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Transcript of Scott McMasters Graded
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Scotty McMasters
Mr. Larry Neuberger
English 102-104
18 November 2011
Research Paper
Overview: The Holocaust
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World War II was a horrible event in the history of mankind. However, it was not the war
that was the most terrifying of the time period; it was the genocide that took place during it. The
massacre known as the Holocaust is one ofhistorys largest acts of genocide the world has ever
seen. Some believe the event never happened, but facts and proof show it did. One should know
not just how the event occurred, but how Hitler and his followers were able to commit such an
act in an extremely short amount of time.
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is the prejudice towards people of the Jewish
religion. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum (USHMM)Nazi Germany is historys most extreme
example of anti-Semitism, (Antisemitism)this by the evidence
given about the Holocaust it would be easy for one to understand.
Furthermore, in 1879 the journalist Wilhelm Marr originated the
term anti-Semitism, however, Marr did not just target the Jews he
targeted the liberal, cosmopolitan, and international political
trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often associated
with Jews, (Antisemitism) this shows that the Germans were using Jews as a scapegoat for their
problems or disagreed upon views (Antisemitism). Before the Nazis gained power over Germany
they had to gain the publics approval and propaganda helped give this to the Nazi party.
According to Yad Vashem, the first major propaganda made Hitler appear like a powerful and
trustworthy leader. Once Hitler and the Nazi Party gained control of Germany, Hitler used
propaganda to keep the publics eye and mind. Furthermore, Hitler created the illusion that
the German people had one enemy: the Jews (Propaganda, Nazi) and from that Hitler used
Propaganda Poster asking to get the
Jewish warmongers out ofEurope
Source: http://bit.ly/tvDslx
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A photograph after the events of Kristallnacht.
http://bit.ly/UX99
propaganda to make Jews the main target in making a racially pure nation. In addition to the
propaganda in posters the Nazis released a film called The Eternal Jew which depicted Jews as
dirty, immoral, and ugly (Propaganda, Nazi). The kind of messages in Nazi Germany
created distaste towards the Jewish people and made it more acceptable to imprison or get rid of
them.
Nuremberg Laws
By the year 1935 the Nazi party had control of
the government and passed the Nuremberg Laws. The
Nuremberg Laws stated that no Jew would be allowed
in Germany and the Jewish had lost their citizenship to
the country. According to an article The Nuremberg
Laws, seven sections and many articles make up the
Nuremberg Laws. The article also describes what these laws commanded the Jewish people to
do. The first section stated no one of the Jewish faith or nationals of German blood could not
engage in marriage. The next portion of the laws stated that the employment of a German female
by a Jewish individual was prohibited and that Jews could not raise the German flag, but the flag
of their Jewish colors. Furthermore, should those laws be disobeyed the person who broke the
rule would be put in jail or sentenced to hard labor or both (My Jewish Learning). The outright
discrimination and persecution of Jews caused much unrest throughout Europe.
Kristallnacht
The first noticeable acts of violence began with
Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass as
translated. Hitler sent his followers on a rampage
A picture of the Nuremberg Laws
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Windows broken from the riots
during Kristallnacht
http://bit.ly/aHp3P6
through the streets destroying Jewish business and terrorizing Jews. According to the USHMM
the event occurred through November 9th and 10th of 1938 and
Kristallnacht had not been secluded to Germany only, the attack
occurred in the recently annexed Austria and in portions of
Czechoslovakia occupied by German troops. German officials at
the time stated the assassination of a German embassy official by a
Polish Jew in Paris resulted in the spontaneous outburst ofpublic
sentiment (Kristalnacht) and mass destruction of property.
Furthermore, according to Public Broadcasting Stations (PBS)
website, Kristallnacht gave the Nazi government a threshold to removing Jews from the German
public both in economic and social life (Kristallnacht). Kristallnacht made the lives of the Jewish
people hard and opened the doors to much worse hardships in the future.
