Ensayo de Social

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WORLD WAR II AND THE

HOLOCAUST

BY Alisson Tacuri

10TH B

LCDA. RUBRIA ASTUDILLO

SOCIAL STUDIES
ESSAY

World War II (1939-1945) was one of the most devastating and tragic conflicts in human
history, marked not only by military confrontations between the Axis powers (led by Germany,
Italy and Japan) and the Allies (mainly the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet
Union), but also by heinous crimes committed against humanity. One of the darkest episodes of
this period was the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and annihilation of


European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Members of the
Jewish community represented the main victims: six million were murdered. Roma (Gypsies),
people with physical and mental disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or
slaughter because they belonged to a particular race, ethnicity or nationality. Millions of others,
including homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents,
also fell victim to the oppression and death of Nazi tyranny. (United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, s.f.)

Under the spectre of the end of World War I, in 1919, the ‘German Workers’ Party’
(Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, DAP) was formed. That year Adolf Hitler joined as a member, taking
on the role of propaganda chief. In 1920 the name was changed to the ‘National Socialist German
Workers’ Party’, better known as the Nazi Party.

The Nazi Party was one of those who expressed dissatisfaction with Germany's surrender
and the imposition of heavy compensatory measures on the country after World War I, which
provoked a nationalist reaction among the population who did not understand the outcome of the
war.

The new regime that was established, the Weimar Republic, faced economic, social and
political problems. This included uprisings from different political sectors and the difficulty of
establishing its authority. Among the various coup attempts was that of the Nazi Party in
November 1923, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison,
but was released after 10 months. During those months in prison he wrote his book ‘My Struggle’
(Mein Kampf).

In this work he presents his ideological platform with which the Nazi Party will grow during
the 1920s, and come to power in 1933. The text states:
That the Nazi regime in Germany was characterised by autocracy, totalitarianism, anti-
parliamentarism, individual freedoms, racism and the use of force. The Führer had total authority
and control over all institutions and organisations, and expected total loyalty from the people. The
regime also rejected democracy and the participation of all citizens, focusing on those considered
citizens. Racism was a key part of Nazi ideology, dividing humans into racial groups and
identifying Jews as their ‘racial enemy’. The use of force was seen as an effective mechanism for
imposing Nazi ideology. The concept of living space was central to Nazi ideology, as it was
believed that the racial sphere needed space for its development. (Archivo Nacional de Chile, s.f.)

Germany's first concentration camps were established shortly after Hitler's appointment
as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks following the Nazi rise to power, the SA
(Sturmabteilungen, commonly known as the Storm Troopers), SS (Schutzstaffel, the protection
squads), police and local civilian authorities organised multiple detention camps to incarcerate
real and perceived opponents of Nazi policies.

German authorities established camps throughout Germany as they became necessary


to handle the masses they detained as alleged subversive elements. The SS established larger
camps at Oranienburg, north of Berlin; at Esterwegen, near Hamburg; at Dachau, northwest of
Munich; and at Lichtenburg in Saxony. In Berlin itself, the Columbia Haus centre housed prisoners
under investigation by the Gestapo (the German secret state police) until 1936.

In some of these camps, gas chambers were built where the Nazis carried out mass
murder. These chambers were part of a systematic plan known as the ‘Final Solution’, which
aimed to eliminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. The brutality of these acts was
unimaginable, and the evidence of these crimes was so shocking that, when uncovered, it forever
changed the world's perception of man's capacity to inflict suffering on his fellow man.

Concentration camps are often mistakenly compared to the prisons of modern society.
However, concentration camps, unlike prisons, were independent of the judicial system. Nazi
concentration camps served three main purposes:

- To incarcerate people whom the Nazi regime perceived as a threat to security. These
people were incarcerated for indefinite periods.
- To eliminate individuals and small groups through murder, away from public and judicial
scrutiny.

- To exploit the forced labour of the prisoner population. This purpose arose as a result of
labour shortages. (Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos, s.f.)

The exact date on which Nazi leaders decided to carry out the ‘Final Solution’ plan to
annihilate the Jews remains uncertain. The genocide was the culmination of a decade of Nazi
policy under Hitler's rule. The persecution and segregation of Jews occurred in several stages,
including anti-Semitism, boycotts, ‘Aryanisation’ and the Kristallnacht pogroms. After the German
invasion of Poland in 1939, anti-Semitic policies were developed to concentrate and eventually
annihilate European Jews. The first ghettos were created in the General Government and
Warthegau, and Jews were deported from Poland and Western Europe. In 1941, SS General
Odilio Globocnik was tasked with implementing a plan to systematically kill Jews in the General
Government. The ‘Final Solution’ called for the murder of European Jews by gassing, shooting
and other measures, resulting in nearly six million deaths.

With the end of World War II and the collapse of the Nazi regime, Holocaust survivors
faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. With few financial resources and few surviving
family members, most eventually emigrated from Europe to start their lives anew. Between 1945
and 1952, more than 80,000 Holocaust survivors emigrated to the United States.

In 1945, when Allied troops entered the concentration camps, they discovered piles of
human corpses, bones and ashes, testimony to the mass murders committed by the Nazis. The
soldiers also found thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish survivors suffering from starvation and
disease. For the survivors, the prospect of rebuilding their lives was daunting.

After liberation, many Jewish survivors feared returning to their former homes because of
the anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) that persisted in parts of Europe and the trauma they had
suffered. Some of those who returned home feared for their lives. In post-war Poland, for example,
there were a series of pogroms (violent anti-Jewish riots). The largest of these occurred in the city
of Kielce in 1946, when Polish rioters killed at least 42 Jews and beat many others.
With emigration opportunities scarce, tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors left
homeless emigrated westward to other European territories liberated by the Western Allies, where
they were housed in hundreds of refugee centres and displaced persons camps, such as Bergen-
Belsen in Germany. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and
the occupying armies of the United States, Britain and France administered these camps. (Museo
Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos, s.f.)

REFERENCES

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (s.f.). World War II and the Holocaust.
Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/es/animated-map/world-war-ii-
and-the-holocaust

Archivo Nacional de Chile. (s.f.). Breve historia y presentación sobre ideología nazi. Archivo
Nacional de Chile. https://www.archivonacional.gob.cl/breve-historia-y-presentacion-
sobre-ideologia-nazi

Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos. (s.f.). Campos de concentración,
1933-39. Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/es/article/concentration-camps-1933-39

Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos. (s.f.). La “Solución Final”: visión
general. Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/es/article/final-solution-overview

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