brandy renfro 102 -127 research paper[3]

7/30/2019 Brandy Renfro 102 -127 Research Paper[3]

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Research Paper

Holocaust Overview

Brandy Renfro

Mr. Neuburger

English Comp 102-127

18 October 2012


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The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in history. It is hard to believe humanity

could ethically allow systematically killing of approximately twelve million people. That one

leader named Adolf Hitler could lead so many people into so much hate and to become

murderers. The consequence of the event still haunts mankind today. Some believe that the

Holocaust did not even take place. In order to prevent this horrific event from reoccurring one

has to acknowledge all the events that led the Nazis rise to power.

Nazi rise to power

At the end of World War 1, Germany was not prepared for the aftermath. According to

A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust (TGH), German propaganda had not prepared for such a

huge defeat and the upper officials and politicians who were

responsible claimed Germany had been bamboozled by its

leftwing politicians, communists and Jews. Furthermore after the

Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, the Germans were

disarmed and forced to pay reparations to France and Britain for

their immense war costs, therefore leaving the German

Community in a state of poverty and growing resentment.

Meanwhile Adolf Hitler joined a small political party called The

German Workers Party. Hitler rapidly made it to the top of the leadership ranks due to his talent

in emotional and captivating speeches. Within two years Hitler changed the name of the party to

National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), and eventually had a following of 3,000

members. Hitler encouraged national pride, militarism a commitment to the Volk and racially

pure. Hitler condemned the Jews, exploiting antisemtitic feelings that had prevailed in Europe

Adolf Hitler shortly after his rise inpower. Source: www.azishistory.com


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for centuries. A year later after that in 1920 Hitler was the appointed the official leader also

known as the Fhrer (The Rise of the Nazi Party).

Nazis views on Jews

While Adolf Hitler was building his empire he was instilling anti-sematic beliefs into his

followers. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Hitler

released a book titled Mein Kampf (My Struggle) it contained details of what he considered

necessary removal of the Jews. Moreover a potent component of

political anti-Semitism was nationalism, whose adherents often

denounced Jews as disloyal citizens. Hitler described the need for

expansion of the German master race, and he explained his

beliefs why the Jews were a hindrance to his plan. Hitler believed

everything reverted back to genetics. Furthermore Hitler only

wanted the Germanic race as the master race and it that the

German race should remain pure in order for the Germans to one

day take over the world (Antisemitism).

Nuremberg Laws

In 1933 President Hindenburg gave Hitler the power needed to start acting out and

dictating to the German people the plans he had on getting the Jewish people out of Germany

and making the German race pure when he named Hitler Chancellor of Germany. According to

TGH, Hitler announced the Nuremberg laws in 1935, which contained over 120 ordnances; the

laws stripped the Jews of their civil rights as German Citizens and separated them from the

Germans legally, socially, and politically. Furthermore the law used ancestry to define race and

not religious beliefs. Many thousands of Germans who had not previously considered themselves

The Nazis used public displays tospread their ideas of race. This is of

the Nordic race. Source:

http://bit.ly/RyPhYM


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as Jews found themselves defined as nonAryans. Hitler

warned in a menacingly manner that if the law did not resolve the

problem, he will turn to the Nazi Part for a final Solution (The

Nazification of Germany).

Propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda had become a powerful weapon for shaping public

opinion and behaviors during World War 1. According to

USHMM the Nazi propagandists drew upon successful

techniques and strategies used by the Allies, Socialists,

Communists and Italian Fascist to advance their political

campaigns, win public support, and to wage war. Once in power,

the Nazis eliminated the marketplace of ideas through terror

and media manipulation a mobilized propaganda as a weapon to

unite the German people around a leader and to facilitate aggression, mass murder, and

genocide (Propaganda).

Power of Deception usingPropaganda

Source: http://bit.ly/T0T2s9

A Hitler youth teaching Nuremberglaws in school. Source:

http://bit.ly/SY2R9A


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The burning of the ceremonial hallat the Jewishcemetery in Grazduring Kristallnacht. Source:htt ://bit.l /Txk5t2

Kristallnacht

Following the Nuremberg Laws, the decided Jewish citizens were being gathered and

exiled from the German Reich, often leaving family members

disoriented or alone. According to USHMM, Herschel Grynszpan

in an act of retribution lashed out against the Nazi party and shot

the Ernst Vom Roth November 7th

, 1938. Within a two day time

span the Nazi party began its retribution known as the night of

broken glass, translated to Kristallnacht. The rioters destroyed

267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the

Sudetenland. SA and Hitler youth members across the country

shattered the shop windows of an estimated 7,500 Jewish owned

commercial establishments, and looted their wares. Moreover USHMM explains that

kristallnacht represented one of the most important turning points in National Socialist

antiesemitic policy. Due to the Germans civilians response their passivity of the violence

signaled to the Nazi regime that the German public was prepared for more radical measures. This

was the start of the free of Jews by deportation of the Jewish population to the East known

as Jewish capture and placement into concentration camps or into the ghettos (Kristallnacht: A

Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938).

