DOWNFALL (HOLOCAUST)

DOWNFALL (HOLOCAUST)

“Holocaust” came from the Greek language which is “holos” and “caustos”. Holos means whole, while caustos means burned. The Holocaust described a sacrificial offering burned on an altar. But, since 1945 holocaust has a whole new meaning because of the German Nazi regime. The Nazis slaughtered over 6 million Jews and 5 million more, consisting of gypsies, the mentally impaired, and homosexuals ranging from 1933 to 1945. They were under Adolf Hitler’s power. The roots of Hitler’s wicked anti-semitism brand was unclear but he blamed the Jews for Germany’s lost during world war I. Hitler was captivated by the idea for superiority of the “pure” German race, he called it “Aryan”, and with the need for “Lebensraum” which means living space, for that race to expand. On January 30,1933, he was named chancellor of Germany. When the President of Germany died, Hitler became “Führer”, and began to rule Germany as the supreme ruler.

In January 1933,  after Hitler became the Chancellor of a coalition government, he let the national socialist to be the largest party in parliament. He suspended many civil liberties and also allowed imprisonment without trial. The first Nazi concentration camp was made to hold political protesters. It established in March at Dachau. Even though it was not to imprison Jews, further laws were targeted Jews. The laws controlled the Jews’ jobs and obviated their citizenship in Germany. The Jewish population were the ones to blame for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.

Hitler declared himself as the leader or as he called “Führer”, so his power was secured after a bloody purse that destroyed all the opposition in the party, by August 1934. He became stronger and more influencing German society. The people that rejected Nazi policies publicly were often given hard labor in the concentration that was expanding very quickly. Jews experiencing more and more laws of injustice that squeeze their rights. That anti-Semitism was not developed only in Germany but also in the UK by Osward Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. It gained public and press support, even filling the Royal Albert Hall in April.

In September 1935, the policy that reduced Jews to second-class citizens increased. The Jews were established “impure blood”  because of their ancestor’s religion, not by their own beliefs. That new laws were taught in schools to strengthened the anti-Semitism in the German culture. The Germans kept quiet because sometimes they also got some benefit from that limitation of the Jew’s rights. The torture for the other minorities also spreading, the police could arrest the homosexuals and required compulsory abortions to women that were considered to be “hereditary ill”

Hitler was rhetoric and because of his anti-Semitism, he had turned a lot of Germans against the Jews. But for the wider cause, the global audience, they have to use whole different propaganda tricks. Luckily, the Nazis had a platform for “enlightened” the world with their crafted image, which is The Summer Olympics in Berlin. Despite all of that “project”, the summer Olympics was a success. The anti-Jewish notices were removed and they supported black athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals. That day, people saw that Germany was tolerant. However, it didn’t last long. Three days after that, Wolfgang Fürstner who was the head of the Olympic Village, killed himself because he knew he would be dismissed upon his Jewish ancestry under the Nuremberg laws.

When the world's focus on the battle between Fascism and Communism in Spain, Nazi increase the civil rights in Germany. Concentration camps started to create 'habitual criminals' beside the political resistance. Goebbels increase scandal anti-Semitic with a traveling show which implied Jews as the enemy. A lot of people came. Some people guessed that worse would come. The relation between British and Germany was criticized by Winston Churchill, warning of 'great evils of racial and religious intolerance'.

In 1938, the Nazis invaded Austria in March and parts of Czechoslovakia in September. To make new territories under the Nazi's regime. An attack occurred to Jewish businesses. Although 91 people died and 267 synagogues were destroyed as a spontaneous resistance in Germany. A lot of Jewish is sent to concentration camps and some of them decided to break away, even though their choices were limited. English to support Jewish children, who eventually accepted 10,000 minors, but refused to change its policy for Jewish adult

Before September 1939, Nazi was focusing on eliminating the Jews from Germany. But after the war started they had a different plan. Adolf Hitler’s protection squad, or better known as Schutzstaffel or SS, began to expand plans to deport Jews to the newly invaded Poland, which was the outset for the systematic slaughter that would happen. Meanwhile, in Poland, thousands of Jews, also Poles, were embroiled and shot. That was the official moves that started the slaughter that about to happened. Besides that, Hitler already approved the program of euthanasia to eradicate the handicapped and the mentally ill.

