Holocaust

Christine Meunier

Professor Kraig Larkin

HIS 218: Section B

25 March 2012

The Holocaust, one of the most evil events in recent history, took place from 1933 to 1945. It was a period in history when Jews, Romanians, homosexuals, blacks and people with handicaps were targeted, tortured and slaughtered in masses by those of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, also known as the Nazis. Adolf Hitler who was the Chancellor of Germany led the Nazis movement through his totalitarian regime. The Nazis viewed these different groups of people as inferior to their own race (the Aryan Race), and set out to exterminate them. The Nazis did not care about who they killed; nor did they care if they even killed young children. An estimated 1.5 million children died during this period of the Holocaust. Children of the Holocaust experienced some of the most inhumane and horrific treatment of all the victims by the hand of Nazis. If they were lucky enough to survive, then most were burdened with deep psychological scars that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

If a child was Jewish, he or she would be a target for the Nazis. The Jewish children were either sent to the concentration camps or killed because they were often too young to work and therefore would serve no valuable purpose in the eyes of the Nazis. Another reason why Nazis targeted children was because they did not want children to continue the proliferation of the Jewish race. Numerous babies were killed before they even had the chance to live a single year. Mothers in concentration camps were not allowed to give birth to children. If a mother did give birth, then the SS doctors gassed her along with her baby.

Nearly 100,000 children lived in fear and hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Survival of the children depended primarily on the actions of the parents. There was a concerted effort to keep them hidden; and many children were placed in Christian homes. Children had to pretend that...