An Event from the Holocaust - Coursework Example

PENSACOLA JUNIOR COLLEGE THE HOLOCAUST A RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED FOR AMH2020W AMERICAN HISTORY: FROM 1877 HISTORY/LANGUAGES/PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT BY JONATHAN A DAVIS PENSACOLA, FLORIDA JULY 23, 2007 THE HOLOCAUST One of the most defining events of the twentieth century was the Second World War. And the most significant event which took place during, and indeed before, the War was the holocaust. Between 1933 and 1945 over 9 million persons were systematically put to death in the Nazi concentration camps across Europe. Of these over 6 million were European Jews but it also included other target groups like Soviet prisoners of wars (3,000,000), Serbians (700,000), German political opponents (80,000), handicapped Germans (70,000), homosexuals (12,000) and Jehovah's Witnesses (2500)1. This research paper attempts to study the political, social and cultural environment which led to the holocaust. We will also briefly explore the Nazi policies of exclusion. Finally, we will look at the atrocities meted out to the prisoners in the concentration camps. Eugenics Long before Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, eugenic scientists were conducting experiments to prove the inequality of humans. These research were not restricted to Germany but were worldwide. Tests conducted in the United States "proved" that class, race and ethnic differences "reflected intelligence.2 These research results were not only accepted by the scientific community but also influenced the policy makers. In United States, "inferior races and ethnic groupswere prohibited from entering the country."3 Solution to the "problem" of the "feebleminded individuals who already resided in the United States" ranged from putting them in "permanent custodial care" to sterilization.4 Eugenics eventually lost acceptance in the United States but in Germany, following the coming to power of the Nazi party, eugenic scientists began to enjoy political support. Hitler wanted to build a utopian German society. Such a society would be "racially homogenous, physically hardy and mentally healthy".5 To achieve this utopia, Germany followed a policy of exclusion and the killing operations were the final stage of this policy. Eugenics introduced the idea of human inequality and the Nazi policies institutionalized it. The groups excluded included the physically handicapped, intellectually retarded, mentally disturbed and, eventually, the racially alien people. By 1939, Hitler abandoned his policy of exclusion and started discussing "implementation of what he called euthanasia".6 Nazi Policies The National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) better known as the Nazi party was founded on January 5 1919. Hitler joined the NSDAP on September 16 1919.7 His inspirational leadership and oratorical skills saw him become the chairman of the party by July 1921. Germany's defeat in the World War I and signing of the Treaty of Versailles which put the sole responsibility of the "war guilt" on the Germans was humiliating for the defeated nation. This along with the depression of 1929 and the inability of Germans to come to terms with the resulting hardships saw the Nazi party get 37 percent of the votes in 1932 elections.8 Thus on January 30, 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany. On February 27 1933, a mysterious fire in the Reichstag building destroyed the German "Parliament". The next day the German President, Paul von Hindenburg declared emergency. The emergency, along with the "Enabling Act, or Law for the Removal of the Distress of the People and Reich, would allow Hitler torule Germany as a dictator."9 Between 1933 and 1935, the German government enacted various laws to remove Jews from public life and to revoke their citizenship.10 From April 1, 1933, the Nazi Government started a countrywide boycott of Jewish businesses. This and other policies between 1933 and 1938 were aimed at forcing the German Jews to emigrate from Germany. However, the policies failed due to reluctance of many German Jews to leave their homeland. On November 9, 1938, the German government orchestrated a riot in which mobs attacked Jews, sacked synagogues and looted property. The incident is known as Kristallnacht or "The Night of Broken Glass". Jews who tried to emigrate after this incident had to face restrictive immigration laws of other countries.11 The Final Solution Hitler's "utopian" society had no place for the handicapped and the alien races, particularly the Jews. However, despite his policy of exclusion he was unable to force the German Jews out of Germany. After Germany occupied Poland, the "Jew Problem" increased further since now he had to deal the Jews in the occupied territory as well. On September 21, 1939, the Germans formulated a plan to deal with the Polish