First+Historical+Rough+Draft

Crystal Dunn ECI 430/435 October 4, 2010

// How have the negative effects of the Holocaust allowed people to better understand the danger of prejudice? //  Holocaust: to “Sacrifice By Fire”. This means Star badges, concentration camps, secret hiding, confinement, harrassment, hidden diaries, mass destruction, imprisonment. The Holocaust was a systematic persecution and killing of about six million Jews. Why, you ask, would a group of people want to kill so many people, specifically the Jews? Because when the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, they believed that Germans were better than the Jews. The Jewish population was nothing less than a threat in the eyes of Germans and they had to be destroyed.

 In 1933, the population of the Jews was over nine million and unfortunately, most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy during World War II. Results: “By 1940 and 1942, Jews in the Netherlands, including the Franks, were forced to register, carry identity cards, and wear the Star of David. They were removed from work, forbidden to go to certain cares and restaurants, and banned from parks, swimming pools, and ice-skating rinks. They were not allowed to use public transportation. Anne Frank, who wrote in her diary about how their lives were so restricted because they were Jews (Kramer 31). By 1945, the Germans had murdered two out of every three European Jews because of their Final Solition policy, the term used in reference to killing the Jews and other groups they were prejudice against. Being prejudice was dangerous and these German authorities targeted a lot more than just the Jewish population. They also were prejudice against races such as the Gypsies, as well as the disabled and homosexual. Prejudice: a preconceived judgment or opinion; an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics ([]).

 Another example of the dangers of being prejudice was taking place at this time across Europe. There was the killing of three million soviet prisoners of war. They died from starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. This was because their behavior was seen by the Germans as not matching “social norms”. The National Socialist government established concentration camps to decrease political opponents as well as perceived threatening competition. If that isn’t enough to show you the bad effects of prejudice, keep reading. Police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic just because of racial hatred into these camps. To concentrate and monitor these hated Jews, the Germans operated ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews.

 Soon after, there were mass-murder operations against the Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. They killed one million Jewish men, women, and children. Yes, children. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to extermination camps, where they were murdered in gas chambers.

 In the final months of the war, guards moved the Jews by train or made them do “death marches”. As Allied forces moved across Europe, they began to encounter and free the concentration camp prisoners. The marches continued until May 7, 1945. This was when the German armed forces finally surrendered to the Allies. For the western Allies, World War II officially ended in Europe on the next day, May 8 although Soviet forces call their “Victory Day”, May 9, 1945.

 After the Holocaust, a lot of the people left found shelter in (DP) displaced persons camps aided by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, the United States, and other nations. The crimes committed during the Holocaust destroyed most European Jewish communities and rid hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely. These negative effects help to aid the understanding the danger of being prejudice.

 Additional Resources:

Holocaust Encylopedia:

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