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The Holocaust

Jordan Kenyon

ENG 102.104

Mr. Neuburger

1 April 2011
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In Seymour Rossel¶s article ³Hitler¶s Rise to Power´, he says that the Nazis came to

power because of some manipulation and also scare tactics. Adolf Hitler formed a party called

the German Workers¶ Party with which he used to gain power over Germany. Furthermore,

Rossel says that Hitler renamed that party to the National Socialist German Workers¶ Party,

which is called Nazi for short. It started as a political group, but Hitler made it more than that by

forming a military to act as his militia (Rossel).

In Haaretz Service¶s article "Why Did Adolf Hitler Hate the Jews?´ He talks about how

Hitler¶s team of militia surrounded the government in a beer hall in Munich. He forced the

government to give up the government to the military. They agreed, so he let them go. Soon after

that they threw Hitler in prison. While in prison, Hitler composed a book of all of his ideas. This

book is called Mein Kampf. His ideas were thoughts of socialistic power and also of

antisemitism. Furthermore, Service says that it is thought that Hitler¶s hatred of the Jews was

because he thought that they had ³stole´ the victory of World War I from Germany. Hitler

believe that because the Jews played a leading role in Munich for the revolution against

monarchy, and that they were the reason for the ³inner poisoning´ in Germany (Service).

In Seymour Rossel¶s article ³Hitler¶s Rise To Power´, Rossel says that when Hitler was

finally freed from prison his political party grew greatly. He became an amazing persuasive

speaker while campaigning to control the government. This soon led to Hitler becoming the

chancellor of Germany. Hitler was able to use a scare tactic when the government buildings were

being set on fire. He got the government to sign a decree that was to ³protect and people and the

state´. This decree allowed Hitler to have full power and also took away almost all of the

German¶s individual and civil rights (Rossel).

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Nuremburg Laws

The Spartacus Educational Home Page has an

article on The Nuremburg Laws. It says that the laws

were set up in 1935 by Hitler to forbid Jews to do a lot of

things that a German could do. Under these Laws, Jews

could no longer be citizens of Germany. They were also

Chart of the Nuremburg Laws
Source: http://bit.ly/hoNiOL not allowed to marry with Germans. These Laws were put

in place so that the Jews would be separated from the Germans. They also insured that the Jews

wouldn¶t have any rights, so that they would hopefully leave Germany (Spartacus Educational).

Kristallnact

The Middle Tennessee State University¶s article

entitle ³Kristallnact´ says that is also called ³night of the

broken glass´. This is a night where Jewish

neighborhoods were looted and vandalized. This all

started because a son of a Jewish family, that was forced

out of their home, went out and assassinated an official

The Burning of the Synagogue
Source: http://bit.ly/14tTBJ
of the German ambassador of France. So the Nazi¶s made

a program where Nazi youth gangs would roam Jewish neighborhoods and would break

windows of homes and business. They also would set fire to synagogues, and loot buildings.

Throughout all the nights, 101 synagogues and about 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed.

There were 26,000 Jews arrested and sent to concentration camps. Many Jews were beaten on

these nights and a total of 91 Jews died (Middle Tennessee).

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Rounding up the Jews

In Seymour Rossel¶s article, "The Ghettos.", he says thatcone way for the Nazis to keep

track of the Jews was to put them in a carefully monitored area. So they put the Jews in ghettos.

The Jews were forced to wear a badge that set them apart from everyone else and they were

packed into ghettos that were established in the slums of Warsaw, Kovno, Krakow, Lublin, and

other cities. Furthermore, Rossel says that the Nazi police built a wall around these slums so that

they could keep them in a confined area. These ghettos held mass amounts of Jews that were

controlled by Jewish councils that were handpicked by the Nazis. Nazis would control the

ghettos by way of blackmail; they would threaten the lives of thousands of Jews if the Nazi

orders were not followed through completely (Rossel).c

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

(USHMM) has an article entitled ³Life in the Ghettos´,

They state that life in the ghettos was extremely hard and

horrible. Human waste would be in the streets, which led

to the rapid spread of disease. Another big problem was

the lack of adequate clothing, which led to horrible

Jewish Children Smuggling Food
Source: http://bit.ly/gV75in
sickness. The people were always hungry because the

Nazis would starve them by letting them buy only a very small amount of food at a time.

