The Holocaust Facts and Interesting information about Holocaust

Holocaust is that period in human history that marks the persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. Although the prejudice against the Jews has been prevalent for a long time in Europe, persecution and expulsion of the Jews in Germany began when Hitler emerged into power in 1933. The term Holocaust finds its roots in the Greek word holokauston which means sacrifice by fire. This period was rightly termed this way because of the Nazi’s planned slaughter of the Jewish people. Apart from Jews they also aimed at eradicating populations consisting of gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah witnesses and the disabled people. All those who raised their voices against these cruel Nazi’s racism acts was sent to forced labor or murdered.

The Jews were disenfranchised and terrorized in anti-Jewish riots were abandoned off their properties, were forced to live in the ghettos and eventually sent into concentration camps. Post World War II, Hitler gave rise to death camps to secretly implement the prosecution of Jews a process what he called ‘The Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Estimates of 11 million people were killed during the holocaust amongst which 6 million were Jews. The Nazis killed about two-thirds of all Jews living in Europe. About 1.1 million children were massacred in the name of elimination of the Jews and other minorities. All of this initiated on April 1st 1933, when the first anti-Semitism came into action where the Germans announced a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses.

Then the Germans formed measures like The Nuremberg Laws which was issued on September 15th 1935. Under this law the Nazis started excluding Jews from social and public life. The law made sure that the Jews living in Germany were stripped off their citizenship and marriages and extramarital sex between Jews and Germans were strictly prohibited. Moreover, there were additional laws issued that were anti-Jewish in nature eventually over a period of time. These laws would prohibit Jews from visiting places like parks and they were fired from the civil service jobs. Jews were made to register their property and Jewish doctors were not allowed to practice medicine on any other citizen of the country except on their fellow Jews.

On the night of November 9th, 1938, Nazis instigated a program against the Jews in Austria and Germany called Kristallnacht also known as ‘Night of the Broken Glass” involved an agenda to devastate and burn all synagogues, break the windows of Jewish-owned businesses, breaking in Jewish stores and robbing them off their money and valuables as well as physical assault of the Jews. About 30,000 Jews were caught hold of and sent to concentration camps. Post World War II the Jews were asked to wear a yellow Star of David on their outfits that they were easily distinguished. The Nazi philosophy consisted of strong anti-Communist, anti-Jewish and racist components.  It was hugely nationalistic, militaristic and all indications of dictatorship were to follow.

The Nazis believed that they belonged to a superior race called The Aryans. They had this mutual feeling of hatred towards the Jews and blamed them for holding back their economic growth. They believed that the existence of Jews, the gypsies, and disabled people were a depreciating factor to the purity of the Aryan race. This led to the idea of mass extermination of the innocent Jews and other minorities. In the late 1930’s the Nazis eradicated a huge mass of disabled people by means of lethal injection and poisonous gas. They employed mobile killing units. Enormous numbers of Jews and Gypsies were shot in open fields and ravines on the outskirts of captured cities and towns. They set up six extermination camps in occupied Poland and began mass murders of the non-Aryans. A lot of concentration camps were established that were categorized into extermination camps, labor camps, prisoner-of-war camps and transit camps. Prisoners of these camps were ushered to a gas chamberand ultimately murdered.

Thus the Holocaust features prominently in history of mankind as one of the most frightening rationality and efficiency in the systematic killing of innocent people.