The Holocaust was the mass killing of Jewish, Romani, and other ethnic and religious groups leading up to and during the Second World War. The leader was Adolf Hitler, with his enforcers the Nazi soldiers. Hitler had fought in World War I and when the country faced defeat, he started to blame the Jewish people of Germany. With that, he began to create the idea of a “pure” Germany, which soon led to a “pure” Europe. On January 30th, 1933, he was named chancellor of Germany after the former president died. With his idealistic thoughts, he exploited his enemy’s weaknesses to take power.
Hitler declared to invade Poland, home to over three million Jews. At first, Hitler encouraged the Jews to emigrate from the Greater German Reich (Relm) through his antisemitic policies and actions, but soon they were forced to live in ghettos. In March 1933, Hitler created the first concentration-style camp for political prisoners, essentially those who were anti-Nazi, or anyone against his “pure” ideas. Throughout Hitler’s regime, he also enforced other types of camps like forced labor camps, transit camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and eventually killing centers, what the world knows as concentration or extermination camps (“Extermination camps”).
His forced labor camps forced the Jewish people and others to do hard labor. They often worked with no proper training, no proper tools, no real nourishment, and no rest. Transit camps were the last stop before being sent to their death at a killing center. The main gate of Auschwitz concentration camp. The picture was taken after the war. Credits to the picture: Bielsko-Biała (PAP-Polish Press Agency)
By 1939 the Nazis started to get forceful, started to segregate, imprison, and deport Jews out of Europe entirely. Hitler soon realized they couldn’t rid the Jews through these efforts, so things escalated to involve the Einsatzgruppen (SS), or killing squads. In early 1941 when Hitler started to create his plans to attack the Soviet Union (Russia), he actively had plans for the SS. They were to attack Jewish middle and high-ranking communists located in the SU, and Jews in service of the communist party, government, and other ‘extremist’ elements. His purpose was to convince the Soviet Union to side with Nazi Germany, while the SS was also secretly encouraging antisemitic or anti-communist programs. (“Einsatzgruppen”)
By late July, the Soviet Union and the Nazis had been fighting for months. The cause for this was Russia was communist and the Nazis were fascist, it brought back the thoughts of deportation of the Jews, and the reminder that the ghettos in western Germany were still overcrowded, and full. Local SS were sent to murder thousands of Jewish people to make room. With the success of gas vans for the mass murder of the Jews in the Chełmno extermination camp in December 1941, local Jews were not removed from their ghetto’s before thousands more Jews were sent, and the mass deportations to concentration camps started to increase. (“Deportation”)
Originally founded in 1940, Auschwitz soon became the most known concentration camp and eventually the most notable. Concentration camps were primarily for the Jews, seen as real enemies of the “pure” Nazi Germany. Outfitted with gas chambers, more than 1.1 million people died in these chambers. While they mostly used the gas chambers, they also used lethal injection. It stopped for a short period before only being used for Jewish prisoners. The war also saw the use of prisoner-of-war camps, where allied prisoners of war, including the Poles and soviet soldiers. Of the 20% that survived Hitler’s camps, they were also forced to do slave labor.
Hitler had gained notice all over, but a Western alliance started with the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and France. Japan and Germany forged an alliance as well. As a result, Japan bombed the US port, Pearl Harbor, leaving the US angry. By this point Hitler and his Nazi armies were forced to fall back, The US, UK, and France had started to force Hitler back but death marches, or the forced evacuations of the Jews to concentration or extermination camps had already begun. By April 30th, 1945, Hitler had killed himself. (“Death marches”)
However, World War ll was not over just yet. On January 27th, 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army, (Allied forces). In August 1945, the US then attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. By September, Japan surrendered. World War ll and the Holocaust were finally over.
In 1946 Auschwitz became a museum to honor all those who passed during their time at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. In remembrance of all of the Jewish lives lost, the Auschwitz Museum has the names of each life lost and holds a candlelight vigil each year. Visitors can also learn about the history of the Holocaust there. So on January 27th, 80 years after the end of World War II, we will remember the 11 million people murdered, including the six million Jews (two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe at the time). “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
― Anne Frank (A young Jewish girl who lived during the Holocaust)
