Exploring The Relationship Between War And Genocide During World War II

The relationship between war and genocide in the context of the WWII was interwinded. The Nazis' ultimate plan was the final solution. This process started with persecution, anti-Jew laws, then labor camps, ghettos, death camps, and eventually genocide. The Nazis had primary goals of economic improvement, territorial expansion and nationalism as a result of their WWI losses. Unfortunately, in the Nazis pursuit of their goals, 55 million people died in total during WWII resulting in the genocide of six million Jews. As the Allies started to approach the Nazi German territories in 1945, air raids and bombings occurred cutting off power and supplies leading to an inability to keep camps and manufacturing running efficiently. The course of war
The course of the war influenced the Nazi regime’s determination to pursue the Final Solution first through anti-semitic laws, euthanasia movements, face to face shootings in Eastern Europe and death camps, ending with the Nero orders. The first influences of the Nazi determination to pursue the final solution were the policies of “The Program of the National Socialist (Nazi) German Workers’ Party”. This shares the original goals of the Nazi Party. Anti-Semitism is certainly a part of the original goals, as seen specifically in rules 4-8 and 23-24 in that text. Some strong words of anti-semitism from goal four are, “...No Jew can therefore be a German National...”(The Program of the National Socialist (Nazi) German Workers’ Party XXX). As the war continued the Nazi party “used the term [euthanasia] to describe their own programme of killing over one hundred thousand mentally sick and handicapped persons from 1939 to 1945” (Noakes 997). This was part of the preparation for gassing chambers at death camps later in the war as part of the final
The atrocity these Reserve Policemen inflicted onto innocent people which took a huge psychological toll on them was at first not taxing for them because they viewed this as a task to help win the war and as their duty to serve Germany. The power the Nazi’s and SS had over those of lower ranks in the military and police forces made these tasks seem required and necessary of the soldiers. Next, in the course of the war in 19XX we can see how policy in Macedonia and Greece was unique. Jamila Kolonomos’s story in “Tracks in the Snow: Recollections of a Macedonian Partisan” is deeply from the Greeks. While Greeks strived to help each other survive the war, “Ninety-eight per cent of Macedonia’s Jewish population had been murdered during the war” (Tracks in the Snow 278). Jamila Kolonomos, who worked for the resistance, explains the communist party was responsible for organizing the “resistance against Fascism” (Tracks in the Snow 278). Jamila was hidden in a kiosk along with 5 other Jewish women in a 32 square foot room. All the other Jews in her town were rounded up and deported to camps in cattle cars.