- Make it difficult for the Jews to earn a living.
- Take civil rights away from the Jews.
- Take away self-respect or dignity that they had left.
Jews were also made to wear a gold star on every piece of clothing, with a penalty of death for removal of the symbol, to humiliate them even further every Jew with a non-Jewish first name must be referred to as Israel (males) or Sarah (females). All in all 1939 was a year in which Jews were caused great humiliation.
James Wilmshurst
How the treatment of Jews changed across Europe after 1939
History: Coursework Question 2
In 1939 the treatment of Jews changed – a lot. Hitler decided to invade Poland, a country in which over three million Jews called home, far more than any other country in Europe. He destroyed many Jewish ghettoes, the ghettoes still remaining prevented anyone leaving by armed guards, walls and barbed wire. Special bridges were constructed so that when a Jew had to cross a street inhabited by non-Jews they did not have to go anywhere near one another. The Jewish that managed to escape the Germans didn’t really have anywhere to go because at that time they didn’t have a country to call their own, today, that country is Israel. Many Jews were killed on capture, but those who weren’t killed were made to work, but one step out of line and they were also killed.
In 1941 Hitler had recruited an SS squad named ‘Einsatzgruppen’, he used this squad to kill any Jew who stepped out of line, the squad didn’t like the job of killing innocent people because of their religion, but they had to do it otherwise they, themselves, would be killed.
By the middle of 1941 preparations were underway for a ‘Final Solution’. Every man, woman and child that was a Jew was to be murdered, the decision for this came when Hitler decided that using the Einsatzgruppen to kill Jews was too slow a process, they were also concerned about the effect it was having on the soldiers taking part in the shootings, then the gassing methods were brought in.
In January 1942 a conference was held at Wannsee, a Berlin suburb, this was held to inform officials of their role ion the destruction of all Jews in Europe, their aim was to annihilate all 11 million Jews in this continent. When the Jews arrived 75% were taken to the gas chamber, the rest were saved from immediate death and used as slaves.
In the spring of 1943 some of the Jews that had been captured, took the initiative through a number of means to resist the mass slaughter. ‘Ghetto Fighters’ took on Nazi’s in a number of camps at Warsaw, Bialystok and Vilnius. Some Jews created hiding places for themselves and their families, others took their chance and fled to the forests.
In the winter of 1944-1945 the Germans retreated from Eastern Europe taking any inmates that were able to walk with them. Tens of thousands were made to march, even though starving, thirsty and weak. It was a particularly cold winter, as a result of this many prisoners fell on the roadside to their death, or they were shot by SS guards. Apporxiamtely 500,00 Jews alone died from 1939-1945.
Towards the end of 1944 Allied forces were making their way into German Occupied territory, Russian troops were first to discover the atrocities of Poland in late 1944, in early 1945 British and American forces were pressing from the West and made swift advances in March. On April 11th 1945 American forcesdiscovered the camp at Buchenwald and found things worse than anything they had seen so far throughout the war. In Nuremburg 1945 the Allies put some of the Nazi leaders on trial, many were sentenced to death, other received only a few years in jail. So thus Hitler had lost the war, his plan failed.
James Wilmshurst
10S 30/01/2005
What steps did the allies take to punish the Nazi’s for their treatment of the Jews?
On Sunday 15th April 1945 was when the British allies finally came to the Jews’ aid at Bergen-Belsen. The British were not prepared whatsoever for what they were about to see, the horrific acts committed by the Nazi Germans. One photographer who was at Bergen-Belsen is still, to this day, unable to look at the photographs he took on that day.
The prisoners were given very little to survive on, although a lot of them didn’t survive, so when somebody died they had to try and keep it quiet for a while so that they could take the deceased’s food rations, but when the bodies were found the SS were made to come and remove them, and place them in pits ready to be burnt.
Once Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps had been liberated in 1945, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin and on May 7th 1945 Germany surrendered to the allies. After this there were local trials held for the Nazis that took part in the mass murder to attend. The Nazis got off quite easily, taking into consideration what they did, not one of them was killed for their crimes and they were given prison spells for a few years. There was a couple of reasons for this though, one of them being that there were so many of them, and killing all of them would be stooping to their level, and the other reason was that a lot of them were forced into doing what they did.
Personally I don’t think we did enough to punish the Nazis, looking back through the years they were doing these sins, I feel that the leading Nazis should have been hung or, at least, imprisoned for life.
James Wilmshurst
10S 30/01/2005
How important was the Holocaust in the establishment of an independent state of Israel
After the holocaust was over, the surviving Jews had nowhere to go because, basically, nobody wanted millions of Jews strolling into their country of their own will. With this problem came a solution, the solution was to set up an independent state that the Jews could call home. But the location of this state was already inhabited by Arabs, and, like everybody else, they didn’t want millions of Jews walking into their homeland, this place was called Palestine. So this intended solution to their problem, just caused a new problem, the Jews and the Arabs were beginning to fight over Palestine. The Jews were also angry at Britain because after the war Britain had promised to give them a homeland in Palestine, but Britain never helped them get it, the Americans did.
The Jewish were now making attacks on British holiday resorts to get their own back for not helping them into Palestine.
Because of the persistent fighting between the Arabs and the Jews (the Arabs usually won) the United Nations decided to split Palestine in two, to make Palestine and Israel. Arabs to live in Palestine and Jews to live in Israel.
I don’t think the setting up of Israel was a very good idea, because one problem sorted just led to another problem, and even more fighting. It seems that the United Nations didn’t care much for the Arabs, nobody wanted to have the Jews in their country, so what on earth made them think the Arabs would take it so lightly?