malachi knoll 102 106 revised

8/2/2019 Malachi Knoll 102 106 Revised

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Research Paper

Holocaust Overview

Malachi Knoll

ENG COMP 102-106

Larry Neuburger

2 April 2012


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Hitler looks out over his troops.

http://bit.ly/JoL9qt

One can agree a dictatorship is not an ideal form of Government. However, during World

War II a dictatorship was established quickly, efficiently, and enforced harshly. One may wonder

how such a brute force of government, that condemns every single person that goes against it,

came to power so fluently. The government being referred to is commonly known as the Nazi

Party or Third Reich. This paper is going to go over the rise and control of the Nazi regime, and

going to show what just one government was able to accomplish in just a few years, and some of

the aftermath that followed.

Nazi rise to power

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), The party's

rise to power was rapid. (Hitler Comes to Power). It goes

on to say,the worldwide economic depression, millions of

people unemployed, Germanys humiliating defeat in

World War I, and a lacking confidence in the German

government, provided the chance for Adolf Hitler and the

Nazi party to become the new leader of Germany. Furthermore, it states the Nazis werefor the

most partunknown and only had three percent of the vote in 1924. In 1932, they had a 33

percent vote and in 1933, Hitler was appointed to chancellorafter months of negotiationsby

Germanys current President, Paul von Hindenburg, in a mostly conservative government. (Hitler

Comes to Power) Another article on the USHMM website states, Hitler also relied on terror to

achieve his goals. (The Nazi Terror Begins). It says that the goals he wanted to achieve were

declaring a state of emergency, removing freedom of press, speech and assembly. Furthermore, it

says in order to terrorize the citizens into submission, Hitler attracted tens of thousands of men

with good wages, a feeling of brotherhood, and spectacular uniformsto join the Nazi Storm


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Troopers, or SA. The SA went to the streets to beat and

sometimes kill people that opposed the Nazi regime.

The fear of this brutal police force, put people who did

not support the Nazis into silence (The Nazi Terror

Begins).

Nuremberg laws

In 1935, shortly after Hitlers appointment to

chancellor, the Nazi party announced new laws, establishing the Nazi ideology. An article on the

USHMM website

says that the laws became known as Nuremberg Laws and The laws excluded

German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual

relations with persons of German or related blood. (The Nuremberg Race Laws). Furthermore,

it goes on to say that the laws defined a Jew as . . . anyone who had three or four Jewish

grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or

herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. (The Nuremberg Race Laws)

The article goes on to read that during the 1936 Olympic Games, in order to prevent international

critical criticism on his newly established government, and to keep the games held in Berlin,

Hitler and the Nazi regime moderated its anti-Semitic attacks and even removed signs saying

Jews Unwelcome from public buildings (The Nuremberg Race Laws).

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was a

pogrom instigated by Nazi officials and members of the SA,

as well as Hitler Youth according to the USHMM website. It

also states, In its aftermath, German officials announced

A visual graph of the Nuremberg laws defining aJew.

http://bit.ly/1gX9Zx

A business after Kristallnacht.

http://bit.ly/HWfgIm


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Jewish resistance fighters.http://bit.ly/J6ayIb

that Kristallnacht had erupted as a spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in response to the

assassination of Ernst vom Rath . . . (Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom). The article says that

Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan shot Ernst vom Rath after he and his family, among many

others, were expelled from Germany and denied entry to their native country of Poland. The

shooting occurred on November 7, 1938 and Ernst died two days later on November 9, 1938.

Furthermore, it reads propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, on that night pronounced the

Fhrer has decided that demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but

insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered. and throughout the night

violence erupted with the burning and vandalism of Jewish homes, business, and synagogues

(Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom).

Resistance

One may ask why the Jewish people did not fight against the Nazi party, but in fact, there

were several cases and ways in which the Jews did try to take on the Nazis. Another article on

the USHMM website says that Nazi opposition by the Jews occurred in a . . . variety of ways,

both collectively and as individuals. (Jewish Resistance).

The article goes on to say, Organized armed resistance

was the most forceful form of Jewish opposition but

Jewish civilians were not the only ones to oppose the

Nazi policies. Jewish council chairman Moshe Jaffe

resisted by refusing to comply when Germans ordered him to hand over Jews for Deportation. .

