Research Paper Holocaust Overview

Abby Eubanks

ENG Comp 102-102 Mr. Neuburger 2 April 2012

Eubanks 2 The Holocaust should not be forgotten for the fact that it has had huge impact on many family histories in the world. The Holocaust was not just a one step process, but a series of steps that brought about the destruction of over eleven million people. The torture that was done to families over a time of thirty years should never be repeated. In order to prevent another holocaust from occurring, one needs to understand the series of events that led up to and the methodology used that allowed the Holocaust to occur. The rise of the Nazi power According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, when World War I was nearing an end the Germans started to try and find a type of government that would work for them. That was when the Weimar Republic started taking off for democracy, but there were certain groups that felt offended and the groups started to show that by political violence and extreme movements toward the Weimar Republic. These groups, later known as the National Socialist Party (the Nazi Party), were the ones that did not agree with them. In the middle of trying to find democracy a Treaty of Versailles came through from
The rise of the Nazi power. Source: http://bit.ly/9Re3Py

France. The Treaty took Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Poland from Germany had to traded Alsace and Lorraine to France. When the Weimar Republic was begging to diminish Hitler was voted into the leader of the Nazi party in the early 1920s. When Hitler became dictator in 1932 the Weimar Republic was then shut down all together. (The Rise of the Nazi Party) Antisemitism By this time the Nazi Party had about three thousand members and was starting to demonstrate antisemitism. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Eubanks 3 (USHMM), antisemitism was starting to show up everywhere. Anitsemitism is when the Nazi Party had hatred against Jews and wanted everyone to know how Jews had wronged society in some way. Adolf Hitler decided that he wanted to eliminate all the Jews in
The Nazis destroying a gravestone of the Jewish. Source: http://bit.ly/9YKvN2

whatever way he could. Since the Nazi Party was in

control, this was going to get done under his command. The Jews are later forced to mark themselves as a Jew when out in public to be recognized. Even after death the Nazi Party would go around and mark the grave sites with the famous symbol. Another antisemitism action forced Jews to sit separately at public parks. The benches in the parks were painted with the words Only for Jews according to the USHMM (Antisemetism: The Longest Hatred). Separation like this should never be an issue in public. To point out a certain religion or race counts as any type of antisemitism which is what the Nazi Party demonstrated. Nuremberg Laws According to the USHMM when Hitler was voted in as dictator in 1934 the Nuremberg Laws started to surface. The Nuremberg Laws stated that a person was considered a Jew if he or she had any grandparents. This is regardless to any individual that did not consider himself or herself having a Jewish preference. The laws also stated that any German would not be able to have any kind of relationship with any Jew or they would be considered a Jew themself and be condemned the same way a Jew was. These Laws made it impossilbe for people to socialize with anybody for the fact that they thought they would get repremanded for any action they took. But, in1935
The rally that led to the Nuremberg Laws. Source: http://bit.ly/HQIq5b

Eubanks 4 was when the Nuremberg Laws actually took effect. When the Olympics took place in Berlin the Jews unwelcome signs were taken down so social media did not take an uproar about the situations going on. When the Olympics were over the signs were put back up to let the Jews know that the Laws were still being enforced. The Jews were even stripped of their buisnesses and manager positions at work, so they were not in power of something. The businesses were sold at fixed prices by the Nazis, so the Jews lost a lot of money in all this mess. In the meantime, Jews also had to get new identity cards, because the new cards were marked with a big red J indicating a Jew. If the first and middle name was not able to be German recognizable then the names were changed. Common names included Sara or Israel. They were names that every German could pronounce. The cards helped the officers identify the Jews faster and were more efficient. (The Nuremberg Race Laws) The night of crystal In November of 1938 terror spread through Germany. The shattering of glass while it hit the ground was known as the Night of Crystal or Kristallnacht. This night struck fear into Jews across Germany. A lot of people ended up refering to it as Night of the Broken Glass according to USHMM. Violence broke out in the middle of the night from the assumed Nazi Party. This violence broke synagogue windows and Jewish owned buisnesses and homes. When people got up the next morning and realizing the mess of all Jewish possesions and ownerships. This cost Jews millions of money that they really didnt have. The owners of the stores were responsible for cleaning up the mess that the Nazis
The streets lined with broken glass from Kristallnacht. Source: http://bit.ly/HDKZsx

made. When you walked down the streets of Germany you could not step somewhere without a

Eubanks 5 piece of glass being under your foot. It is stated that the reason for Kristallnacht is because of the assasination of Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official stationed in Paris. On November seventh he was shot by a Jew for the fact of his family being deported out of there home in Germany. On November ninth is when he officially passed, which resulted in Kristallnacht itself. (KristallKacht, A Nationwide Program) The great ghettos After Kristallnacht, Jews were becoming very worried about where the future was going to take them. At the end of the 1930s there were certain districts that Jews had to live in. These districts were called Ghettos. Ghettos were fenced in areas that had awful living conditions and were unsanitary. These conditions were technically not livable, but Hitler and the Nazis did not worry about the conditions because they wanted Jews to suffer. With the ghettos on Germany occupied land, the Nazis were able to produce over a thousand of them according to USHMM. The main reason for forming ghettos was to eliminate all European Jews. This was known as the Final Solution. Jews were sent to the ghettos and the ghettos were systematically erased off the map. Some of the Jews were sent off to do some manual labor for the Nazis and some were shipped to concentration camps. There were three different kinds of ghettos though. The first kind of ghetto is an open ghetto. These ghettos did not have any fences or walls, so the jews were able to have room to at least roam around. The restrictions were for entering and exiting the camps. Stated in the USHMM open ghettos were stationed in German occupied Poland and the Soviet
Open ghetto. Source: http://bit.ly/HCLaJ1

Union. There were also some located in Transnistria.

(Types of Ghettos)

Eubanks 6 The second kind of ghetto is a closed ghetto. These ghettos were more popular and wide spread. These were located in German occupied Poland and Soviet Union. Now these kinds of ghettos have walls and are fenced in with barbed wire. This also made the living conditions worse than the open ghettos.
Closed ghetto. Source: http://bit.ly/IQVxXX

The closed ghettos were more crowded and definitely

unsanitary. Huge problems started to occur and starvation became one of the main ones. Jews were not fed properly and they just sat anywhere and starved before actually dying. They would wither away until the Germans would come to collect bodies to take them to the grave holes. Weather was a big issue as well, because when winter struck Jews would have no way to stay warm. A thought, the Germans did not allow the Jews to have heating as a house hold amenities. This caused a lot of diseases that would never be cured and cleaned. The diseases would be never ending because the Germans would not want to control it. To them, controlling it would be like saving the Jews and that was not the initial plan. As a result to the diseases the closed ghettos had a very high death rate. (Types of Ghettos) The third type of ghetto is a destruction ghetto. This is the ghetto that Jews were scared of. No Jew wanted to be sent to the destruction ghetto. This ghetto normally lasted at the most six weeks. When the ghetto was done the Jews were shipped off to concentration camps, or put to death in a mass grave.
Destruction ghetto. Source: http://bit.ly/HFHt68

Eubanks 7 This was a big part in the Final Solution. Now, these ghettos survived in German occupied Poland and the Soviet Union, and some parts of Hungary. (Types of Ghettos) Jew resistance According to Yad Vashem online, rumors started spreading like wild fire. The rumors consisted of how the mass murdering of Jews were going to take place. Some of the rumors were unfathomable and were not believed in the beginning. The Jews had couriers outside of the ghettos and camps to find this information out. When the Jews were scared enough the Jewish rebellion started taking place. They knew if they worked together that they could conquer something. The rebellion was carried out in three steps. The first step was the uprising of armed forces in the ghettos and camps. The second step was the escape of the Jews from the ghettos and camps to the forests for welfare. The last step was the hiding of individuals in random places for the rescue of people. By the end of 1944 the Jews had created family camps deep into the forests and were being protected by Jewish
The Jews taking control of the armed resistance. Source: http://bit.ly/HHnLSf

fighters. Over ten thousand Jews were able to make it to the family camps and have a higher chance of survival. (Combat and Resistance, Jewish Armed Resistance and Rebellion) Selektion (Selection) Before a Jew would get to go to a death camp, they had to pass through a selection. This is a process that placed Jews where the Germans wanted them to go. This process included splitting families up and sending them different ways. Along with splitting families up, this is where you find out if you will go to forced manual labor or go to the death camps. Previous to leaving on the freight trains, the Jews had to go through multiple steps to be cleared to board the

