Of the 11 million people who were murdered during the World War II Holocaust, 6 million were Jews and 1.1 million were children. Each one has a story to tell, whether we know it or not- Anne Frank was one of them. Through the vivid narration of her firsthand experience of the war, we can come to perceive the Holocaust in a whole new light, in a way that’s described by an ordinary, determined young girl whose whole life was changed just because of her race, and how millions of other’s lives were too.
World War II began on September 1, 1939, but the beginnings of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism began much prior to the official start of the war. “Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called ‘Aryan,’ and with the need for “Lebensraum,” or living space, for that race to expand,” says History.com. In Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), he states “the sacred mission of the German people…to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements…and raise them to the dominant position.” In the year of 1934, he appointed himself to the rank of führer, meaning “absolute ruler.” Seven years later, Hitler would commence the deadliest war the world had ever faced, while taking along with him up to 80 million individuals, soldiers and civilians alike. By 1942, Hitler had made his ultimate resolution clear- to exterminate all Jews. Thousands of Concentration Camps had been produced to eradicate the entire Jewish race, whether
Hitler had shown unwillingness to tolerate the Jews and once he was appointed Chancellor, he started to take elimination measures like deportation, forced emigration, and isolation to enforce his belief. He took advantage of Germany’s weakness in World War One, then used it as an opportunity to blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat. Hitler’s political party was the largest political party in Germany thus allowing them to draw very large crowds to gatherings. He had very good oratory speeches with hand gestures that easily manipulated people to adhere to his views. Hitler constantly targeted the Jews because he knew people believed in these speeches. People in Germany were already anti-semitic but Hitler made it worse by constantly consuming them in his speeches. From the way he spoke about the Jews, we could clearly see the possibility of genocide. Hitler wanted Germany to be free of any humans that anyone other than his ideal master race so he personally selected bodyguards to be part of a group called the SS. Hitler was responsible for ordering the SS to carry out the extermination of anyone who did not fit this ideal. The SS handled oppositions using force and as a result of which people were forced to give into the idea of violence. Sometimes people purposely went along with this Holocaust ideal due to the fear of getting killed. These terrors allowed the holocaust occur
Jews have perished because of their beliefs since the beginning of time but never have so many Jews been persecuted worldwide as they were in World War II. Anne Frank’s diary reaches a place within all of our hearts because it reminds us how easily the innocents can suffer. Sometimes we may choose to close our eyes or look the other way when unjustifiable things happen in our society and Anne’s tale reminds us that ignorance, in part, claimed her life. Sadly, her story is but one of many of those who died in the Holocaust and as with other Jews, her fate was determined by the country she lived in, her sex and her age.
Racism is the belief centralized in the idea that a certain race is considered to be superior or inferior to another. It is a belief that labels a person’s worth, social, and moral traits based on his/her inherent nationality or biological features (Anti-Defamation League). This mentality has been around for centuries and still exists today. There are several theories about how such came about and why it continues to thrive. Racism can only be thoroughly studied by tracing its roots and history. Knowing the relevant events prior to and after the peak of a racist manifestation in the society during a certain period of time is one of the keys in understanding the nature of racism. It is important to note that the attempt to understand the nature of racism is not necessarily equivalent to the attempt to justify it. The main purpose of racism studies should be directed towards the attempt to lessen, if not eradicate such mentality. The Holocaust, the infamous racist manifestation which took place in Germany is a great example of what happens when racism is not stopped or prevented. Taking such infamous racist events in history under an extensive look, reveals some of the major arguments/concepts/causes of racism that could lead to understanding racism as a whole and thereby help address this issue in the modern-day society. Extreme ethnocentrism, rivalry for supremacy, and people lacking information are some of the causes of racism deemed to be important in studying
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
After WW2, there was a thing called the holocaust. There were many concentration camps all over Germany where many Jews were killed in different ways. It happened between WW1 and WW2, 1933-1945. My position on why this happened is that Germany was going through a rough time, so Hitler wanted their country to resemble power. Read on to learn more about the causes and ways the Holocaust could have been avoided.
Many, many people suffered during the Holocaust war. The Jews in particular were in grave danger. The drama ‘Anne Frank’ outlines so many ways that this historical event caused a shift in the mood of the characters and their relationships. Before the Holocaust, Anne Frank was just an ordinary Jewish girl living in Germany. A German leader named Adolf Hitler developed a plan to destroy the Jews and to rule over the specific places where they lived. What Hitler did to these poor Jews, and the sheer terror they endured at the hands of this Nazi leader is purely unfathomable.
The Holocaust, a morbid atrocity that made people question humanity, was the cause of millions of deaths. One of those victims of this brutality was Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis along with her family. Although she was merely ordinary, Anne Frank kept a diary which became a significant, historical artifact in the modern world as it details her account of concealing her identity from the outside world. Her story, told in an innocent perspective, allows individuals to reflect the dreadful events of the Holocaust and acknowledge how far we have come since then. Even though she died along with millions of other victims from the Holocaust, her spirit still exists thanks to her articulately written words in her diary which is now considered one of the most famous works of literature. Anne Frank’s legacy still lives on today because her story provides a primary source of a dark period in history, insightful contemplation of humanity, and motivation for people to stand up against unjustified persecution.