Resistance

All though the Jews were the primary victims there were others groups that resisted the

oppression of the Nazis. The TCH states resistance against the Nazis planned or spontaneous,

armed or unarmed took many forms throughout WW11 and the Holocaust. For many, the

resistance was a struggle for physical existence. Some escaped through legal and illegal


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Jewish partisans, survivors of the Warsawghetto uprising, at a family camp in Wyszkow

forest

.Poland, 1944

Source: http://bit.ly/ZiYSqR

emigration. Others hid. Those that remained struggled to obtain lifes needs by smuggling food,

clothing and medicine to survive. Furthermore as the war continued the conditions worsened in

Europe for the Jews, but their resistance intensified. With

a growing awareness of the Final Solution the

resistance turned to forms of guerrilla warfare. The

partisans were relatively few in number, but they were

able to move within enemy territory and disrupt the Nazi

activity, by cutting telephone, telegraph, and electrical

lines and by destroying power stations. They also

destroyed transportation links by blowing up bridges, roads, and railway equipment; also they

would sabotage factories that produced materials for the Axis war effort. Moreover by April 19,

1943 was the beginning of an armed revolt by brave and a determined group of the Warsaw

ghetto dwellers. The Jewish Fighter Organization (ZOB) led the insurgency and they had fought

for a month, using the weapons smuggled into the ghetto. The retribution by the Nazis was that

they brought in tanks and machine guns, burning blocks of buildings, destroying the ghetto, and

ultimately killing the last 60,000 Warsaw Jewish ghetto residents (Resistance).

Wannsee ConferenceThe Final Solution

On January 20th

, 1942, fifteen high-ranking Nazi Party and German officials gathered at

the Villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate of what they call the Final

Solution of the Jewish Question According to USHMM the Final Solution was the code name

for systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. Heydrich convened the

Wannsee conference to (1) to inform and secure support from the government ministries and

other interested agencies relevant to the implementation of the Final Solution and (2) to


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disclose to the participants that Hitler himself had tasked

Heydrich and the RSHA with coordinating the operation. The

men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be

taken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy

decision that had already been made at the highest level of the

Nazi regime. Moreover the participates were already aware that

National Socialist regime were already engaging in mass murder

of the Jews and other civilians, some through Einsatzgruppen ,

police and other military units were slaughtering tens of thousands of Jews daily. Under this

provision there were approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe that would fall into the Final

Solution (Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution")

Selection: Selektion

Not long after the Wannsee Conference the transportation of the Jews from the Ghettos to

the concentration camps and killing centers was put in place at a rapid pace . The Nazis started

liquidating the ghettos by using their organized train system to transport the Jews. The Jews

would be overly stuffed into cattle cars and forced to

endure hundreds of miles without food and water, not

knowing the final destination and their fate. The

Holocaust Explained states that the selection process was,

once the Jews were unloaded they were separated into

male and female lines. The SS doctors carried out this

selection. Usually, those over the age of 14 and deemed

fit forwork was sent to one side of the unloading ramp,

The VillaSource: http://bit.ly/X16wI7

Jews from Subcarpathian Rus sit in a largegroup on one side of the ramp at Auschwitz-

Birkenau before undergoing the selectionprocess. Source: http://bit.ly/SREnMY


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the rest were sent to the other side. The elderly and children were sent directly to the line of

prisoners who were selected for the gas chambers. Furthermore the Jews that were selected for

work they would be registered and tattooed with an identification number, stripped of their

clothes, shaved of all body hair and disinfected. Once showered, they were given the horrid

striped pajamas, to begin their lives in the work camps. (Selection)

Extermination methods

The Nazis tried several methods before they went to their method of choice which was

gassing known as Zyklon B for mass murdering. According to USHMM the first of the methods

for the Nazis to use was the German mobile killing squads, a

special duty unit called Einsatzgruppen, they followed the

German army as it advances deep into Soviet territory, and carry

out mass-murders. By spring of 1943, they mobile killing squads

killed more than a million Jews and tens of thousands partisans,

Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet political officials. The other

inefficient method was gas vans, it was determined that it had

adverse effects on the soldiers and with a great number of bodies

they had to dispose of it added more of a workload. Moreover

after the Final Solution was put in place there were six extermination camps established in

former Polish territory: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and

Majdanek. There were about three million Jews killed in these death camps. (The Final Solution)

Liberation

June, 1944 brought about a wonderful change stop the oppression of the Nazis in power.

According to USHMM on June 6th, the western Allies launched the single largest invasion in

Hartheim castle, a euthanasia killingcenter where people with physicaland mental disabilities were killed

by gassing and lethal injection.Hartheim, Austria

Source: http://bit.ly/TWVUGt


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world history, landing about 150,000 soldiers under the command of U.S. General Dwight D.

