The Holocaust. Hitlers Attempt at Global Dominance

Holocaust

Adolf Hitler is known as one of the most evil men in modern history. He hated the Jews, disabled, African Americans, Romans, homosexuals, and gypsies. Hitler wanted to convince the Germans that he was their next great leader. Hitler was a strong man, and he gained many followers in Europe with his perfect public speaking skills and his clever politics. After he conquered Europe, his plan was to conquer the world. He wanted to destroy anyone in his way. For him, the people in his way were the Jews. Many of the leaders of the Communist Party were Jews, and Hitler was threatened by their power. The German people were afraid of what might happen if the Jews gained control. In his attempt to gain world power, Hitler imprisoned, tortured, and murdered more than six million Jews. Life before the Holocaust was very nice for many European Jews. Jewish people lived in every country in Europe. There were roughly nine million all together. A majority of the Jews in Eastern Europe lived in Jewish towns or villages called Shtetls. Jews could be found in all kinds of careers, farmers, tailors, teachers, doctors, etc. Many Jewish people spoke Yiddish-German and Hebrew. There were many children who dropped out of school to work, while others continued on to University. As you can see, Jewish people in Europe lived in peace. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany in the year 1933. Hitler labeled the Jews as unworthy and inferior, and the Holocaust began. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the Holocaust this way: “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored, persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.” (-United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) In the twelve years that followed, the Nazi regime murdered or exterminated almost two out of every three Jews that lived in Europe. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. Einsatzgruppen were groups of German soldiers who searched out and murdered large groups of Jews in the Soviet Union. It is estimated that these police groups killed over a million Jewish civilians. The Einsatzgruppen murdered the Jews in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Germany occupied Poland in 1939 and began imprisoning the Jewish population in Poland. Hitler considered the world wide elimination of the Jews to be the final solution and the pathway to global domination. The first concentration camp, Dachau, opened March 22, 1933. The camp’s first prisoners were mostly recurrent convicts, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, and “anti-socials” such as, hawks and vagrants. Others considered difficult by the Nazis, such as Jewish writers and journalists, unpopular industrialists, lawyers and political officials were also imprisoned. Most of these camps were in the woods, so it would be impossible to escape. Round-ups known as death marches happened when the Nazis would try and capture anyone in the open and lead them into their deaths in the gas chambers. At least two thousand people were murdered this way. In France, in July of 1938, a meeting was held to discuss the Jewish immigration problems caused by Hitler and the Nazi Party. Thirty-two countries sent representatives. Nothing was decided or accomplished at this conference so Adolf Hitler accepted this as proof that he was on the right path and the rest of the world approved of his actions. Living in concentration camps was one of the worst things that could happen to any victims of the Holocaust. Concentration camps were organized murder. Hitler’s men worked the prisoners over ten hours a day, literally to their deaths. There were two types of barracks the prisoners lived in; wooden and brick. The wooden barracks were designed to hold around fifty horses. More than seven hundred people had to live in the dreadful living quarters. In the barracks there were many rats, leaking roof tops, and water shortages. There were six concentration camps all stationed in Poland; Majdanke, Auschwitz - Birkenau, Chelmo, Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobiabor. When the Holocaust ended, it was the world’s biggest relief. The victims could come out of hiding and rebuild the lives they once had. It was very rough for the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust to get back on their feet. These people had no money, very few family members left, and the tragic memories of Adolf Hitler and the horror he put them through. To reconstruct new lives, more than eighty thousand Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States where there was freedom and new beginnings. Hitler’s attempt at global dominance failed. In his attempt to dominate the world, Hitler almost destroyed the Jewish race.