7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
1/15
Research Paper
Holocaust Overview
Michael Harper
Mr. Neuburger
English Comp 102-127
4 December 2012
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
2/15
Harper 2
As of this date, there is no event in history that is more horrific or tragic than the
Holocaust. Although, this is a major part of history many people do not comprehend the events
that actually took place during this time. The Nazis systematically killed over twelve million
Jews during a two and a half year time period. It is very important that people understand why
and how this happened in order to stop history from repeating itself. In order to completely
understand one must first know how the Nazis rose to power.
Nazis Rise to Power
The Nazis rise to power was not a quick process by any means. It took nearly fourteen
years for the Nazi Party to gain full control of the German Government. According to the article
Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution, Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist
Party in 1919 shortly after being injured in World War I. Hitler quickly rose to the leadership
role due to his emotional and captive speeches. In 1923,
Hitler led a group of party activists to overtake Munich but
they failed and he found himself in prison. While Hitler was
in prison he wrote his book Mein Kampf, which expressed
his ideas about racial theory and Nazi global dominion .
While in prison Hitler realized that he needed to get in to the
democratic government. In the 1924 Reichstag elections, the
party received three percent of the votes and they were able to
send fourteen delegates to the parliament. Although the party had fourteen delegates in office at
the next election in 1928 they did not receive as much support and only twelve delegates were
sent in. It wasnt until 1930 that there was a turnaround. It was the first elections after the
economic crisis that the Nazis received 18.3 percent of the votes and 107 delegates were sent to
Hitler in Prison
http://bit.ly/Sf5pOr
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
3/15
Harper 3
the Reichstag, Reichstag is the German Parliament. In 1932 during the month of July the Nazis
became the largest faction in the House with 230 mandates. They were a political force that
acceded to power legitimately and made an impact. Paul von Hindenburg, the President at the
time, gave Hitler the mandate to form a government. Hitler became Chancellor on January 30,
1933 (Yad Vashem).
Nazis Views on JewsAnti-Semitism
The Nazi leaders soon began to persecute German Jews after they assumed power. They
had made the promise to do so since the 1920s as explains, the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum (USHMM). From 1933 until the beginning of the war in 1939, the first six
years of Hitlers dictatorship, Jews could feel the effects of more than 400 decrees and
regulations that had restricted all parts of their private and public lives. Most of the laws had
been issued by the German administration and were
national laws affecting all Jews. States and regions were
also able to create their own decrees in their communities.
Every level of government had individuals that were
involved in the persecution of Jews. Hundreds of people
were part of conceiving, discussing, and drafting,
adopting, enforcing, and supporting anti-Jewish
legislation. There was not any corner of Germany that was untouched. Anti-Semitism eventually
led to the creation of Nuremberg Laws (Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany).
Nuremberg Laws
The first attempt by the Nazi government to define the Jews was Nuremberg Laws. The
Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team (HEART) describes that, the Nuremberg Laws
Anti-Jewish sign. It reads Jews not wanted here.
http://bit.ly/hI6aZd
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
4/15
Harper 4
played a pivotal role in the process that led to their annihilation. The Law for the Protection of
German Blood and German Honor was the first law. This first law prohibited marriages and
extra-marital intercourse between Jews and Germans.
It also included the prohibition of German females who
are under the age of forty-five to work in Jewish
households. The Reich Citizenship Law was the second
law. This law stripped Jews of their German citizenship.
The Nuremberg Laws made the unofficial and particular
measures taken against Jews up to 1935 more formal. It
was stressed, by the Nazi leaders, that the consistency of this legislation with the Party program
demanded that Jews were stripped of their rights as citizens. In Nazi Germany Hitler has more
direct control over the government and political attitude to Jews. During the time of 1937-1938
harsh new laws were put in place and the segregation of Jews from the German population
started. Over time more laws were created to segregate Jews. Each new law furthered the
reducing of their rights as human beings and effectively separated them from the German
population (The Nuremberg Laws).
