Who Is To Blame For The Holocaust

The Holocaust was a horrifying and devastating time. Hitler and the Nazis had taken over many countries and had planned for world domination. When people think about the Holocaust they think that Hitler and the Nazis were the only ones to blame, but Hitler could not have pulled off the Holocaust without the unwitting help of residents, Europeans, and leaders of other countries.
The least responsible of these groups are the residents who denied the existence of the Holocaust or knew about it and did not do anything to help stop it. As Wiesel states, "But I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me” (7). This was said by Moishe the Beadle, a resident of Elie Wiesel's village. Moishe tried hard to not stand out, so no one
As stated in the text, “One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest” (Wiesel 100). This man was a non-Jewish man who could have done something to help the prisoners, but instead he made the situation worse by throwing this piece of bread. This man was “free” of Nazi mistreatment, yet he was imprisoned by Hitler’s motives and strong personality. This caused him to betray his fellow Europeans. Wiesel says, “On the way we saw some young German girls. The guards began to tease them. The girls giggled. They allowed themselves to be kissed and tickled, bursting with laughter. They all were laughing, joking, and passing love notes to one another” (46). The girls saw the suffering of the Jews, yet all they cared about was flirting. They may have been friends with some of these people, but chose to ignore them. Even there was not much they could do as only a few people they could have told others about the suffering they had witnessed and convinced people to stand up to Hitler and the
As the London Jewish Cultural Centre states, "Despite the fact that the U.S. received early reports about the desperate plight of European Jewry, procrastination and inaction marked its policies toward rescue. Immigration quotas were never increased for the emergency; the existing quotas, in fact, were never filled” (Immigration Policies). The U.S. was very powerful, yet when it was faced with this problem, it refused to take in Jewish refugees. The U.S. could have potentially stopped the mistreatment of Jews, but did not do anything. The Jewish Virtual Library states, "It was not until Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, In May 1940, that the British people were determined to defeat the Nazis. Despite Churchill having knowledge of atrocities committed by the Nazis as early as 1941, the government's main war effort was to Germany” (British Government Responses Pre-1939). Great Britain's response was very similar. It was so caught up in fighting the war and stopping Hitler it was unable to do any humanitarian effort to help the Jews. Great Britain was trying to get Hitler out of power, but at the same time, they ignored the situation the Jews were in because they had other things to worry about. Geographically they were also worried that Hitler would take over since Germany was close to Great