Furthermore, the USHMM says that this led to Jews having food smuggled in. They would break

through the walls just to go out and get food and then smuggle it back to their families. These

smugglers did so at a great risk, if they were caught by the Nazis they were punished severely

(Memorial Museum).c
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Wannsee Conference

In The Holocaust History Project Homepage¶s article about

the Wannsee Conference, they say that the conference was held to

clarify all of the points regarding the demise of the Jews and The

Final Solution. SS-Lieutenant General Rinhard Heydrich, Chief of

the Security Police and Security Service held the conference. He

summoned fourteen men that were the head of branches of the

government and military that were most involved with implementing

Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD
Source: http://bit.ly/hoKrKb The Final Solution. His foremost intentions for the conference were

to make sure that all of these men perfectly understood all of their duties that they were expected

to fulfill. In the conference he gave lectures and organized parts of The Final Solution (Holocaust

History).

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum¶s article entitled ³The Final Solution´

says that the Nazis usually used euphemistic language to disguise the true nature of what they

were doing. The Final Solution was a term that was used to refer to the plan to exterminate the

Jewish people. It is not really known when this term was implemented because the genocide had

been going on for a while; it just kept on getting worse as time went by (Memorial Museum).

Selektion

The Jews were brought to concentration camps on

trains then dumped there for the next event, the selection

process. This process seemed to not really make much

sense. During the selection process sometimes there was

The Selection Process

Source: http://to.pbs.org/fA47VG
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really no reason why some people died and some people lived. Jack Kagan, a holocaust survivor

said this,

Early morning, Lorries arrived, the doors have opened, the Nazi arrived and

started a selection. You came out, he asked you, the head of the family, your

profession, how many children. To the left, it's to go out to the yard; to the right

it's to stand in the corner of the entrance of the building. Came to our turn, my

uncle went in front, he said, ³What is your profession?´ He said a saddle maker.

³How many children?´ Two children. ³To the left.´ Came to my father. ³Your

profession?´ Again, saddle maker, two children. ³To the right.´ That means it was

no rhyme or reason whom to select to death and whom to life (Kagan).

When it came to people who were old or sick there was no question which side they were

going to go, but when it came to healthy people it really seemed random. This really shows how

inhumane and awful the Nazis were.

Extermination methods

In Peter Vogelsang¶s article about the

extermination methods, he says that there were many

methods that were used in the Jewish genocide. The most

common method was the use of gas chambers. With this

method the Jews would all be naked and crowded in a

room that would be filled with gas. Then they would be

Gas Chambers
Source: http://bit.ly/gCpJdh
burned to ash in crematory ovens.

Furthermore, Vogelsang says that gassing trucks was another way that the Nazis

exterminated the Jews. Nazis would put Jews in the back of a truck then run the truck and have
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the emission fumes go directly to where the Jews were. This was found out to not be nearly as

effective as the gas chambers (Vogelsang).

A third method was mass shooting of Jews. Either they would line up Jews and shoot

them or they would just shoot them randomly. Sometimes it was an organized shooting and other

times they would just shoot them because they felt like it.

Five Death Camps

The Middle Tennessee State University¶s (MTSU)

website has an article on the five major death camps that

were used by the Nazi, it is entitled ³The Camps´. The

article says that these extermination camps were called

Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Stutthof, and

three camps called Belzek, Sobibor, and Treblinka, which

Solider Surveys a German Concentration Camp
Source: http://bit.ly/iax1Ow
were all branches of Aktion Rhinehard. All of these camps¶

major method of extermination was types of gas.

In addition, MTSU states that Chelmno was located in Poland on the Ner River. The

Nazis called this camp Kulmholf. Under the command of Hauptsturmfuhrerer Herbert Lange,

Jews were taken to this camp and were forced into vans where the fumes of the van were

directed inside of it, and within ten to fifteen minutes everyone inside was dead. Then the driver

would drive the van into the woods where Jewish workers would unload the bodies into graves.

After the van returned to the camp, the process was repeated. There were about 320,000 victims

killed at this camp.

Furthermore, MTSU states that Auschwitz-Birkenau was the most notorious of all of the

death camps. It was in the center of many major cities in Poland, which made it ideal to ship

prisoners there from German occupied Europe. Auschwitz had a dual function, one as a
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concentration camp where inmates were forced to work and were treated poorly, and also a mass

extermination camp. At the entrance of Auschwitz it said "Arbeit Macht Frei", which means

work will make you free. These words were put there to make false hope for the prisoners so that

they would hopefully work hard.

MTSU goes on to say that the execution method of shooting was also used at the camp.

The major method of execution was gas chambers and cremation ovens. There were also human

experiments going on in the camp. This camp was the most efficient camp of all of the other

extermination camps for carrying out The Final Solution, with about 1,200,000 victims

exterminated.

