The Holocaust

The Holocaust

The holocaust was the mass murder of six million Jewish Europeans during World War Two. The Nazi Party in Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, exterminated about two thirds of the Jewish population residing in Europe. The Nazis placed the blame of all of Germany’s problems on the Jewish people. The Nazis referred to the holocaust as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This paper will discuss the terrible things that happened throughout the holocaust by the Nazi party to the Jewish population.

The holocaust was not the first plan by the Nazis to get rid of the Jewish race in Europe. Their first plan was to deport all of the Jews to German colonies such as Tanganyika and South West Africa (90 facts). Hitler was against these places because he argued that no place where “so much blood of heroic Germans hath spilled” should be made available as a residence for the worst enemies of the Germans. Madagascar became the most seriously discussed location for a Jewish relocation. Madagascar was perfect because it was a remote location that had unfavorable conditions so it would hasten deaths. This plan was approved by Hitler in 1938 and was carried out until the mass murder began in 1941(Facts about the holocaust). This first step was an important psychological step on the path to the mass murders of the Holocaust.

Concentration camps were where the Nazis kept Jews, political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, and the mentally disabled. These camps were founded at first as a place of incarceration (HISTORY). The death rate at the camps was very high, 50 percent, when they were only designed as incarceration centers. After 1939 the camps became places where the prisoners were either killed or made as slave laborers (TIMELINE). The prisoners were also undernourished and often tortured. It is estimated that the Nazis had fifteen thousand camps and sub camps in the Nazi occupied countries, mostly in Eastern Europe. Many of these camps were created...