Children and the holocaust - Research Paper Example

The urge of the German leader, Adolf Hitler, to control the Semites and to trim their generation underpins the great commitment of his government to reduce the population of Jewish children. As children were perceived as the propagative generations, they were a priority target at a time when the Germans felt that Jews were traitors and did not deserve to exist in the country. From this perspective, the Holocaust was a period suffering for Children, which had both immediate effects and negative consequences long after the war.

Prior to the Second World War, the German government had sent a number of signs that Jews would be the next victim of terror under the autocratic leadership of Hitler. The Germany government expressed high level of dissatisfaction with the Jews, who were perceived as traitors during the period of the war. While there was an expectation that the Jews would have fallen victim of Hitler power abuse, it was not anticipated that such a negative ordeal would befall children as it dawned as soon as the war began.

Statistics indicate that over 1.5 million children were killed during the holocaust, of which 1.2 million were from the Jewish community (Sterling 212). The rest comprised of the Gypsy and German children who were perceived to have mental defects. The German government targeted children as one of the ways of punishing the Jews. Besides, the government had a motive to shun the popularity of Jews that was growing as a result of their population increase. Since children represented the continuity of the Jewish generation, they were the main target to control population increase and to discontinue the disloyal, as they put it, generation.

At the eve of the war, children were separated from their parents forcefully and they no longer had the power to hold on their rights of keeping their children. The government targeted the Jewish settlement areas and killed majority of the population while transporting others to the