The Holocaust and Its Change on History Essay Example

The Nuremberg Laws issued made, excluded Jews from most public life (Finkelstein, 2000). The law involved depriving the Jews of their citizenship, extramarital sex between Jews and Germans and outlawed marriages. This legislation was the commencement that paved a way for all legal standards for additional anti-Jewish laws (Van Alphen, 1997).

Many may question what Hitler had against the Jews. The most corporate answer is that Hitler wanted to build a perfect race which consisted of Aryan people and to achieve this, he saw it necessary to eradicate all imperfect people (Black & Wallace, 2001). Following the-the Nuremberg laws, many laws against the Jews were formulated. This extruded the Jews from the German general public (Young, 1998). After taking out a few people, the idea of the final solution came up. This idea was discussed at the Wannsee conference, which was held in Berlin. In the meeting, the discussion was about how to exterminate the ‘imperfect people’ (Maier, 2000). It came up with many ideas that would be applied to meet his desire. One particular idea was to evacuate Jews to the Far East, but a presence of many obstacles deemed it impossible. They later agreed to the concept of the concentration camps, which would be then converted to death traps. This approach killed the majority of the people (Rubenstein & Roth, 2003).

The “Kristallnacht” on November 9th and 10th 1938, was dismaying for Jews. The night was filled with violence and burning down of synagogues. The Jewish-owned businesses were raided, and about 30000 Jews were arrested after being physically attacked (Fisher, 1995). They were taken to concentration camps. The SS leader Reinhard Heydrich requested formulation of

decrees to ban Jews from any contacts with the Germans (Zielinski & Custance, 1980). They were excluded from public transport, hospitals, schools and they were mostly forced into ghettos (Thornton, 1987). The ghettos were areas in cities that the Nazis ordered the Jews to live in. Ghettos started off more open, with less strict regulations, but with time, they got more stringent, and the Jews were trapped within boundaries. The Nazis then sent deportations from the ghettos which tricked them that they were being relocated to another location for labor (Lang, 1999). About 1,000 people per day were forced on trains and sent to either death or concentration camp. When the Nazis decided to kill the remaining of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto (the largest at the time with 445000 residents), they would discharge a ghetto by loading them on a train (Flannery, 2002). When the Nazis tried to break the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews brought up a fight, called the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Flannery, 2002).

The Jewish captives in the death camps were either coaxed into gas chambers or moved into gas vans and killed efficiently. In Auschwitz alone (the largest extermination), approximately 1.1 million people were killed (Bauman, 1989). Hitler peacefully went on with his plan successfully until when the World War 2 started to slow down his motives. When he realized he was becoming less potent, and his plan close to being complete, he and his new bride Eva Braun committed suicide (Fisher, 1995). Estimates have it that eleven million people were slain during the Holocaust, six million being Jews (Breisach, 2003).

The holocausts change in history was very significant. It brought the

Jewish people to the plight of the human race. Before, the Jewish population was considered an embarrassment in many European nations (Lang, 2000). When devastating carnages locally faced them, the news was spread, and the Jews that fled were regarded as part of a restless horde. The Holocaust resulted in the worldwide confrontation of the inhumane tragedy (Thornton, 1987). Also, the Jews realized a need to have a state on their own since outsiders would not protect them desirable. They brought up their territory called Israel (Shermer & Grobman, 2009). In setting up their nation, they displaced the Palestinians who then became the faceless hoard the Jews had been. The world opinion would have rested to favor the Palestinians, but instead, they chose terrorism, a path that would instead alienate everyone (Goldhagen, 2007).

References

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