Kristallnacht
During the night of November 9, 1938 and into the next day, a massive, coordinated
attack on Jews took place throughout the German Reich. It has come to be known as
Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass. The article Kristallnacht explains, this attack started
after a seventeen year old Jew named Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed a member of the
Embassy in Paris for the awful treatment his father and family received at the hands of the Nazis
in Germany. Grynszpans family along with over 15,000 other Jews had been expelled from
Paper that was printed on Sept 15, 1935 that showsthe Nuremberg Laws passed
http://bit.ly/SR64FG
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
5/15
Harper 5
A Synagogue in Berlin after Kristallnacht
http://bit.ly/UX99
Germany with no warning on October 27. They had been forcibly transported in boxcars and
dumped at the Polish border. The shooting provided
an opportunity for the Germans to rise in bloody
vengeance against the Jews for Adolf Hitler and
Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister. On the
night of November 9 the Nazi storm troopers also
members of the SS and Hitler Youth brutalized
women and children, broke into and destroyed Jewish homes, and beat and murdered Jews.
Approximately 25,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps later. They
were brutalized often and some were even randomly chosen to be beaten to death by SS guards
(The History Place).
Rounding up JewsGhettos
Only a few personal items were permitted to be taken to the ghettos with the Jews.
According to Yad Vashem Jews were required to gather at specific locations which were usually
train stations. Anyone who did not keep up with the group or did not obey orders was shot. The
Jews were loaded into crowded cattle cars at the train stations. They did not have proper
ventilation and the Jews were kept in the cars for days without food or water until they reached
their destination. The ghettos were extremely crowded and most of them did not have basic
electrical and sanitary infrastructure. There was not enough food for as many people they had in
the ghettos. The Germans took brutal measures against anyone who tried to smuggle food. They
would do both public and private executions. Increased starvation caused the inhabitants of the
ghettos to become ill or even die. In 1940 on April 30, the ghetto in Lodz, Poland was
established. The Lodz ghetto was sealed off by wooden fences and barbed-wire fences. The
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
6/15
Harper 6
Jews were packed into the ghetto without any electricity or water. Many Jews died from disease
and starvation. Jews, even young children, worked for the Germans while in the Lodz ghetto.
Many of the Germans thought of the ghetto as a pause in the task at hand, which was
extermination. It was in January of 1942 that deportation
from Lodz to Chelmno murder site started. The Jews
were murdered by gas vans. Lists were created of
candidates for deportation and organized for rounding up
Jews. By the end of the year nearly half the Jews who
had been forced into Lodz had been murdered in
Chelmno. The murders of Jews in the Lodz ghetto and other surrounding ghettos continued until
January 1945 (Lodz Ghetto).
The Nazis established the largest ghetto in all of Europe in Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
The article Warsaw Ghetto states, on November 16 that the Jews were forced inside the area of
the ghetto. Large amounts of refugees had been transported to Warsaw which brought the ghetto
population to 450,000. The Jews were surrounded by walls that they had built themselves.
Living conditions were unbearable and like the other ghettos many Jews died from disease and
starvation. More than 80,000 Jews died in the ghetto and in July of 1942 the deportations to the
death camp Treblinka started (Yad Vashem).
The Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto was established by the Nazis in 1941 as stated by the
article Theresienstadt. It was mostly made up of elderly Jews and people of special merit in
the Reich and many Jews from the Netherlands and Denmark. This ghetto was thought of as a
model Jewish settlement. Reports of the death camps started to emerge at the end of 1943.
Nazis decided to present Theresienstadt to an investigative commission of the International Red
Policeman checking Jews in at Lodz Ghetto
http://bit.ly/PQgTKE
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
7/15
Harper 7
Cross. In order to prepare for the commissions visit the Nazis deported Jews to Auschwitz so
they could reduce the overcrowding the ghetto. The commission arrived in the ghetto in June of
1944 on the 23. The Nazis had created fake stores, a bank, school, and coffee house and
arranged for the commission to meet with certain prisoners beforehand. Disease, overcrowding,
sanitary conditions and malnourishment led to the death of many Jews. In 1942 15,891 people
died in the ghetto. That was half the population of Theresienstadt. Over 155,000 Jews passed
through the ghetto up until it was liberated in April of 1945. 88,000 Jews were deported to the
death camps and 35,440 dies in the ghetto. Most Jews were either murdered in the death camps
or died in the ghettos (Yad Vashem).
Wannsee ConferenceThe Final Solution
On January 20, 1942 the Wannsee Conference was held. The Holocaust History Project
states that it was Chief of the Security Police and Security Service, SS-Lieutenant General
Reinhard Heydrich that presided over the conference. The phrase Final Solution of the Jewish
Problem had taken on different increasingly ominous meanings to the Nazis in the years leading
up to World War II. Its meanings included voluntary emigration, confining Jews in the ghettos,
forcing them into concentration camps and extermination.