.(Jewish Resistance) in Minsk. In some cases the Jews would escape from ghettos and join . . .

Soviet partisan units or formed separate partisan units to harass the German occupiers. however


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in some cases the rebellion was quickly put out and ended with innocent people dying to

discourage more resistance (Jewish Resistance).

Wansee ConferenceThe Final Solution

January 20, 1942 officials of the German government and Nazi party met at what is

called the Wansee Conference to implement what one

could call the worst, most detrimental scar of the human

race in history. This became known as the Final

Solution, which ended up as being the physical

annihilation of Jews. Another article on the USHMM

website says at some time in the year 1941, Hitler authorized a plan for the mass murder of Jews

in all of Europe and the Wansee conference was not to argue about if the physical annihilation of

Jews was necessary, but rather how to do it (Wansee Conference and the Final Solution). It

goes on to say that the Nuremberg Laws would define who was a Jew and SS general Reinhard

Heydrich estimated . . . approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the

provisions of the Final Solution. (Wansee Conference and the Final Solution).

Extermination methods

The Nazis used three methods of mass killing Jews according to an article on the Public

Broadcasting Station (PBS) website. Death by firing squad, carbon monoxide, and Zyklon B

were the methods of extermination. Death by firing squads

was not a good method due to the fact that it traumatized

the soldiers shooting the unarmed civilians at close range,

as well as leaving physical evidence of bodies being buried.

The house and location of the Wansee conference

http://bit.ly/t86WAR

One of the gas chambers inside Auschwitz

http://bit.ly/HT6Y38


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One reason the Nazis switched to killing with carbon monoxide was Gas would be

cheaper than bullets, and no Nazi would directly take a life (The Killing Evolution). It goes on to

say the Nazis took cargo trucks with the exhaust system routed into the cargo area. They would

then fill the back with Jews and drive the trucks to a destination where the dead bodies would be

. . . buried or burned (The Killing Evolution). These vans became known as Hell Vans. The

problem with extermination by carbon monoxide was that there was still physical evidence of

murder because of the bodies and the Nazis had a hard time figuring out how far to drive because

on some occasions, the hell vans would stop and there would still be people alive in the back.

The third killing method the Nazis used was Zyklon B, which was a pesticide used to kill

lice in the clothing of the prisoners. Nazis eventually made crematoria that housed gas chambers

and ovens to kill then cremate Jews. The gas chambers would be filled with prisoners, and the

Zyklon B crystals would be heated to turn into a poisonous gas killing the Jews, then the

prisoners that were used for labor had to take all the dead bodies into the crematories so there

would be no physical evidence of the murders. The Nazis used the Zyklon B since it was the

most efficient killer they had (The Killing Evolution).

Ghettos

Ghettos were the city districts in which the . . .

municipal and sometimes regional Jewish. . . (Ghettos)

were forced to live in according to an article on the

USHMM website. The conditions in the ghettos were

terrible and filthy. Furthermore, the article reads ghettos

were usually enclosed and isolated Jews from the rest of

the public or non-Jewish population and other Jewish

A picture of the Warsaw ghetto looking in from

the wall.

http://bit.ly/HWiDPz


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An aerial picture of the Nazi concentration camp

Auschwitz (Main Camp)

http://bit.ly/JkiG2g

communities. The ghettos were a holding point, if you will, for the Jews while Nazi leaders were

discussing the final solution as talked about earlier. The article goes on to say beginning in the

later months of 1941 the Germans began to destroy the ghettos and start deporting Jews, mostly

by train, to concentration camps, labor camps, killing centers, or the Nazis would kill them in the

ghettos. Ghettos were a source of Jewish resistance, fighting against Nazi oppression by

smuggling food, medicine, weapons and sometimes intelligence through the ghetto walls, all of

which were prohibited by the Nazis and without approval from the Jewish councils (Ghettos).

Nazi camps

According to a USHMM website article,

during the years between 1933-1945 , about

20,000 camps were established for a variety of uses including forced-labor camps, transit camps

and extermination camps, of which the latter were made mostly for mass murder, as well as

concentration camps and . . .series of detention facilities to imprison and eliminate so-called

"enemies of the state." (Nazi Camps). After the Final Solution was established, the Nazis

opened killing centers in Poland, which were designed for efficiency with mass murder. The

article goes on to read Chelmno, the first killing center, opened in December 1941.

