The Holocaust was not just a war that occurred these days. It was a war that every human being will remember as one of the greatest tragedy of the world. It made a huge impact on history especially for the Jews people. It was the effort of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany to exterminate the Jews and other people that they considered to be inferior such as homosexuals and disabled people. The murders were done by every means imaginable, but most of the victims died as a result of shooting, starvation, disease, poison gas, tortured to death and in horrible medical experiments.
Born in Austria in April 1889, and being a child interested in fine arts, Adolf Hitler grow up wanting to be an artist. Latter on he drop out of school and moved to Vienna where he was expose to extreme German nationalists. Young Hitler applied to the Academy of Fine Arts twice but he got rejected both times. Later in his life he decided to apply to serve in the German army at the outbreak of World War One. He got accepted on august 1914 and this was the beginning of the rise of Hitler to power and his acceptance by Germany.
After many battles, revolutions, and even prison, Hitler and the Nazi Party were declared the only legal political party in Germany and then head of state. At this point is when everything started to get out of control and when Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nation and announced a massive expansion of Germany’s armed forces that they were prohibited on the Treaty of Versailles, it began the regin of terror.
Basically Hitler and the Nazi Party believed that the “ Aryan race” (pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes) were superior and he condemned all “ undesirable” people such as European Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists and disable people to extermination in the so called The Holocaust. He first started changing the laws of Germany such as the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 (Protection of German Blood and German Honor) and creating the Extermination Camps where the Nazi used gas chambers for the purpose of systematic mass extermination, some others got less “ lucky” and finished in the hands of Doctors that made medical xperiments on them such as testing drugs, freezing them, amputation and surgeries or got into Concentration Camps or ghettos where Jews were subjected to slave labor until they died. Before the Fuhrer (Hitler) started in 1941 openly to killed every “ inferior being”, he create an “ euthanasia” program for the “ suppression of lives unworthy to live”. The ideas of the Aryan Race were fused to anti-Semitism. The fear of disease among Nazis was often identified with hatred of the Jews.
They were frequently shot because they were said to be carriers of contagious diseases or because they were “ useless mouths” or vermin. The Germans justified the massacres saying that they were eliminating the incurables. It was the churches the only ones that protested openly against the euthanasia program and raised the moral questions that had to be asked. Pastor P. Braune, a leader of the Lutheran Church, sent the following memorandum: How far can one go in destroying unworthy lives?
The wholesale actions taken so far have shown that many persons clearly of sound mind have been included… Are they directed only at the hopeless cases?… The questionnaire also lists the diseases of senility. The newest regulation calls for the elimination of children with illnesses resulting from birth trauma as well. What serious misapprehensions must come to mind! Will they stop at the tubercular? The Euthanasia program has already begun to be applied to prisoners. Where is the limit?
Who is abnormal, asocial, and hopelessly sick? How will soldiers fare who acquire incurable ailments fighting for their country? Such questions have already been raised in the army circles. *1 Pastor Braune was arrested for “ irresponsible sabotage of government measures” but church protests continued until the end of the Holocaust. This event impacted world history in every possible aspect of our present lives and had a long lasting effect, such as how we see racism today and how far a human being can go with their beliefs.
There is too much to learn about this part of our history buy I personally believe that we are still committing similar errors today. Are we really trying to learn from our mistakes? Or are we just justifying ourselves like Nazi’s did to accomplish a major government plan? Is impossible for me trying to get a conclusion in such horrifying event, I got more question to do to myself that answers from this assignment. In my opinion there is not common sense in the death of millions of people.
