The primary reason that the treatment of Jews changed to genocide was the onset of world war two. Hitler stated that if a war broke out that he would unleash tremendous suffering on Jews in Europe.
The outbreak of the war in 1939 changed the attitudes towards the Jews. It allowed more extreme treatment of the Jews without worry about the worlds opinion. As a result of the start of the war the number of Jews under German control increased. Unable to find a solution of how to deal with this many Jews, the Nazis experimented with gathering them all into one place called ghettos. During 1940 they organized Jewish ghettos in the cities of Poland, the biggest of them being Warsaw. Many starved in the ghettos and close to the ghettos were labour camps, many died from doing to much physical work, but the Nazis did not mind as there were many more to take their place.
In 1941 the Einsatzgruppen moved into Russia behind the German armies to round up and kill Jews. Those picked were ordered to march to the outskirts of the villages, forced to dig their own graves and shot. Women and children were included in these executions.
Eastern Europe was the main target for mass murders. The places designed for the Nazis genocide policy included ghettos, concentration camps and death camps.
Between 1939-1945 on Hitler’s order, eleven million people were killed during the holocaust. Six million were Jews and 1.5 million children. The young were killed first as the Nazis said ‘nits breed lice’. Only a few hundred survived the onslaught of the persecution, ghetto’s and camps of Nazi-dominated Europe. To keep your life in this period would be by being able to do hard labour or pure luck. Neither factor of which the victims had any control over. The victims of the holocaust were men, women, children and babies, living in urban or rural areas. Victims were rounded up and packed into trains to concentration and execution camps. Many died in cramped conditions on the train. Others died of starvation or disease in the camps. Many were shot or gassed in huge buildings where canisters of poisonous gas were released from showerheads and their bodies were burnt in crematoriums as part of the final solution. They had systematic ways of killing Jews such as the euthanasia programme, which was a quick and easy way of ridding Europe of the Jews without affecting Nazis.
Jews were not the only targets although they had a status as the ‘main’ problem. Nazi’s also targeted racially or genetically inferior, asocial, religious groups and political enemies. Therefore there was a wide range of people that experienced discrimination and extermination. The Gypsies, mentally and physically handicapped, homosexuals, infirmed, elderly, terminally ill, academically challenged, poles, Slavs, blacks, nuns, catholic priests, Jehovah Witnesses, Social Democrats, Communists and those who aided the targeted.
The holocaust was Hitler and Nazi Germany’s war against the Jews, so they were singled out for genocide. Their lives were shattered, ultimately affecting Jews, living dead and unborn. The Holocaust left an imprint of death, suffering, cruel memories and the after shocks are still being felt today. The reality of the Holocaust is the knowledge that all forms of discrimination can lead to genocide.
