SummaryThe Holocaust was a term referring to the mass killing of about 6 million Jews. The Holocaust happened during WWII and was carried out by Hilter and his army of Nazi Germans. The population of Jews in Europe before the Holocaust and WWII was about 9.5 million. The population after was about 3.5 million. By 1945, two out of every three Jews had been killed. Most Jews were killed by gassing in concentration camps. Some of the main concentration camps included Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Out of the 6 million Jews killed, 1.2 million were children. The Holocaust was enacted on Hitler's beliefs that the Jews were an inferior race that threatened Greman racial purity.
"There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust."
-Fidel Castro |
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is defined as the hostility to or prejudice against Jews. While anti-Semitism is a major part in the Holocaust, it did not start with Hitler. Anti-Semitism is recorded all the way back to ancient times, when Roman authorities vandalized and destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Many Jews were forcefully pushed out of Palestine thanks to the Romans. Anti-Semitism began to end during the Enlightment, a cultural period between the 17th and 18th centuries. The Enlightenment strongly encouraged religious toleration, and during the 19th century many European leaders passed laws and rules that finally ended the racial discrimination against the Jews. However, anti-Semitism survived and took its greatest form in the Holocaust.
Who was Anne Frank?
Anne Frank was a German Jewish teen who lived during the Holocaust. With all the Jews going into hiding, she and her family did the same, hiding in a cluster of rooms above her dad's office. Writing in her diary was said to "shake off all her cares" and she often wrote. Betrayed, Anne and her family were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps. Anne died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at 15 years old. Many copies of her diary were published and sold, nationally and internationally. Anne Frank is known for her bravery.
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Anne Frank Journal Entry
"Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews....If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed." -Anne Frank
- October 9, 1942