Eisenhower. By the end of that month, more than 850,000

American, British, and Canadian troops had come ashore of the

beaches of Normandy, France. Eisenhower called it the Great

Crusade the destruction ofthe German war machine, the

elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe,

and security for ourselves in a free world. Furthermore as the

Allied and Soviet troops moved across Europe they were able to

witness the destruction that the Nazis had tried to cover up, by

locating several concentration camps, running into mass graves

sites. The Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz concentration camp some 7,000 prisoners, including

young children, who had not been evacuated by the SS. Even though liberation of Nazi camps

was not the primary objective of the Allied military campaign, U.S, British, Canadian, and

Soviet troops freed prisoners, fed them and were able to secure most needed medical attention.

However, before the liberation of Auschwitz, the remaining Nazi soldiers forced the majority of

its prisoners on death marches. They were forced to march for miles upon miles and many

died just days before the liberation (Liberation).

After Liberationuntil 1948 when Israel is formed

After the liberation of the Jews from the concentration camps there were issues to

resolve. According to the TGH, there were two large and on-going international needs that

emerged as World War 11 was ending: (1) retribution for perpetrators, and (2) the re-settlement

of people uprooted by the war. Furthermore there were International and national trails

conducted in the Soviet Union, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and other Europeans countries

U.S. assault troops, laden withequipment, wadethrough the surfto a Normandy beach from landing

craft in June 1944Source: http://bit.ly/PQA86F


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indicted hundreds of war criminals. The defendants ranged from Hitlers deputy minister, to the

editor-in-chief of a malicious antisemitic newspaper, to

concentration camp guards and the members of the

Einsatzgruppen. The Allied troops were so outraged at

what they found at concentration camps that they

demanded German civilians to directly confront the

atrocities. Some Germans citizens were forced to partake

in the burial of many corpses that were found in the

camps. Furthermore after the war, the International

Military Tribunal was chartered, it members consisted of the United States, Great Britain, France

and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and they were charged with the task of prosecuting

the major Nazi war criminals. Moreover in Nuremberg there were 22 high ranking Nazi officials

named and brought to trail before the world. Robert Jackson was the Chief Prosecutor for the

United States at the Nuremberg Trials. Half the defendants were sentenced to death, three were

acquitted, and the remaining was imprisoned. Hitler himself had committed suicide therefore

escaping retribution and justice. Meanwhile there were one million displaced people, about

80 % Christian and 20% Jewish. Many of the survivors were displaced and they felt they could

no longer live in their former villages which during the war had become Jewish graveyards.

Many of the Jewish refugees turned to the American DP camps for temporary housing. In the

meantime the British turned to the United Nations, hoping they could resolve the issue, On

November 29, 1794, the United Nations general Assembly adopted a plan that divided Palestine

into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem under international control. TGH later states

An American soldier and liberated prisoners ofthe Mauthausen concentration camp. Austria,

May 1945. Source: http://bit.ly/RQnOmX


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that on May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel as theirs and then the

British had withdrawn from Palestine (Aftermath).

With the laws that have been put in place and with continued education of this horrific

event. It is hopeful that humanity has learned and evolved, that there is more empathy in

mankind due to how diversity is being celebrated and accepted in most cultures.


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Works Cited

"Aftermath." The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. The Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web.

06 Nov. 2012.

"Antisemitism." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.

"The "Final Solution"" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 05 Nov. 2012.

"Holocaust History." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.

"Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938." United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.

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

Museum. Web. 02 Nov. 2012.

"The Nazification of Germany."A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the

Holocaust. Web. 02 Nov. 2012.

"Propaganda." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum. Web. 04 Nov. 2012.

"Resistance."A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Web. 29

Oct. 2012.

"The Rise of the Nazi Party."A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. A Teacher's Guide to the

Holocaust. Web. 01 Nov. 2012.

"Selection." The Holocaust Explained. The Holocaust Explained. Web. 03 Nov. 2012.


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"Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"" United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

Brandy,

This is a pretty decent paper. Other than numerous typos and the one place where you need to

put into your own words, your paper is done quite well. You organize your writing quite well.

Work on comma usage. For example, those signal words like furthermore and more over should

always be followed by a comma. Good work. See below for score.


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Points Available

Score

40Content paper demonstrates understanding and confidence

about topic35

20 Sources uses only primary and secondary sources 20

40In-Text Citations integrates sources within text with effective

use of signal words and phrases32

35 Formatting properly uses MLA formatting 33

25Works Cited works cited page has the required number of

sources and is properly formatted25

15Pictures uses pictures to enhance the text with effective

captions and source information15

25Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errors in spelling,

punctuation, etc.18

Total = 200

Total Score

178

brandy renfro 102 -127 research paper[3]

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