The Ghettos
The excuse to get rid of minorities in Germany had worked and the forced emigration to
ghettos had begun. Many Jews were rounded up and put in small neighborhoods called ghettos.
After observing the movieA Film Unfinishedit was easy
to see that life in the ghettos held awful experiences for
those that were forced to live there during the war. One
survivor by the name of Solomon Radasky had an extreme
experience in the ghettos in Warsaw. Radasky showed
that abuse was common in the ghettos when he described
being beaten until the blood ran down his back. Furthermore the Nazis referred to the Jews as
dogs because of the tags they were required to wear (Radasky). Ursula Levy also survived the
Nazis laughing as they beat a Jew
Source: http://bit.ly/5alGXd
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The building where the Wannsee Conference tookplace.
http://bit.ly/cxAOP9
Holocaust and had lived in the ghettos. Levy did not have much to do in the ghettos according to
her We didn't doing anything. We stood at role call most of the day. Also, Jews starved in the
ghettos and because of this it was observed that everything slowed down to me,(USC ShoahFoundation) the malnourishment slowed speech and energy down to a crawl (USC Shoah
Foundation). Ursula and Solomon both were transferred to Auschwitz, however, Ursula received
liberation from the Nazis by the Soviets before getting there. The ghettos broke the moral and
took a large toll on the population of the Jews. The prelude to the horrifying conclusion to the
Holocaust could be revealed at any ghetto at the time.
The Wannsee Conference
After the Jews and minorities lived in the
ghettos and the invasion of Russia had started, the Final
Solution to the Jewish Problem was devised at the
Wannsee Conference. According to Yad Vashem, a
Jewish site on Holocaust remembrance, the Nazis had
murdered the Jews and minorities by gunfire. However,
because extermination by gunfire took a toll on the
soldiers performance the Nazi officials decided to end that form of killing and move to other
forms. Instead, of shooting the defenseless people the Nazis decided that death by toxic gas
would be quicker and have a lesser toll on the soldiers. However, the use of gas by the Nazis had
not started there, according to Yad Vashem The Germans had already employed gas in the
Euthanasia Program. This Euthanasia Program was and early attempt to get rid of all the
mentally ill and physically disabled in Germany, but was stopped due to pressure from the
German public and clergy, (The Wannsee Conference) to stop. This shows the plan to
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Layouts of the gas chambers in Auschwitz
Source: http://bit.ly/5alGXd
exterminate the Jewish people with gas may have come earlier than the Wannsee Conference.
The Jewish people became marked for dead and the systematic structure began.
Selektion
The process in which the victims of the
Holocaust received their demise consisted of a few
key aspects. According to The Holocaust Explained,
males and females had to separate into their individual
groups. From there anybody over the age of about
fourteen received the decision of fit to work. Next
the elderly, women, and children became condemned to death in the gas chambers, however,
the victims did not receive knowledge of their misfortune. Finally, after selection took place
those fit to work had to enter a room for registration, which consisted of being tattooed with an
identification number, their heads shaved, placed into disinfecting showers, and placed in striped
pajamas (Selection). Solomon Radasky described his induction to the prison camp at Majdanek
as follows, At Majdanek they took our clothes and gave us striped shirts, pants and wooden
shoes, (Radasky). The prisoners of the concentration camps now faced the beginning to life
within a death camp.
Concentration Camps
In Poland, Jewish people from all over Europe
were stationed in concentration camps. These camps had
one purpose and one purpose only, quick extermination
of innocent people. Prisoners had to surrender to many
thing when they arrived and the Nazis had more than
Prisoners being separated by gender and age
Source: http://bit.ly/tXJa5k
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Jewish in concentration camps. According to Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
(HEART)the first thing prisoners were forced to do was surrender everything they had, clothesand all. Nothing of value was allowed. Then the Nazis categorized the different peoples with
triangles to wear. A red triangle meant one was a political prisoner, a green triangle meant one
was a professional criminal, black triangles were for asocial people, purple triangles meant one
was from the Catholic clergy, a pink triangle meant one was a homosexual, a yellow star was for
the Jewish and a violet triangle was for a Jehovah Witness. In
addition to the triangles prisoners still had the tattoos with serial
numbers for identification (Auschwitz Concentration Camp).
