations that these people were imprisoned in varied from prisons to killing camps. There were multiple concentration camps, but certain ones had a greater importance due to their location, such as Sachsenhausen and Dachau, which were both located in Germany, which was where Hitler wished to rid the Jews from. Many prisoners of these concentration camps suffered the same fate, but it is important to know as many of their stories as possible. Karl-Heinz Kusserow, a Jehovah’s Witness during the Holocaust, faced imprisonment for refusing German authorities, faced hardships of the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps, and was released from Dachau in 1945.

Kitty Hart-Moxon recalls, “Arrival in Auschwitz is a defining moment in your life. The doors open, you are thrown out, greeted by barking dogs, screaming figures with whips, a stench of burning flesh and a glow of fire” (Harding). Hart-Moxon’s vivid memories of violence stayed with her a lifetime. If a person was fortunate to survive the agony of the Holocaust, one was left battered, broken, and in most cases asking why. Although the Jews, political dissidents, homosexuals, and other groups targeted by the Nazis will never get their lives back, they can gain some solace from identifying the perpetrators of the Holocaust and using that knowledge to ensure it never happens again. Many people share the burden of the crimes committed during the Holocaust, yet the three groups that can be allotted the most blame are top SS officers who planned the mass exterminations, the citizens of Germany who voted for and supported Hitler, and minor SS officers who carried out day-to-day duties.