It was to be made clear that, now, Heydrich referred to
specifically the murder of all European Jews. It is said
that Heydrich makes it clear that no matter the way they
go, natural causes or murder, none would be allowed to
survive. By the time the meeting took place the
construction of the death camps in Belzec and Chelmno,
The Wannsee Villa, location of the Wannsee
Conference
http://bit.ly/gG1Hhk
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
8/15
Harper 8
with their gassing facilities, were already underway. The Wannsee Conference was to clarify the
points of the European Jews demise, not to decide their fate (Wannsee Conference).
Extermination Methods
There were several different ways the Nazis would kill the Jews. According to the article
The Killing Evolution the Nazis experimented with killing techniques and discussed their
successes and failures with each other. At the beginning murder was done at close range. Death
by firing squad was put to a stop after a General was worried about the effects it would have on
the SS Soldiers committing the murders. Carbon monoxide was another way the Nazis killed the
Jews. They would make the Jews take showers, but
instead of water they had the showerheads connected to
canisters of carbon monoxide. The thought was that gas
was cheaper than bullets and none of the Nazis would
have to directly take a life. Nazis also had Jews get into
large vans and they would drive them around. While the
van was driving to the burial location the fumes from the
van would be rerouted back into the van, killing the Jews that were inside. Another form of
execution was using Zyklon B. It was the chemical that was used to kill live in the prisoners
clothing. There was a large supply of it and fairly easy to access. When the crystals were
exposed to the proper heat they would release lethal gas. The most popular from of execution
were the gas chambers. The Nazis could kill a large number of Jews at a time by putting them in
the gas chambers and releasing the carbon monoxide. It was the quickest and easiest way for the
Nazis to eliminate a large number of Jews at a time (PBS).
Inside view of a gas chamberhttp://bit.ly/RAzbxR
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
9/15
Harper 9
Aschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp
http://bit.ly/X42Y85
The Death Camps
Auschwitz was the largest Nazi death camp throughout Europe. The Jewish Virtual
Library writes that it could hold around 150,000 inmates at a time. In June 1940 the camp
received its first transport of prisoners. Auschwitz quickly became known for its torturing and
its mass shootings. The first part of the camp was known as Auschwitz I. Roughly two miles
away from Auschwitz I a second part of the camp was
constructed. It became known as Birkenau or
Auschwitz II. After the Final Solution was put into
place Auschwitz became the center of the mass
destruction of the European Jews. Most of them were
killed in gas chambers, but many died from starvation,
forced labor, disease, shooting squads, and terrible
medical experiments. The Jews living in Europe were marked, by the Nazis, for total
extermination, no matter their age, sex, occupation, citizenship or political views. They were
killed because they were Jews, and only because they were Jews. When inmates were first
brought to the camp they would go through a selection process. Anyone that was considered
by the SS physicians to be unfit for labor was sent to be killed in the gas chambers. Any Jew that
was sick considered elderly, pregnant women and children were sent to the gas chambers. On
average, 70-75% of each transport was sent to their immediate death. The Jews that were sent to
their immediate death were never put in the camp records, so they received no serial numbers
and were not registered. This makes it impossible to know the exact number of victims. The
Jews that the SS physicians deemed fit for slave labor was registered and a serial number was
tattooed on their arm. They were then undressed, deloused, their body hair was shaven off, they
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
10/15
Harper 10
were showered and entered into the camp. At Birkenau only approximately ten percent of the
Jewish transports were registered rather than sent straight to the death chambers. In 1942 two
provisional gas chambers were constructed in the spring. After Jews were killed in the gas
chambers, their bodies were taken to pits where they were later burned in the open. During the
time period of January 1942 to March 1943 175,000 Jews were killed in the gas chambers in
Birkenau. Out of those 105,000 were gassed to death from January to March 1943. The Jews
who were selected to die were undressed in the undressing room and were then pushed into the
gas chambers. It only took approximately twenty minutes for everyone in the gas chambers to
die. New facilities were opened on March 31, 1943 and April 4, 1943. After these new facilities
were opened from April 1943 to March 1944, 160,000 Jews were killed in Birkenau. A railroad
spur line was built in May of 1944. It went right through the camp to make the handling of the
tens of thousands of Jews, deported in the spring and summer, easier and quicker. Birkenau
surpassed all previous records of mass killings during this time, up to November of 1944. This
was when all the other death camps had been abandoned. 585,000 Jews being gassed was the
result of the deportations and liquidation of the remaining Polish ghettos. Auschwitz-Birkenau
became the most notorious killing site of all time because of this period (Auschwitz-Birkenau
Concentration Camp).