Eubanks 8 train carts. These steps include being shaved, turning in their possessions, turning in all jewelry, and get all gold teeth pulled out. This handy work wasnt by the Germans though; it was the forced labor of the Jews. The Jews were responsible for seeing these steps get done. The
The selection of Jews. Source: http://bit.ly/HGHfL5

other kinds of forced labor included cleaning out the carts

of the trains and disposing of the bodies that did not make the trip. If you were forced to labor then you would be sent to any camp to help do the dirty work. The women, on the other hand, were sent out to help make the Germans uniforms. The women were always in a clothing shop to make things. Although the women never got paid, it was also considered forced labor. If one was sent to the death camp then you knew that it was the last of your days. Most people that were sent were elderly and small children because they were the ones that could not work like the Germans wanted them to. The death camps Along with ghettos forming in Germany owned lands, so did death camps. Death camps are exactly what they sound like. They all consisted of three things: a living area, a reception area, and the extermination area. The living area was for the workers, and the reception area was where the Jews were shaved of all their belongings, and the extermination area was for the murdering. Germans came up with death camps to get rid of the jews at a faster rate. This would assure that the mass murder of the Jews would be so fast acting that there would not be any evidence to show what Germans were doing. There were three major death camps that were created under the Aktion Reinhard. This was a certain program in the Generalgouvernement.

Eubanks 9 Belzec This is where over six hundred thousand Jews were murdered. In the beginnig of the camp opening, there were only three to four gas chambers open.When the Jews were shipped in on freight trains only a select few would be chosen to stay alive and be used for manual labor. The laborers would clean the trains and dispose of all the bodies into the
The layout of Belzec death camp. Source: http://bit.ly/IdOQ0X

pits. Every time a train would ship the Jews in, the gas chambers would fire up. This camp only lasted for nine months then was shut down to cover all the tracks of the murders. Sobibor This is where about two hundred and fifty thousand murders took place. At this camp another selection was taken place to find the strongest Jews to work in the camp. At one point there were over one thousand Jews that were forced to work. Every two to three hours around five hundred Jews were killed. This happened everyday until the railroad broke and had to be fixed. This is when the Germans used the time to build three more gas chambers so more people would be murdered at one time. When the camp reopened the Jews that arrived were made to write letters to their family member letting them know they made it to a labor camp, but after the letters were shipped the Jews were murdered like everyone else. When an uprising took place from the Jews about fifty of
Sobibor death camp layout. Source: http://bit.ly/IV03GI

them survived all together. Everyone else was killed for the actions of them. As the camp was being discovered

in public, it was plowed down and made into a national memorial site. When the camp was finally shut down, it had been open for a year and a half.

Eubanks 10 Treblinka While this camp was open for a year and three months it killed around eight hundred and seventy thousand people. This camp operated the same way as the other ones. It was the last one to be attempted . When learning the mistakes from the other camps. Only three gas chmabers were first installed, but later ten more joined in. This was to ensure faster murders. After the uprising from the Jews again, the camp was plowed and crops were planted. The area was given to a Ukranian family. At the end of 1943 all the death camps were closed down. (The Implementation of the Final Solution, The Death Camps) Extermination Methods The extermination methods were part of the Final Solution. Once again, this was to eliminate all European Jews. Many methods came about, but only three were sought out to be tried. Any way possible to kill all the Jews was thought of. The Germans could not do much because they wanted to hide the tracks of themselves so the media could not put all the blame on them. The three methods used were; mass shooting, gas trucks, and gas chambers. The mass shooting was the first sought out method. This method turned out to be inefficient. The Germans did not like how the evidence could be traced back to them. This method also proved to take too long and the Nazis wanted it done as soon as possible. It was also hard for the Nazis to dispose of the bodies in a decent manor. In the end the Germans decided it was not the best method for the final solution. The second method that took place was gas trucks. The gas trucks were set up by covering the
Treblinka death camp layout. Source: http://bit.ly/HJhANl