The people worked very hard and until they could not work
anymore according to Solomon Radasky. Radasky had worked
in the camp at Majdanek and Auschwitz and stated in the
description of their treatment that If they could not get up, they
were shot where they lay. After work we had to carry the bodies
back. If 1,000 went out to work, a 1,000 had to come back. The Nazis did not care about the
well-being of their prisoners by the way Radasky writes and it is clear the Nazis did not care for
they opened up jails and they made the prisoners our bosses. Making murders and rapist run
a facility showed the carelessness of the Nazis (Radasky). The camps were horrible places with
the worst way to treat individuals. It is horrible to think that people were treated in such a way
during the time.
Killing Methods
The Nazis did not have just one way to murder the people in the camps. According to
PBS the Nazis did not plan the method of killing off millions of people, but that it evolved into
The triangle diagram that the
prisoners used
Source: http://bit.ly/utEU67
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Nazi death squads murdering hundredsSource: http://to.pbs.org/f5koEQ
Picture of an Auschwitz death chamber
Source: http://bit.ly/5alGXd
an industrial procedure. PBS also described this
evolution into the mass killing factories. First the Nazis
killed men women and children with troops lining the
prisoners up and shooting all of them dead (The Killing
Evolution). According to The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, between
17,000 and 18,000 Jews were killed in one day as part of a mass shooting, (Extermination
Camps). Then PBS describes the switch to the next form of extermination, death by carbon
monoxide, because Himmler realized he had to find new methods that would spare his troops
the psychological strain of killing human beings at close
range,(The Killing Evolution) so the Nazis hooked upcanisters on the gas to shower heads so the Nazis would
not directly be taking a life. Then the Nazis decided to
experiment with the use of carbon monoxide and
disposing of the victims by using hell vans which were
nothing more than huge trucks with the exhaust pipes focused into the back to poison and killed
the prisoners making it easy to dispose of the victims. Finally the use of Zyklon B was
introduced and the massive gas chambers and crematoria with the properly heated room and
pesticide crystals the operation of killing about 4,400 people a day was made possible (The
Killing Evolution). The methods used in the Holocaust had gruesome descriptions and it is hard
to fathom the possibility of killing so many people.
Resistance
A common understanding would be that people believe the Jewish people just gave up
and did not resist the Nazis out of fear. However this is a wrong assumption. According to the
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USHMM some Jews escaped from the ghettos into the
forests and joined Russian partisan units or made their
own (Jewish Resistance). One famous partisan group, the
Bielski partisans, made life for the Nazis troublesome.
According to the USHMM, after the death of their parents
and two brothers, the three surviving brothers Tuvia,
Asael, and Zus escaped form the ghettos into the Zabielovo and Perelaz forests where they hid
and formed a large partisan group of about thirty families. In addition to escaping Tuvia was
elected as a leader by the other families because he had a military background. Furthermore the
Bielski partisans did a lot to rescue prisoners from the ghettos and also had a major hand in the
sabotage of trains and railroads and killing many German troops (The Bielski Partisans).
According to Yad Vashem The Germans grew so frustrated by their inability to catch Tuvia
Bielski that they offered a 100,000 marks reward for his capture, indicating that the large group
of Jews was a formidable opponent in the war (Bielski, Tuvia). The partisan groups made a large
difference in the war and saved many Jewish lives. The Bielski partisans give a well-illustrated
picture of Jewish resistance.