Furthermore, MTSU states that a camp called Majdanek was located on the outskirts of

Lublin. A gassing facility was put there which used carbon monoxide. Later on it switched to

Zyklon-B. This lead to around 1,380,000 prisoners executed at this camp (The Camps). Stutthof

was a concentration and death camp that was built near Danzig. Stutthof was mostly comprised

of non-Jews and was primarily a forced labor camp. There were around 65,000 prisoners

exterminated there by Zyklon-B gas.

In addition, MTSU states that the three parts of Aktion Rhinehard had a total of

1,550,000 prisoners exterminated. Belzek was a concentration camp, and then it was turned into

a killing center. Around 600,000 were exterminated there until it was turned over to Sobibor.

Sobibor was mainly a killing center and exterminated around 250,000 prisoners until it was

turned over to Treblinka. Furthermore, MTSU says that Treblinka was one of the most important

extermination camps during World War II. The camps¶ extermination method was very much

like Belzek and Sobibor. The prisoners were rushed through a caged area called the tube.cMany

resisted because they knew their fate, and they were brutally beaten. Then they were put into a
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bath house where carbon monoxide was brought in through the shower heads. Around 700,000

prisoners were executed at Treblinka (Middle Tennesee).

Liberation

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

has an article about the liberation of the camps entitled

³Liberation of Nazi Camps´. They state that the liberation

of camps came one by one. Some of the Nazis knew they

were going to be defeated so they sent the prisoners on

death marches. As allied forces moved across Europe,

Liberation of Dachau
Source: http://bit.ly/flEIXy
they found tens of thousands of concentration camp

prisoners. They helped free these prisoners and took control. The Germans were surprised by the

rapid advances of their enemy so they tried to destroy evidence of the camps.

In addition, the USHMM states that the Soviets liberated the largest extermination

concentration camp, Auschwitz, in 1945. Since the Nazis sent prisoners on death marches, the

soviets found only a several thousand prisoners alive when they entered the camp. They also

found that most of the warehouses had been burned down by the Nazis.

Furthermore, the USHMM says that out of all the camps liberated, that only a fraction of

prisoners at the time were found because the others were on death marches, which led to most of

them dying. Even though the Nazis tried to burn down all of the evidence, they did it very sloppy

and hastily, which made it so a lot of evidence was still there. Cremation areas and buildings

with the victim¶s personal belongings were found; along with a lot more evidence of the horrible

things the Nazis had done (Memorial Museum).

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After liberation - until 1948

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum¶s

article entitled ³The Aftermath of the Holocaust´ says

that once the survivors were liberated everything was not

all that great for them. Many Jewish survivors feared to

Holocaust Survivors Stand Behind a Barbed Wire
Fence return to their homes because antisemitism was still very
Source: http://bit.ly/gizRIw
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rebuilding their lives was daunting.

In addition, the USHMM states that there were many post-war anti-Jewish riots that

happened and some of those riots ended with Jewish Deaths. Since there were not many

possibilities for emigration, tens of thousands of holocaust survivors moved westward in Europe

and they were housed in refugee centers. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation

Administration, armies of the United States, Great Britain, and France administered these camps

for the survivors. Here the survivors were supplied with some food and clothing. Even though it

was much more then what they have been given in the concentration camps, it was still a small

amount.

Furthermore, the USHMM says that many survivors labored for the establishment of an

independent Jewish state in Palestine. The Jewish Brigade Group, which was formed in 1944,

created the Brihah, which was an organization that was formed in order to make plans on getting

the Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine. In 1948 the state of Israel was established in

Palestine. This led the way to hundreds of thousands of Jews to immigrate out of the camps and

have total freedom within a couple of years (Memorial Museum).

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Works Cited

""Final Solution": Overview." Ö



 

  . 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 27

Feb. 2011.

Kagan, Jack. "The Selection Process." THE BRITISH LIBRARY - The World's Knowledge.

Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

"KRISTALLNACHT." 
 Ö

. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

"Liberation of Nazi Camps." Ö



 

  . 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 28

Feb. 2011.

"Life in the Ghettos." Ö



 

  . Web. 31 Mar. 2011.

"Nuremberg Laws : Nazi Germany."   


. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

Rossel, Seymour. "Hitler's Rise to Power." 


. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

"The Ghettos." 

. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

Service, Haaretz. "Why Did Adolf Hitler Hate the Jews? - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel

News."  


. 12 July 2009. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

"The Aftermath of the Holocaust." Ö



 

  . 6 Jan. 2011.

Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

"The Camps." 
 Ö

. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

Vogelsang, Peter, and Brian B. M. Larson. "Extermination Camps." 
  !



  "

 
. 2002. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

"Wannsee Conference." 


 


#
. 4 Feb. 2004. Web. 27 Feb.

2011.