The Holocaus was a horrible event that took place between 1933 and 1945 where approximately 6 million Jewish men, woman, and children died. The man that started this genocide was Adolf Hitler, Germany's leader during World War II. Hitler believed in having an Aryan race meaning that he only wanted "pure" Germans in the world. According to him all other races were not worthy of living. His main focus though, was the prosecution of the Jewish.
In the first six years of the Holocaust, Germany started what is now described as a "clensing" process. With it, Hitler tried to eliminate Jews completely from society. Jews were not allowed to own property, work, or even live in the country. They were all descriminated and killed if they opposed the regime.
As Hitler expanded his influences, Jewish people had a harder time migrating. They couldnt escape Germany's problems because many of the surrounding countries already had Nazi as well as anti-Semitic beliefs. Jews were now being moved to places where they were kept seperated from society and were forced to work in horrible conditions. These places were called ghettos. Many Jews died because of the harsh living conditions.
Hitler's police force, the Gestapo, was created for the destruction of the Jewish population.
In 1941 Hitler started what he called the Final Solution. He was dedicated to wipe out all the Jews. To do this he created another killing unit, the Einsatzgruppen. Strategic massive killings of Jews took place in many concentration camps. Some of the most famous camps are; Auschwitz, Chelmno, and Bergen-Belsen. Here, hundreths of Jews were placed in a facility where they got gas poisoned to death. Killings like this were very common and proved to be Hitler's favorite since it killed so many Jews in such little time.
As Germany began to get defeated in the war and lose much of his power, it still wanted to proceed with the killings of Jews. Because the Allied forces were gaining control over them, they just couldn't continue. Instead they wanted to evacuate all the concentration camps and hide all their horrible crimes. The Jewish had to evacuate by walking. This part of the Holocaust is known as the "death march." In this final section of the Holocaust another thousands of Jews perished.
The Holocaust has gone down in history as the world's worst genocide. Millions of innocent lives were lost all because of one man's racist beliefs.
 |
| Living Conditions |
 |
| Life in a concentration camp |
 |
| Auschwitz concentration camp |
