Research Paper Holocaust Overview

Andrew Gibbs

Eng Comp 102-102 Mr. Neuburger 5 April 2012

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The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators as a central act of state during World War II. It is known as the worst widespread anti-Semitic pogrom of all time. The Holocaust took place over a length of many years, not just World War II like most people think. The events that led to the Holocaust actually started in the early nineteen-thirties. Nazi rise to power Not many people thought that a group of unemployed soldiers, calling themselves the Nazi party, would end up becoming the legal government of Germany in just 14 years. The German Workers' Party, the original Nazi Party, started as a group of demobilized soldiers. Adolf Hitler joined this small political party in 1919 and rose to leadership through his emotional and captivating speeches. In his speeches he promoted national pride and a commitment to a pure Germany. He changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, called for short, the Nazi Party. By the end of 1920 Hitler was the official leader of the group. In 1923 Hitler attempted an armed overthrow of local authorities in Munich known as the Beer Hall Putsch. This failed miserably and Hitler was charged with high treason and sent to jail. Hitler only served one year of his five year term. Hitler began rebuilding and reorganizing the Nazi Party, waiting for an opportune time to gain political power in Germany. Germany went into a depression in 1929. Hitler used this to gain the support of the public. After gaining lots of public support, Hitler ran
German Workers Party 1919 http://bit.ly/HOBYkY

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for president in 1932. He lost to the incumbent but received thirty-seven percent of the votes. On January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building went up in flames. Nazis immediately claimed that this was the beginning of a Communist revolution. This fact leads many historians to believe that Nazis actually set, or help set the fire. Others believe that a deranged Dutch Communist set the fire. The issue has never been resolved. This incident prompted Hitler to convince Hindenburg to issue a Decree for the Protection of People and State that granted Nazis sweeping power to deal with the so-called emergency. This laid the foundation for a police state. The regime passed civil laws
Paul Von Hindenburg http://bit.ly/HOCteF

that barred Jews from holding positions in the civil service, in legal

and medical professions, and in teaching and university positions. The Nazis encouraged boycotts of Jewish-owned shops and businesses and began book burnings of writings by Jews and by others not approved by the Reich. Jews felt increasingly isolated from the rest of German society. On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler combined the offices of Reich Chancellor and President, declaring himself Fhrer and Reich Chancellor. In 1935 Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws. More than 120 laws, decrees, and ordinances were enacted after the Nuremburg Laws and before the outbreak of World War II, further eroding the rights of German Jews. Many thousands of Germans who had not previously considered themselves Jews found themselves defined as "nonAryans." In March 1938, as part of Hitler's quest for uniting all German-speaking people, Germany took over Austria without bloodshed. In September 1938, Hitler eyed the

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northwestern area of Czechoslovakia, called the Sudetenland, which had three million German-speaking citizens. Hitler did not want to march into the Sudetenland until he was certain that France and Britain would not intervene. Germany occupied the Sudetenland on October 15, 1938. In Germany, open antisemitism became increasingly accepted, climaxing in the "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) on November 9, 1938. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France had no choice but to declare war on Germany. World War II had begun. Nuremberg laws On the evening of 15 September 1935, two measures were announced to the Reichstag at the annual Party Rally in Nuremberg, becoming known as the Nuremberg Laws. The first law, The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, prohibited marriage between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood. Marriages concluded in defiance of the law were void, even if, for the purpose of evading the law, they were concluded abroad. The Nuremberg Laws also said that Jews were not permitted to employ female citizens under the age of 45, of German or
Nuremberg Laws http://bit.ly/HGIxCo

kindred blood, as domestic workers. Legal discrimination

against Jews had come into being before the Nuremberg Laws and steadily grew as time went on; however, for discrimination to be effective, it was essential to have a clear definition of who was or was not a Jew. This was one important function of the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg laws were based on a belief in scientific racism and