Jews. The plan included four basic components: First the Jews were removed from the German Reich and concentrated in urban areas, next Judenrate (Jewish Council) was established to carry out the orders of Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units), third, Jews were concentrated in ghettos and finally German government confiscated Jewish property and businesses.12 The actual implementation of this plan was accompanied by humiliation, terror and death. Mark Sobotka and his wife, Bernice, recount the horror of those days. Mark "was stopped in the street by a German SS officer and taken to a barbershop where he was forced to have his head shaved."13 This was shameful and embarrassing for Mark since Jeish laws required men to wear their hair long. Bernice also remembers sadistic behavior and the army "catching Jewish girls and boys and men and women and forcing them to do filthy work. They caught my father once on the street, and made him pull a wagon like a horse."14 Another survivor, Joseph Korzenik, "remembers seeing the Germans kill the Jewish infants by tossing them in the air and shooting them."15 Later, the Jews were rounded up in moved to ghettos and concentration camps. According Marc Dvorjetski, a holocaust survivor, Jews were forced to live in ghettos and concentration camps to cause them to die "by means of starvation, consuming their strength through forced labor under the indescribable conditions of the camps, illogical actions and fatal illness"16 On January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, head of Reich Security Main Office, called a conference of the most important ministers of the Third Reich at Wannsee. At the conference it was decided that the Jews capable of work would be put to such hard labor that most would die through "natural diminution". Those who survived would all be put to death.17 What followed was the systematic killing of million of Jews in what the Nazis called the "Final Solution" to the Jew problem. The Jews, who were already living in appalling conditions in the ghettos, were rounded up and deported to the concentration camps in the east, the most notorious of them being Auschwitz. On reaching these death camps, the deportees were immediately divided into two. The young, relatively healthy men who could work were sent to the labor camps. The others, the unusable, were taken to the gas chambers and later the crematorium.18 Even of those chosen to live, the average life expectancy was anywhere from one month in the mines outside Auschwitz to three to four months in Buna.19 Liberation On May 9, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally and the war in Europe was declared to have come to an end. But the first camp was liberated almost a year ago on July 23, 1944 by the Soviets. When the reports of the condition of the death camp at Majdanek came out, Hitler, who was still in power, dismissed them and "accused the Soviets of fostering Communist Propoganda"20 Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945 but the full press coverage on the death camps and labor camps did not appear until May 1945. On April 15, 1945, the British liberated Bergen-Belsen death camp. When the Tank commander, Robert Daniell, visited the hospital at the camp, "what he saw affected him for the rest of his life"21 As the horrors of the holocaust became public, the Allied forces were at loss at how to handle the 60,000 to 70,000 survivors still in the camp. Aftermath The survivors of the holocaust, known as the She'erith Hapleitah or the "Surviving Remnant" found it extremely difficult to adjust in the post-war Germany. The field workers who were to help them in relief and rehabilitation had the primary goal to help the displaced persons regain a sense of value.22 However, the survivors felt that they had been abandoned by the world community in the time when they needed them the most. Even after the war, it was extremely difficult for them to immigrate to most countries. Naturally, they wanted to go to the Promised Land, Palestine, but even this was made difficult by bureaucratic red-tape. Eventually, between 1944 and 1948, 200,000 Jews fled illegally to Palestine. In 1950, Israel passed the Law of return allowing any Jew who wanted to automatically become a citizen. Thus, finally, the Jews found their promised land. BIBLIOGRAPHY Fischel, Jack R. The Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Harran, Marilyn J. et.al. The Holocaust Chronicle. Publications International, Ltd. Online. 2002. Available from Internet, http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html, accessed 22 July 2007. Mankowitz, Zeev W. Life between Memory and Hope: The Survivors of the Holocaust in Occupied Germany. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 2002. Soumerai, Eve Nussbaum, and Carol D. Schulz. Daily Life during the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Read More