Though escaping and fighting back became an option for some it did not for others. Some
prisoners rebelled from within the death camps. According to USHMM the prisoners at
Treblinka and Sobibor stole weapons from the Nazis in an attempt to escape. Although many
died in the uprisings a few prisoners managed to escape the Nazis. Also an attempt to blow up a
crematorium on the Auschwitz death camp by prisoners failed and nearly 250 prisoners died as a
result during the attack and another 200 after. Finally the Jewish prisoners rebelled against the
oppression of the Nazis with spiritual resistance meaning they made conscious decisions in
A group from the Bielski partisans
Source: http://bit.ly/u98e8q
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preserving the history and lifestyle of Jewish the people. As well as this prisoner named Oneg
Shabbat took many forms of documentation to record what happened in the Warsaw ghettos to
ensure the story of the prisoners in the ghettos. The fact that prisoners still had the courage to
face a force more powerful than themselves is truly inspiring.
Liberation
When World War II was coming closer to an
end the Allied forces began liberating many of the
death camps. According to USHMM the Soviets
reached concentration camps first with the finding of
the Majdanek camp. Then the Soviets found that the
Nazis tried to hide the evidence of the mass murder
by demolishing most of the camp. Moreover the Soviets liberated Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka,
and Auschwitz. However, when the Soviets overran the Nazis at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka
in 1944 they found little survivors because in 1943 the Nazis had dismantled the camps due to
most prisoners in Poland had already been killed. Next the Soviets found the belonging of the
prisoners and several death chambers in Auschwitz, evidence of the mass murder. Finally in the
Bergen-Belsen camp when the British liberated the camp they released some 60,000 prisoner and
within the next week more than 10,000 died of malnutrition or disease (Liberation of Nazi
Camps). What the Allied forces witnessed when liberating the camp was horrifying and allowed
for the truth of the Nazis actions to be revealed. The liberations became a blessing and a horrible
revelation at the same time.
Conclusion
Anti-Semitism opened the doors to even more discriminatory act by the Nazis made
possible by skillful propaganda made by the Nazis. The Jewish people and all other prisoners in
Children being released from Auschwitz
Source: http://bit.ly/gSyMdZ
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the Holocaust had gone through some of the worst conditions a person should never experience.
The many live the Nazis had taken and the way that they did it would qualify as awe-worthy and
scary to say the least. Holocaust survivors made the evidence of event more solid and make the
stories feel even more unbelievable that an event like the holocaust could even occur. Hopefully
when researching the Holocaust one could look in depth the event and cruelties that occurs in
World War II and realize and help prevent such an event from ever happening again.
Works Cited
"The American Experience.America and the Holocaust.People & Events | "Kristallnacht" | PBS."
PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"Antisemitism." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
"Armed Jewish Resistance: Partisans." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 16
Nov. 2011.
"Auschwitz Concentration The Basics The Historical Timeline." Holocaust Education &
Archive Research Team. 2007. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
Barnavi, Eli. "The Final Solution - My Jewish Learning." Judaism & Jewish Life - My Jewish
Learning. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"The Bielski Partisans." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"Bielski, Tuvia." Yad Vashem. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"Extermination Camps." The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Web. 16 Nov.
2011.
Holocaust Survivor Ursula Levy Testimony - YouTube. YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. USC
Shoah Foundation. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
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"The Jewish Population Disbelieves Reports of the Extermination." Yad Vashem. Web. 17 Nov.
2011.
"Jewish Resistance." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"Liberation of Nazi Camps." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
"The Nuremberg Laws - My Jewish Learning." Judaism & Jewish Life - My Jewish Learning.
Web. 16 Nov. 2011
"Propaganda, Nazi." Yad Vashem. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
"Selection at the Concentration Camps - Key Stage 3 - The Holocaust Explained." The
Holocaust Explained - Homework & Online Education Tool for Students. Web. 17 Nov.
2011.
"Survivor Stories: Solomon Radasky." Holocaust Survivors. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.
"The Wannsee Conference." Yad Vashem. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.