Furthermore,the article says in 1942, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killings centers were

opened to murder the Jews of the Generalgouvernment. Three million Jews or more are

estimated to have been killed in the killing centers alone, not to mention the Jews that died while

being transported to the camps (Nazi Camps). According to

a different article on the USHMM website, the first

concentration camps were established shortly Hitler was

appointed to chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.

The article reads. After the SS gained its independence


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from the SA in July 1934. . . Hitler authorized the Reich SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, to

centralize the administration of the concentration camps and formalize them into a system

(Concentration Camps) which allowed the SS to be the only agency authorized to establish and

manage facilities that were formally called concentration camps (Concentration Camps).

Liberation

After D-Day . . .the single largest amphibious

invasion force in world history. . .(Liberation), as the

Allies and Soviet troops fought through Europe, they

inevitably encountered several Nazi crimes including

concentration camps and mass graves according to an

article on the USHMM website. Although the liberation

of Nazi camps was not a primary objective, Soviet and

American forces liberated several camps and sub-camps

including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Ohrdruf, which was a sub-camp Buchenwald.

On May 8, 1945, Germanys unconditional surrender became official, ending the terrible reign of

the Nazi regime and liberating all the Jews from the concentration camps and forced-labor camps

(Liberation).

After liberation

After liberation several Jews, according to an

article on the USHMM website . . . feared to return to

their former homes because of the anti-Semitism. . .

(The Aftermath of the Holocaust). Because they did not

have many places to emigrate to, thousands of survivors

Liberation of the Nazi concentration campMauthausen

http://bit.ly/IC6haP

A newspaper article on the birth of the State of

Israel

http://bit.ly/IavPh0


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headed west to other European territories liberated by the Allies, while others went to displaced

persons camps (or DP camps) like BergenBelsen, located in Germany. Many groups dedicated

to helping the survivors pressured countries for better emigration chances, but unfortunately the

United States had restrictions on the quota for legal immigration and the British tightened

restrictions on immigration to Palestine. Luckily, in late 1945, a directive was issued by

President Harry Truman that . . . loosened quota restrictions on immigration to the U.S. of

persons displaced by the Nazi regime. and in mid-1948 the State of Israel was made and

therefore Jewish people displaced, could immigrate to Israel (The Aftermath of the Holocaust).

In conclusion, the Nazi regime was proven to be a terrible and unethical rise of a brutal

dictatorship. The rise of the regime was quick and the forcefulness of the power. Millions of

Jews and other innocent people were killed, for Nazi beliefs, that were all untrue. In the end, one

can agree, the fall of the Nazi regime could be considered one of the best things that happened to

this world.


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Works Cited

"THE AFTERMATH OF THE HOLOCAUST." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

"CONCENTRATION CAMPS, 1933-1939." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

"Ghettos." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

"Hitler Comes to Power." Unites States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Unites States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"Jewish Resistance." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 16 Mar. 2012.

"The Killing Evolution." PBS: Public Broadcasting Station. Public Broadcasting Station. Web.

28 Mar. 2012.

"KRISTALLNACHT: A NATIONWIDE POGROM, NOVEMBER 9-10, 1938." United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 18

Apr. 2012.

"Liberation." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial


"Nazi Camps." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial


"The Nazi Terror Begins." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.


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"The Nuremberg Race Laws." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.

"WANNSEE CONFERENCE AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"" United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.

Well done Malachi!

You are probably very glad to have this over and done with, well almost done. I

enjoyed reading your paper. Fix the areas I have called attention to. The one

section on the death camps probably doesnt need any revision, but I hope

you understand the difference between a concentration an death camp.


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Points AvailableScore

40Content paper demonstrates understanding

and confidence about topic32

20Sources uses only primary and secondary

sources20

40

In-Text Citations integrates sources within

text with effective use of signal words and

phrases

32

35 Formatting properly uses MLA formatting

32

25

Works Cited works cited page has the

required number of sources and is properly

formatted

25

15Pictures uses pictures to enhance the text

with effective captions and source information15

25 Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errorsin spelling, punctuation, etc.

20

Total = 200

Total Score

176

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