There were several other death camps that The Jewish Virtual Library discusses. Some
of the estimated numbers of murders reached up to 850,000 Jews at one camp. Most of the death
camps used gas chambers. There were also firing squads, hangings, gas vans and terrible
experiments. Jews were also tortured to death on occasion. After being murdered their bodies
were burned either outside in the open or in crematories. All camps were stopped during the
year of 1945 (Concentration Camps).
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
11/15
Harper 11
Liberation
During the Holocaust, before Liberation, victims received help from rescuers. According
to A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust brave citizens would hide thousands of Jews and help
keep them safe. These citizens kept the Jews in hiding until after the liberation of the death
camps and defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allied Forces. People who rescued Jews from the
Nazi death camps put themselves in great danger. If you were found hiding a Jew you were
either shot or hanged publicly as a warning to others (Rescue and Liberation).
Allied troops began to uncover concentration camps and liberated the first camp in the
summer of 1944 in Poland. Holocaust Memorial Day trust states that Nazi forces began to burn
the mass graves and the crematoria after hearing about the first liberation. Prisoners were forced
to go on the death march. This is when the prisoners were made to walk into the interior of
Germany. Many of them died on the death march due
to starvation and ill-treatment. In late 1944, Soviet troops
also overran three other sites. It was on January 27, 1945
that the Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Several thousand emaciated survivors were found along
with the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria the
Nazis had tried to destroy. In the months following the
Soviets liberated three more camps. US troops liberated a camp in April of 1945 and then
followed with three more camps. Then the British troops liberated a camp in April 1945
(Liberation, Resistance and Resources).
After liberation started the liberators had to worry about all the medical problems. Dr.
Stephen Hart discusses the relief efforts to get rid of all the disease. It is estimated that of the
Jews celebrating on liberation day
http://bit.ly/HrRe4s
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
12/15
Harper 12
inmates that were found still living nearly half were seriously ill. The Jews that were rescued
had to be washed, disinfected and deloused. They were then rehydrated and given food, while
being treated for their illnesses. Despite all the efforts to save them some of them were just too
sick to be saved. After all the inmates were removed many camps were burned down to help
prevent the spreading of disease (Liberation of the Concentration Camps).
Even after researching the Holocaust it is extremely hard to comprehend all the terrible
events that took place. Over 12 million Jews died during the Holocaust from starvation, disease,
malnourishment, gas chambers and the Nazis. There is not any one event in history that has
taken place that is as horrific as the Holocaust. It is important that people understand what led to
the Holocaust so that it is made sure that history does not repeat itself.
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
13/15
Harper 13
Works Cited
"Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2012
"Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps."Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli
Cooperative Enterprise, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.
"Concentration Camps."Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise,
n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.
Hart, Stephen A. "Liberation of the Concentration Camps."BBC. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 12
Nov. 2012.
"Kristallnacht." The History Place. The History Place, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.
"Liberation, Resistance, & Rescuers."Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Holocaust Memorial Day
Trust, 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.
"Lodz Ghettos." Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.
"Rescue and Liberation."A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. Florida Center for Instructional
Technology, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.
"Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecution." Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 23 Oct.
2012.
"The Killing Evolution." PBS. Community Television of Southern California, n.d. Web. 4 Oct.
2012.
"The Nuremberg Laws."Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. Holocaust Education
& Archive Research Team, n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.
"Theresienstadt." Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
14/15
Harper 14
"Wannsee Conference." The Holocaust History Project. The Holocaust History Project, n.d.
Web. 4 Oct. 2012.
"Warsaw Ghettos." Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.
Michael,
You are an outstanding writer and should be proud of this paper. Outside of adding those
transition words/phrases and some other minor mechanics issues this a a very well done
paper. See below for your score.
7/30/2019 Michael Harper Research Paper 102-127[1]
15/15
Harper 15
Points Available
Score
40Content paper demonstrates understanding
and confidence about topic 40
20Sources uses only primary and secondary
sources 20
40In-Text Citations integrates sources within
text with effective use of signal words and
phrases30
35 Formatting properly uses MLA formatting 35
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 information 15
25Writing Mechanics Paper is free from errors
in spelling, punctuation, etc. 20
Total = 200
Total Score
185
Top Related