At the end of WWI in 1918, Germany’s economy was in ruins. There were very few jobs, and bitterness began to take over the country. According to the text, “Hitler, a rising politician, offered Germany a scapegoat: Jewish people. Hitler said that Jewish people were to blame for Germany’s problems. He believed that Jews did not deserve to live.” (7) This was the birth of Antisemitism--prejudice against Jewish people. Europe’s Jewish people have always been persecuted due to their “different customs and beliefs that many viewed with suspicion.”(7) Hitler simply reignited the flames, and a violent hatred was born.
When the war ended in 1945, millions of Jews had perished. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime had almost entirely wiped out a single race of people in what would become known as the Holocaust. However, the Jews were not the only people who had been stripped of their dignity and killed. There were other groups who the Nazi’s persecuted against. The Roma, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Political Prisoners were all systematically gathered up and killed. When the Holocaust gets mentioned, many don't talk about the other millions of innocent people who were murdered alongside the Jews. Many don't see these people as victims at all. The number of people murdered during the Holocaust reaches close to eleven million people. “Contragenics” is the term used to talk about all of the groups who were murdered under the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. These innocent lives were lost in the Holocaust, and while history hasn’t forgotten, humanity has.
The Holocaust was one of the most despicable acts of crime committed in history. It was the slaughtering of six million Jews along with other minority groups. Anti-semitism was on the rise in Germany due to one man, Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader is known to be one of the most infamous dictators that were able to rise to power. Leading Germany, Hitler improved the economy, started World War II with the idea of Lebensraum, and exterminated Jews due to youth anti-semitic influences.
Hitler’s rise to power came on January 20, 1933 when he was announced chancellor of Germany and then anointing himself Fuhrer. Hitler strongly believed that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in 1918, even writing in a memoir that a European war would cause the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany (History.com). Hitler was also obsessed with the Aryan race, which he believed was “pure”. These two ideas would become the main cause for this genocide. The first ever concentration camp, Dachau, opened March 1933 and at first only imprisoned political enemies to the Nazi party. Over the next few years the Jews would be persecuted and forced out of work by the Nazi party. Then in November of 1938 things escalated in what is known as the “night of broken glass”, where German synagogues were burned down and Jewish owned shops were destroyed (History). Causing the death of hundreds Jews and the arrest of thousands. In the start of the war, September 1939, the Germans have just started to occupy Poland. During this time the Germans were seizing Jewish owed land and business and had tens of thousands of Jews taken out of their homes and moved into ghettos. Starting in 1941 the Germans began moving the people in the ghettos into concentration camps and on March 17 1942 the first mass gassing happened at the camp of Belzec. Shortly after this five more camps were built in Poland the most notorious being Auschwitz (History.com). This camp by the end of the war will have killed more than 2 million people, and in total the holocaust had killed roughly 6 million Jews, 3 million soviet prisoners of war, 2 million soviet civilians, 1 million polish civilians, and 1 million Yugoslav civilians (the
From 1933 through 1945 was a period of history called the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, people were being killed for their looks, race, and disability. About 11 million people were killed in brutal and tragic ways. Adolf Hitler, the leader, wanted to create a pure race. Racism helped Hitler organize the population into the way he wanted. He wanted people to support the cause of making a pure race. If people opposed, they would be persecuted. Racism allowed Hitler to influence the German people into following his leadership even if it meant genocide.
The Diary of Anne Frank is a remarkably moving book about the short life of a young girl and her family. The Holocaust was a horrible time for Jewish people and Anne and her Jewish family’s lives were completely turned upside down as a result. The war resulted in the deaths of countless people, mostly innocent people. Before the invasion on D-day and the end of the war not too long after, the rest of the world didn’t know the real disaster going on over seas. Anne Frank’s once secret diary has introduced the immense suffering and horror that occurred during the Holocaust.
Genocide, usually due to discrimination of some sort, can be due to one’s surroundings during childhood. For instance, Adolf Hitler grew up in an anti-Semitic neighborhood. A child’s mind is easily manipulated by his/her surrounding family and friends, so he was bound to believe the same. Hitler had also fought in World War I and blamed Germany’s loss on the Jews despite there being over 100,000 Jews fighting. He believed Jews were ruining German society and he became determined to “purify” Germany in any means necessary. That is what started the Holocaust. Jews weren’t the only ones involved in the Holocaust, though. Gypsies and homosexuals were also deemed as “impurities” and were rallied into camps. While Hitler’s main influence to participate
In 1933, the Nazis had come to power in Germany. They believed that Germans were the superior race and that the “inferior Jews” were the cause of all German suffering. This was the beginning of an era where German authority targeted racial groups because of their seemingly lesser value. During World War II, the Germans occupied the countries that many of the Jewish race resided in. The Nazis had deemed the Jews the primary threat to Germany, which lead to them being the main victims of the affliction. Adolf Hitler was an initiator of fascist policies and German leader from 1934 to 1945. He came to the conclusion of the Holocaust, the systematic murder of the Jews, as a final solution for Germany. After Hitler ordered all non aryans, who were basically people that were Jewish or not caucasian,