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derived from a primitive understanding of genetics. Although the Nazis took these ideas to violent extremes, they were based on thinking that already existed across Europe and America. Allies of the Nazis passed their own versions of the Nuremberg laws including The Law for Protection of the Nation in Bulgaria and the ruling Iron Guard in Romania. Kristallnacht Can one picture their entire town in full on mass panic? Even better, try to picture this happening in the darkest hours of the night. The only thing that can be heard is shrill screams and yells of people randomly getting bludgeoned in the streets by groups of men. One turns to see shops that they go to every day, places family and friends own or work at, being looted and set ablaze. One witnesses churches and centers where they go to worship a higher deity being burnt to the ground. The only thing going through their head is this cant be happening. One can feel the fear in
Synagogue burning during kristallnacht http://bit.ly/hR0qT5

the air as they try to find a place to hide. Just as you get

into motion a man grabs you and throws you into a cart with other people. The individual then has to suffer in this confined space for hours on hours as they haul them out to some desolate landscape somewhere between two countries borders. That is where they drop them off. One might say that this all sounds pretty outlandish and over the top. Like nothing that has ever happened before. Well for thousands of Jews living in Germany and Austria this horrible nightmare of a thought was a reality on one dark night in nineteen thirty-eight.

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Herschel Grynszpan grew up pretty normal. He and his family were all Polish Jews living in Hanover, Germany. His parents made a decent, honest living and they didnt really have a lot of problems. When Herschel was fourteen he studied Hebrew for a year preparing to immigrate to the British mandate of Palestine. When he applied, however, he was told by the Palestine immigration office that he was too young and would have to wait a year. He then tried to find work as an apprentice plumber or mechanic to help pass time for the year he had to wait. Sadly he could not find any work. According to Auschwitz.dk, that is when Herschel turned his attentions toward France and his father made arrangements for the boy to live with his uncle and aunt in
Herschel Grynszpan http://bit.ly/HM5PW3

Paris while the rest of the family remained in Germany.(Herschel Grynszpan) He then illegally moved to France and lived in a small Jewish community. Meanwhile in Germany the authorities announced that all residence permits for foreigners were being cancelled and would have to be renewed, though they were not renewing any Jewish foreigners permits. Then Poland said that it would not accept Polish Jews after the end of October. Nazi officials were then ordered to arrest and immediately deport all Polish Jews in Germany. Herschels family was then arrested, stripped of their possessions and deported back to Poland. An outraged Herschel then went out and got a gun. He headed to the German Embassy in Paris, France. He claimed to be a German citizen and asked to see an Embassy official. Ernst Vom Rath, the more junior of the two Embassy officials available, said he would meet with him. When Herschel entered his office he pulled out a

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gun and shot Ernst in the chest multiple times. Grynszpan did not try to resist arrest and cooperated with the authorities. An article on roizon.com states that right after the assassination Herschel said, Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on this earth. Wherever I have been I have been chased like an animal.(The Fate of a Forgotten Assassin) Hitler and his leading officers saw this as the perfect opportunity to lash out at the Jews. They used this assassination as a way to justify their next attack on the Jewish people. After the death of Ernst Vom Rath in November of 1938, Hitler had decided on his next big pogrom against the Jews. According to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Hitler had one of his officials, Joseph Goebbels, tell everyone at the celebration of the one year anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch that "the Fhrer has decided demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered."(Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938) Later that night and early the next morning groups of Hitler youth and SA troopers took to the streets and destroyed Jewish homes, shops, and synagogues
Ernst Vom Rath http://bit.ly/Jea8Nk

all over the Reich. They wore civilian clothes to try and make it look like it was an enraged reaction by the public. In the end the rioters set fire to around 267 synagogues and destroyed a full 101 of them throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Firefighters of the local areas were given orders to only prevent fires from spreading to