German troops lined up across Europe. Of the occupied countries, some surrendered and applied Nazi policy instantly. Others held off for longer. For the first time, camps were built for Jaws. Their camp condition was the worst compared to the other camps, so the prisoners intended to die there. Lots of Jews in Poland were relocated to ghettos. The Polish who were Non-Jewish were also deported from their cities and sent to the concentration camps and ghettos to make space and new territory for the German army and government officials.

The policy for the Jews became worst every day, from expulsion then containment, until the Nazis took the Jews’s lives systematically. The methods for the mass murder was thrived at the local residents as they obeyed the command from the Nazi leaders. They brutally plucked up then killed squads and the entire Jewish communities. In Kiev, 33.771 Jews were shot over two days. The slaughtered were increasing so quickly because there wasn’t enough place in the ghettos. Then late in the year, the Nazi’s plan to applied the orderly slaughter of the Jews using gas in mobile trucks and gas chamber was doing very well.

Most Jews’s death was at the year of 1942. The majority caused was the newly created eradication camps. There were only two out of 430.000 that survived after sent to the first death camp at Bełżec in Poland. In just 5 months, 700.000 were killed at Treblinka. Then in July, Himmler commanded that all the Jews have to be killed by the end of the year, except those who still be handy for the labor. But unfortunately, most were killed. Beside the allied intelligence has been receiving reports of the detail from the mass murders in Europe, the public in Britain was mostly apathy and disbelief

Germany now was losing the battle. Recourses were still reliable for the final solution. Annihilation of all Jews in Europe. Rebellions happened in some Annihilation camps. The few remaining Jews kept alive to realized the number of transferred was decrease and they would be the next. Civilian annihilation took place all-around Polandia mainly young Jews, whose family has already killed, began to against Nazi oppression, the situation in camp cannot be ignored.

In March 1944, the Allies repelled the German forces back. The Jews who were kept in the east were moved into central Germany so anybody who was part of witnesses to the Allied Forces could not find out what was going on. The Nazi German force was aware that the world was catching on to what was going on, so they intended to destroy all evidence of it. Soviet forces liberated the first major camp, known as Majdanek, in Lublin, Poland, In June. The Nazis had burned the cremator's chimney but failed to destroy the gas chambers and barracks. Just a couple of inmates are still alive.

When the Allies towards victory in Europe and camps were freed up in all territories that Nazi has conquered, the full scale of the Holocaust arose. The allies found camps that simultaneously over-thronged with no supplies. General Eisenhower had ordered his troops to carefully document the proof, and Hitler and all the senior Nazis had committed suicide. In November, captured by Nazi leader in Nuremberg.

21 senior Nazi officials were verdict on the international military tribunal. They proved 18 of them were guilty and 3 others were released. Some of Hitler’s deputies were given death sentences, more precisely 11 of the deputies. One of those who will be put to death was Goering, the most senior surviving Nazi. But he committed suicide too the night before his death penalty. The others received jail time. Despite all the horrible things that happened, there were those who want to be better and redeem themselves. The example was Albert Speer, he was Hitler’s personal architect. Albert was released in 1966 and used his remaining life to write about the Nazi regime and donating most of the royalty of his writing to the Jewish charities. Rudolph Hess, one of the German politicians and leading member of the Nazi party, committed suicide in prison in 1987. Besides those who repentance, many Nazis completely kept away from justice and were never tried.

The Holocaust year by year. (2020, January 30). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/the-holocaust-year-by-year/zkxwgwx

History.com Editors. (2009, October 14). The Holocaust. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust