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Neeley Furgeson

Mr. Neuberger

English 102

30 March 2011

Blindness at its Finest:

An Examination of the Holocaust

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In an imperfect world which has mastered the art of conflict and violence, the roots of

prejudice run inevitably deep. Human nature, though positive in many ways, nevertheless

supports the existence of this prejudice, which can easily catch fire like dry leaves in a society so

permanently impressionable. Sometimes, the consequences of this prejudice can be insignificant

and easily forgotten, such as with simple name-calling amongst peers in grade school. Yet other

times the consequences are so powerful that a permanent stain is left, such as with violence and

death. Explained by writer Tod Lindberg, genocide is a massive disgrace which is not to be

confused with merely considering individual murders in a collective sense. Genocides may not

maintain uniform characteristics, but each is political and organized, upholding the purpose of

settling a dispute through the rash terms of the stronger population exterminating the weaker

population (Lindberg 1). Though this may be the most extreme form of persecution, genocide is

attempted and often times carried out more often than the general public may see.

One of the most widely known and acknowledged instances of genocide has been entitled

the Holocaust, involving Germany and much of Europe during World War II. Millions of Jewish

people, including people belonging to other minority groups, were ceaselessly murdered during

this time period, making it one of the finest examples of mass, violent persecution in history.

This title, housing sensitive emotions and heavy acts of violence, is hefty and greatly supported

by its definition.

The word "Holocaust" is undoubtedly a word that immediately stirs highly sensitive

emotions, whether positive or negative, when mentioned. However, the dictionary definition,

being purely technical, reminds one of the basic elements of this particular incidence of genocide

in history. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Holocaust is

defined as the persecution against and murder of an estimated six million Jewish people at the
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hands of the Nazis and their affiliates in a bureaucratic and systematic fashion, being sponsored

by the state. Furthermore, the word "Holocaust" is derived from the Greek language, and

translates to "sacrifice by fire" (Introduction to the Holocaust). This origin is quite telling, for it

suggests that the Jewish community was meant to be sacrificed by Hitler and his regime in order

to create a more perfect society, and eventually world. Considering this, one must also consider

the motives and ideas that initiated this well-known genocide to world history, for those are the

topics most hotly debated and considered by those pondering the Holocaust.

The persecution that the Jewish community dealt with

during World War II stemmed from past years and ideas which

were formed long before the introduction and reign of Hitler and

his followers. However, when one thinks of violating those

belonging to the Jewish faith, one immediately is reminded of

the Holocaust. Under the influence of Adolf Hitler and his

followers, officially known as the Nazis, countless Jewish

people and those belonging to groups of minority were secluded

Example of Nazi propaganda against the
Jewish people, with the figure on the left
being an "Aryan" and the figure on the
from the public and slaughtered. However, in taking a step back
right being a "European subhuman," or
Jew.
Source: http://bit.ly/f74RVV
from this retrospective point of view, according to Yad Vashem,

the persecution of the Jews leading to the Holocaust began in

1933. This quickly led to a system of mass murder through the use of ghettos, death camps, and

concentration camps (How Vast was the Crime). Regardless, Hitler's power was heartily

supported by his Nazis and much of Germany, despite the fact that innocent citizens were being

terrorized within their own homes.

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Considering the widely-understood injustice that Adolf Hitler caused, one may find

themselves encountering questions regarding how he came to gain control over much of Europe

during this time. According to Yad Vashem, Germany's defeat during World War I was

inconceivable to the Germans (Rise of the Nazis and the Beginning of Persecution), and with this

humiliation looming overhead, the Jewish population became an easy scapegoat. Again

according to Yad Vashem, Germany consequently claimed that the Jews were largely a

contributing factor of this overall defeat, as well as the destruction of Germany's armed forces

(Rise of the Nazis and the Beginning of Persecution). Germany's consistency in blaming such

emotionally traumatizing and widespread issues on the Jewish naturally stained German

perception of Jews as a whole, resulting in Hitler's radical ideas to be accepted in growing

volumes.

Resulting from Hitler's radical ideas being accepted and even supported throughout

Germany, it became increasingly easier to demonize and persecute the Jewish community. As

stated by Yad Vashem, Europe witnessed the uprising of both anti-Semitic and aggressive

nationalist beliefs during the 1920s and 1930s, making

claims regarding racial and social characteristics which

marked the Jewish race as dangerous and inferior. This

nationalism was striving to seclude Jewish people from

engaging in public life in each country, and to put a

barrier on their economic activity as well (Nazi Germany

Photo of Nazis preventing Germans from creating
business at a Jewish store.
Source: http://bit.ly/fCMQxg and the Jews). As impressionable and easily influenced as

human beings naturally are, the racial and social claims

being made against the Jews merely took a toll due to fate. Again in the words of Yad Vashem,
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the rise in power held by Adolf Hitler made these anti-Semitic beliefs permanent in the official

ideology of the new Nazi Germany regime (Nazi Germany and the Jews). This permanence of

anti-Semitism in German daily lifestyle undoubtedly resulted in acceptance of anti-Semitism in

those Germans who had not initially agreed with the ideology. Additionally, the presentation of

this ideology would result in nationalism's success coming more easily to Hitler, as he has

already instilled the necessary mental tools in his people.

Though Jews were the primary victims to Hitler's and his Nazi followers' actions, there

were other groups of people belonging to certain political beliefs, religious beliefs, races, and

mental and/or physical capacities who were experiencing persecution similar to that of the Jews.

Furthermore, it is understood that Hitler was simply concerned with cleansing the population of

impurities, and those considered to be impurities were destined to fall beneath the heels of

Hitler's boots. According to Ruth Fox, writer and teacher of the Holocaust, in addition to the six

million Jewish people who perished within the twelve year expanse of 1933 to 1945, two-

hundred fifty-thousand mentally and/or physically disabled individuals and five-hundred

thousand gypsies also fell as victims of the genocide. Also, Soviet prisoners of war were

targeted due to nationality, with their fatality rate reaching above three million, with other

common targets of persecution including those considered anti-social and homosexual (Fox 1).

In addition to this, Yad Vashem also claims that, aside from those previously mentioned by Ruth

Fox, other enemies of the Reich included Jehovah's Witnesses, socialists, Slavic people, and

communists (Persecution of Non-Jews). Ultimately, it is clear that Adolf Hitler was eager to rid

his path to success of anyone and everyone who may have possibly interfered both politically

and non-politically. His willingness to exterminate entire groups of people greatly displays the
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magnitude and level of seriousness that was involved in Hitler's scheme, which was put into

action shortly after Hitler's official assumption of power.

Once Hitler had officially assumed power over Germany in 1933, he was able to

manipulate the Jewish community through the use of the law and his ability to exercise his

ultimate influence over German life. Shortly after his claim to power, during the year 1935, a

series of laws were passed which largely limited the rights of all Jews. As stated by the United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum, being the

essential foundation of German Jews becoming

subject to legal persecution, the Nuremberg

Race Laws forbade them from marrying and/or

taking part in sexual relationships with any

German, as well as expelling them from being

Jewish children bearing the Star of David on their clothing as a
result of the Nuremberg Laws.
Source: http://bit.ly/gtJaTq considered a Reich citizen (The Nuremberg

Race Laws). Furthermore, Yad Vashem claims

that the Nuremberg Laws caused theaters to dismiss Jewish actors, publishers to reject the works

of Jewish authors, universities to ban Jews from attending their classes, and newspapers to refuse

publishing the writings of Jewish journalists (Rise of the Nazis and the Beginning of

Persecution). As a result of these strict rules regarding the economic and social lives of the

Jewish people, obtaining money and other basic necessities became much more difficult, and

they gradually became weathered and weakened against the Nazi forces. At the most pivotal

point of this unjust persecution, violence began to break out against the Jews, displaying the

seriousness of the overall situation, and the beginnings of what was to occur throughout the

following years.
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The persecution against the Jewish

population in Germany may not have begun

violently, but the acts quickly escalated to a

violent state. The most destructive and widely

recognized instance of violence is, according to

Yad Vashem, a pogrom known as Kristallnacht,

Jewish storefront destroyed as a result of the nation-wide
which translates to the "Night of Broken Glass, pogrom Kristallnacht.
Source: http://bit.ly/eMhPJk

which took place during the ninth and tenth of November in 1938, devastatingly resulting in the

murder of ninety-one Jewish people, as well as the torching of more than 1,400 synagogues. In

addition to this, most Jewish businesses and shops were completely destroyed (1938). This

pogrom not only furthered the effects of the Nuremberg Laws in the dwindling of Jewish income

as a whole, but it also initiated the deportation of the Jewish community to concentration and

death camps. Shortly after this, members of Hitler's Nazi party began collecting the Jews in

Germany to be deported to ghettos, which officially made the estrangement and looming

mortality of the Jewish people final.

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Though the seclusion of Jews from European society had already begun with general

persecution and the Nuremberg Laws, the act of collecting them in ghettos, separated from

normal society, amplified this seclusion tremendously. Yad Vashem describes this situation in

stating that the first ghettos were formed upon the

poorest Polish regions and sealed, incarcerating the

moral majority of Jewish people in Poland. In the

spring of 1940, a large sealed ghetto was founded in

Lodz, and the largest ghetto was established in the

autumn of 1940 in Warsaw, interning an estimated

A group of Jewish people being ordered to raise their
hands by SS officers.
Source: http://bit.ly/eP76LQ
half a million Jewish people. Yad Vashem also

acknowledges the largest of the ghettos established within Soviet areas, which was stationed in

Minsk, Belorussia, having held an estimated one-hundred thousand Jews. Overall, there were

over one-thousand ghettos existing in Eastern Europe, aside from the few existing in Central and

Southern Europe (The Ghettos). With such strong feelings of hatred against the Jewish people,

Hitler's Nazis did their best to initiate deprivation of the Jews in the ghettos, causing daily life to

seemingly be a continuum of hardship.

Daily life for the Jews residing in the ghettos was

endlessly ridden with hardship as starvation,

overcrowding, and disease spread like wildfire. Yad

Vashem clearly illustrates Jewish life during this time

period in acknowledging that often times general sanitary

and electrical infrastructure was absent in the ghettos, and

incredible overcrowding and inadequate nourishment

Child residents of the Warsaw ghetto sitting on
the pavement.
Source: http://bit.ly/fWtLTl
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plagued the inhabitants of the ghettos. Additionally, those who attempted to smuggle goods into

the ghettos were often times brutally punished by the Germans through both private and public

executions, and much of the ghettos' populations perished due to inability to fulfill basic needs

(Daily Life in the Ghettos). However, despite the fact that the Nazis had successfully

manipulated much of the Jewish population across Europe, containing them in specific areas and

in conditions completely unfit for human life, Hitler and his followers remained unsatisfied.

Thus, the magnitude of violence and persecution continues to grow.

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As the German Nazis and Adolf Hitler became

increasingly dissatisfied with the lagging results of the

ghettos, the integration of Jews into concentration

camps and death camps became rapid. The United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines a

concentration camp as a camp where people are

Photo of the railroad tracks leading to and the entrance
confined and/or detained without notice of what is of a concentration camp.
Source: http://bit.ly/fxxnei

legally acceptable regarding imprisonment and/or arrest in a democracy deemed constitutional

(Concentration Camps, 1933-1939). Similarly, a death camp

more specifically revolved around executing those who are

admitted there, with few residents and much Nazi deceit taking

place. Considering that the Jewish communities were already

steadily perishing within the walls of the ghettos due to

inclement conditions, one may only imagine the impressions

made by the concentration and death camps on the Jewish

population. Nonetheless, Hitler's dissatisfaction remained, and

different measures were to be taken.

As the entire Jewish population across the face of Europe was slowly being depleted and

deprived of the most basic needs, the Wannsee Conference was held in Berlin during January of

1942, which was meant to address the issue of Europe's Jewry. According to the United States

Portrait of Reinhard Heydrich, chairman of Holocaust Memorial Museum, the meeting was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich
the Wannsee Conference.
Source: http://bitly.com/gx0wF6
and included fifteen additional Reich members. Regarding the purpose of the

conference, the term "Final Solution" was meant to represent the deliberate and systematic
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extermination of the European Jewish population, which was a murderous scheme authorized by

Hitler at an undetermined time during the year 1941 (Wannsee Conference and the "Final

Solution"). The discussions that took place during this meeting explicitly included, in the words

of Yad Vashem, that murder using firearms was failing in efficiency and falling short of its

overall goal, resulting in the decision to shift the already systematic and organized murder on a

scale considered industrial (Wannsee Conference). Thus, the introduction of using poison gas to

exterminate the Jews was made, and fatalities soared.

With the new and highly efficient methods of murder through the use of poison gas,

quality of life in the concentration camps was significantly worsened, and the number of deaths

inevitably grew. In the words of Yad Vashem, gas chambers were permanently erected in a

selection of the concentration camps, and in the death camps the moral majority of those

admitted, being individuals of all ages, were sent to perish straightaway. These death camps

included Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec (The Implementation of the Final Solution).

Additionally, as stated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, some of the largest

camps established by members of the SS included Dachau, which was located northwest of

Munich, Esterwegen, which was located near Hamburg, Oranienburg, which was located north

of Berlin, and Lichtenburg, which was located

in Saxony (Concentration Camps, 1933-1939).

Also, the largest of both the concentration

camps and the death camps, again in the words

of Yad Vashem, was Auschwitz-Birkenau,

which was located in Poland and served Photo of the original blueprints of gas chambers at Auschwitz-
Birkenau.
simultaneously as a labor camp and as a horribly Source: http://bit.ly/hn8AtQ
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efficient extermination camp (Auschwitz-Birenkau Extermination Camp). Auschwitz-Birenkau

is undeniably the most largely recognized and devastating of the collection of camps, as it

consisted of several stations, forming a sort of system or family of related concentration and

extermination camps. Though the Jewish people were experiencing incredible hardship before

Hitler and his followers began exercising the labor camps and extermination camps, nothing

could have possibly prepared any human for hardship reaching these levels so extreme.

Daily life in the concentration and labor camps was strained, tense, frightening, and

marked by starvation and abuse. The Jews inhabiting these camps were treated in an

immeasurably inhumane way, causing the depletion of both physical and emotional strength, and

the sharpness of senses and cognitive function to be incredibly dulled. Yad Vashem states that,

in the concentration camps, the day-to-day routine consumed all of the available strength,

beginning with rising early, tidying the straw which made up one's bed, "the lineup," marching to

take part in forced labor, waiting for the daily food ration, which generally consisted of a watery

soup substance and one half of a piece of bread being obviously inadequate nutrition for

individuals taking part in hard labor, returning to the camps, and an

additional "lineup" before returning to the barracks (Daily Life in the

Camps). Residents, when admitted to the camps, were immediately

sent through the process of being either selected to be exterminated

or kept for forced labor purposes. When chosen for forced labor,

individuals were stripped of all articles of clothing and possessions,

shaven entirely clean, and sent to reside in barracks. With the

Concentration camp prisoners abundance of death and destruction, combined with the
taking part in the "lineup".
Source: http://bit.ly/hJcnSQ
overwhelming malnourishment and abuse being inflicted upon the
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Jewish people, many of those detained in the camps became absent of emotion and motivation,

resulting in even higher numbers of death. Ultimately, every characteristic of Jewish life during

Hitler's reign over Germany and Europe derived innocent Jews of their basic needs. However,

this injustice, which had been rapidly inflating throughout the entirety of World War II and

Adolf Hitler's reign, would shortly come to an end.

Though the violently hopeless tunnel may have seemed dark as pitch and endless,

liberation finally came for the suffering Jewish prisoners. As explained by the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Germans, being taken back by the hasty advance of the

Soviets, attempts to destroy and mask the evidence of their genocide were made through

demolition of the camps. Crematoria which had been used to burn the corpses of Jewish

prisoners were set ablaze, yet the Nazi evacuations were so rapid that their gas chambers

remained standing (Liberation of Nazi Camps). Stumbling upon such screaming evidence of

mass murder, including remnants of the crematoria, standing gas chambers, and barely-living

Jewish victims, liberators experienced shock too intense to measure. The world had been blind

to these atrocities for years, and the results of a lacking interference were too deep to erase.

Following this liberation lay a long and questionable road to recovery for the remaining

Jewish population, which included a lingering hostility met by those who attempted to return

home following their release from the camps. Yad Vashem claims that some survivors headed

westward after meeting hostility elsewhere, while

many others settled nearby the German-Polish

border with intentions of establishing institutions

for the Jewish community, hoping to rebuild their

lives. These establishments included orphanages,

Resident of Displaces Persons Camp dressed as Hitler

while other residents joke.
Source: http://bit.ly/dS8uqm
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schools, hospitals, and farms, providing basic needs to the Jewish communities who were left

with nowhere to turn. Meanwhile, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, operating

alongside the Jewish displaced persons, assisted with clothing, food, educational expansions, and

the provision of money supporting the organized immigration of Jews to Eretz, Israel (The

Anguish of Liberation and the Surviving Remnants). Though much help was received and

progress created through the acts of cooperation amongst the Jewish population, as well as help

stemming from others who recognized the Jewish struggle, the agony and hardship stained the

lives of the Jews and other victims permanently, marking their following ancestry with a

powerful history.

The title "the Holocaust," is heavy and bursting with the haunting memories maintained

by German Nazis, European bystanders, and Jewish victims alike. Being one of the single most

widely recognized examples of persecution and genocide in world history, endless strings of

emotion are bound to its events. During an expanse of merely twelve years, an estimated six

million Jewish people, as well as countless other minority victims, fell as victims to Hitler's

ceaseless persecution. Considering this, one must bear in mind the instances of mass violence

and genocide that have taken place behind closed doors, and remaining unseen by the blinded

general public. As it is human nature to scrutinize and often times act out against those

belonging to any given group of people, results are seen in abundance, and though some are

ultimately harmless, none bear innocence. Regardless of whether prejudice is as simple as

teasing between peers or as complex as massive accounts of violence, the characteristic of

general prejudice is undeniable and unwavering in society at any given time. The world, being

imperfect and having mastered the art of conflict and violence, appears to be madly and

endlessly infatuated with its relationship with injustice.

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Works Cited

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January 2011. Web. 27 March 2011.

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2011. Web. 27 March 2011.

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Web. 27 March 2011.

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2011. Web. 27 March 2011.

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Web. 27 March 2011.

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April 2009. Web. 27 March 2011.

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2011.

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