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nearby buildings. Most of the synagogues burnt throughout the night. The gangs of Nazis and Nazi supporters smashed in the windows and looted at least 7,500 Jewish owned businesses. Jews were pulled out of their homes into the streets and beaten. They were then all loaded up into carts and taken to a wasted space of land in between Germany and Poland. There they set up some of the first concentration camps. By the end of the night 91 Jewish people were dead and around 26,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. For many people the night will forever be remembered as Kristallnacht or crystal night. This refers to the way all the glass from the Jewish shops In America it is most commonly known as the night of broken glass. It was the first major, widespread anti-semantic pogrom against Jews and the turning point in sad downfall of the European Jews. Rounding up Jews The Germans rounded up the Jews slowly over the years using a series of steps. The first step towards rounding up the Jews was making them show documentation. On this showed that they were Jewish. If Jewish then they had to wear a star to separate them from other common civilians. The stars helped the Germans later on when
Rounding up Jews http://bit.ly/HM7yLf

actually rounding up the Jews because it made it easier to locate

them. After this they separated the Jews from the common people, stripping them of their jobs and homes. After doing this they moved all the Jews into one central area called a

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ghetto. By then all the Jews were rounded up. The only thing left was to move them for the final time, to death camps. Wannsee conference The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews that Reinhard Heydrich had been appointed as the chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question". In the course of the meeting, Heydrich presented a plan, presumably approved by Adolf Hitler, for the deportation of the Jewish population
Where Wannsee conference was held http://bit.ly/bBwj2D

of Europe to German-occupied areas in Eastern Europe, and the use of the Jews fit for labor on road-building projects, in the course of which they would eventually die. Instead, as Soviet and Allied forces gradually pushed back the German lines, most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe were sent to extermination or concentration camps, or killed where they lived. Death camps Death camps were built for the systematic killing of Jews by gassing and extreme work under starvation conditions. Six camps are identified, all occupied in Poland. Operationally, there were three types of death camps; aktion Reinhardt extermination

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camps, concentration-extermination camps, and minor extermination camps. Aktion Reinhardt extermination camps were where prisoners were promptly killed upon arrival. Initially, the camps used carbon monoxide gas chambers; at first, the corpses were buried, but then incinerated atop pyres. Later, gas chambers and crematoria were built. Concentrationextermination camps were where some prisoners were selected for slave labor, instead of immediate death; they were kept alive as camp inmates, available to work wherever the Nazis required. Minor extermination camps initially operated as prisons and transit camps, then as extermination camps late in the
Mass grave http://bit.ly/xgwgy

war, using portable gas-chambers and gas vans.

Extermination methods The Nazis used many different methods to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust. One of the first methods was mass open line shootings. They would dig long graves and then line prisoners in front of it. They would then shoot the prisoners and their bodies would fall into the grave. They would also work Jews to death. With very poor nutrition and extreme labor, it was easy for the Nazis to work them to the point of death. Some Prisoners died while being used as test subjects for different experiments for the Nazis. The most popular method of extermination was the gas chambers. They would trick prisoners into thinking that they are going to get showers. Once in the shower room

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the Nazis would barricade the door and release a gas into the chamber, killing the prisoners. Liberation As Allied troops entered Nazi-occupied territories, the final rescue and liberation transpired. Allied troops who stumbled upon the concentration camps were shocked at what they found. Large ditches filled with bodies, rooms of baby shoes, and gas chambers with fingernail marks on the walls all testified to Nazi brutality. General Eisenhower insisted on photographing and documenting the horror so that future generations would not ignore history and repeat its mistakes. He also forced villagers neighboring the death and concentration camps to view what had occurred in their own backyards. Approximately 5.9 million Jews were killed during the mass genocide from 1938 to 1945. It is the absolute worst crime against a group of people ever committed. The acts that happened in Eastern Europe will never be forgotten.

Celebration after being liberated http://bit.ly/HrRe4s

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Works Cited Bulow, Louis. "Herschel Grynszpan." The Holocaust, Crimes, Heroes and Villains. 2007. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. Roizen, Ron. "Herschel Grynszpan: The Fate of a Forgotten Assassin." Welcome to Roizen. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. KRISTALLNACHT." Middle Tennessee State University. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "World War II in Europe Timeline: November 9/10 1938 - Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass." The History Place. The History Place, 1997. Web. 15 Apr. 2012. "Timeline of Adolf Hitlers Life: 21st Century Academy." Timeline of Adolf Hitlers Life: 21st Century Academy. Dieter Drumaze, 19 May 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. Bulow, Louis. "Gates To Hell - The Nazi Death Camps." Gates To Hell. Louis Bulow, 2008. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.