This is what a gas truck looked like. Source: http://bit.ly/IdPV9b

Eubanks 11 exhaust pipe and redirecting it to the inside of the truck. This was a better and faster way than shooting people. After driving around for sometimes hours to assure the Jews were dead, the bodies were dumped and the process started all over again. After a couple weeks of this, the Germans were still not happy with how fast the eliminating was going. So they quickly thought of another method which became the most efficient. The method that proved to be the most effective turned out to be the one and only gas chambers. The gas chambers are what the Germans used in the death camps. This seemed to be the most effective and efficient. This was the cause of death for the majority of the Jews. The Germans would set up chambers and make them look like shower room, so when the Jews arrived at the camp it would look like a shower. The shower heads were connected to an engine so the fumes would have direct contact with the room. When the engine started it would shoot out the fumes and kill the Jews in the chamber within half an hour. The bodies were then taken to a crematoria and disposed of. Later a better type of gas that was found to be efficient
This is a gas chamber used in the camps. Source: http://bit.ly/mRPL5p

was something called Zyklon B, hydrogen cyanide. A lot

of chambers were swtiched to this when discovered. When nearing an end of the Holocaust, the gas chambers were quickly plowed down and made into untouched land to assure the evidence was covered up. Liberation When the Holocaust was nearing the end of 1944 liberation, was due. The Nazis often let the remaining survivors go on what was called Death Marches. This was when the survivors were set free to run in the forests to get away. Little did they know that the germans were waiting

Eubanks 12 for them and would shoot any person they stumbbled upon. This was to shut up any evidence that would get out. Most people did not make it because of malnurishment. They just could not go any further in the cold, harsh conditions. As the Allies took back control of the German occupied lands, so many things were found. When the allies found the remaining Jews they tried to help as much as they could, but in most cases it was too late. Most of the survivor Jews dies in
The Jews rejoicing in the Liberation. Source: http://bit.ly/flEIXy

the later weeks of the liberation. The allies also found

almost all the mounds of corpses that had not yet been burried or burned. As the Allies found the scared running Jews they had no place to put them, so camps later known as displaced persons camps saved a lot of people. This is wher the Jews were able to find out who was left in their families and communities. Most of them found that they were the only remaining ones. So they had no choice but to live there and start their life all over again. When finally finshed the Holocaust was the cause of over eleven million people in so many different ways. Either from malnurishment, diseases, chambers, shootings, and in the end just giving up with nothing left to live for. For the people still alive who lived through that have a lot of strength in them. These series of events that took place allowed over eleven million to perish and displaced many more. Families were broken apart and some even wiped off the face of the earth with no trace left behind. In this reading hopefully, one understands the methodology used and never allows for this to happen again.

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Works Cited "Antisemitism." Yad Vashem. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. "Gas Chambers." Gas Chambers. Yad Vashem. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Gas Vans." Gas Vans. Yad Vashem. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students." The Nuremberg Race Laws. United States Holocaust Memorial Musem. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Holocaust History." Ghettos. United States Holocaust Memorial Musem, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Holocaust History." Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938. United States Holocaust Memorial Musem, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Holocaust History." Types of Ghettos. United States Holocaust Memorial Musem, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "The Holocaust." Jewish Armed Resistance and Rebellions. Yad Vashem, 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "The Holocaust." The Death Camps. Yad Vashem, 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Holocaust Timeline: The Rise of the Nazi Party." Florida Center for Instructional Technology. University of South Florida, 2005. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Liberation." Yad Vashem. Shoah Resource Center. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "The Rise of the Nazi Party." Yad Vashem. The Holocaust Resource Center. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.

Abbie, Outside of the fact there are no parenthical citations and some of your facts have been misinterpreted, I can still see some solid work here in your paper. It is

Eubanks 14

extermely important to have those parenthical citations. They are the finishiong

Score Points Available

40 20 40 35 25 15 25 Total = 200

Content paper demonstrates understanding and confidence about topic Sources uses only primary and secondary sources In-Text Citations integrates sources within text with effective use of signal words and phrases Formatting properly uses MLA formatting Works Cited works cited page has the required number of sources and is properly formatted Pictures uses pictures to enhance the text with effective captions and source information Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errors in spelling, punctuation, etc.

30 20 25 28 25 15 18
Total Score

161
touch to in text citations.