Holocaust

Nearly six million Jews were killed and murdered in what historians have

called "The Holocaust." The word 'holocaust' is a conflagration, a great

raging fire that consumes in it's path all that lives. In the years between

1933 and 1945, the Jews of Europe were marked for total annihilation.

Moreover, anti-Semitism was given legal sanction. It was directed by Adolf

Hitler and managed by Heinne Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann.

There were many other great crimes and murders, such as the killing of the

Armenians by the Turks, but the Holocaust stood out as the "only sysmatic

and organized effort by a modern government to destroy a whole race of

people." The Germans under Adolf Hitler believed that the Jews were the

cause of all the German troubles and were a threat to the German and

Christian values.

Dating back to the first century A.D. the Jews and Christians were

always at war. The Jews were considered the murderers of Christ and were

therefor denounced from society, rejected by the Conservatives and were not

allowed to live in rural areas. As a result, the Jews began living in the

cities and supported the liberals. This made the Germans see the Jews as

the symbol of all they feared.

Following the defeat of the Germans in WW1, the Treaty Of Versailles

and the UN resolutions against Germany raised many militaristic voices and

formed extreme nationalism.

Hitler took advantage of the situation and rose to power in 1933 on a

promise to destroy the Treaty Of Versailles that stripped Germany off land.

Hitler organized the Gestapo as the only executive branch and secret terror

organization of the Nazi police system. In 1935, he made the Nuremberg Laws

that forbid Germans to marry Jews or commerce with them. Hitler thought

that the Jews were a nationless parasite and were directly related to the

Treaty Of Versailles. When Hitler began his move to conquer Europe, he

promised that no person of Jewish background would survive.

Before the start of the second world war, the Jews of Germany were

excluded from public life, forbidden to have sexual relations with non-Jews,

boycotted, beaten but allowed to emigrate. When the war was officially

declared, emigration ended and 'the final solution to the Jewish problem'

came. When Germany took over Poland, the Polish and German Jews were forced

into overcrowded Ghettos and employed as slave labour. The Jewish property

was seized. Disease and starvation filled the Ghettos. Finally, the Jews

were taken to concentration camps in Poland and Germany were they were

murdered and killed in poisonous gas chambers in Auschwitz and many other

camps. Despite the harsh treatment of the Jews, little Germans opposed this.

When the news reached the allies, they all refused and put down any

rescue plans to aid