Ten Best Articles
- The Ghettos Jews are a long time persecuted community and the ghettos were born several centuries before World War Two. However, during WW2 the life conditions worsted considerably. The ghettos were overcrowded controlled by police forces and Jews began to have less and less rights. "The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where more than 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles."
- The Final Solution: written by the United States Holocaust Museum, this article goes in depth about Hitler's plan for the Jews in the conference named The Final Solution. They named it this to disguise the real reason for the conference- extermination of Jews. The article talks about the horrific numbers of deaths and accidents, "German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting."
- The deportation After the final solution was decided, the deportation of the Jews from the ghettos to the concentration camps began: mainly by rail system. People were "The stench of urine and excrement added to the humiliation and suffering of the deportees. Lacking food and water, many of the deportees died before the trains reached their destinations"
- Children during the Holocaust "The German authorities were indifferent to this mass death because they considered most of the younger ghetto children to be unproductive and hence “useless eaters.” "
- Women during the Holocaust "German physicians and medical researchers used Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) women as subjects for sterilization experiments and other unethical human experimentation"
- Painfull Memories Women would run up to the SS troops and beg them not to kill them immediately.
The Germans would say: "Well, what do you have to give me?" So they gave them gold trinkets or coins and the Germans would send them to the end of the line. - The holocaust just got more shocking sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.
- Nazi and Anti Semitism and the Origins of the Holocaust: This article is written by Michael Berenbaum. It goes in detail about how Hilter spread the idea of Anti Semitism and where this hatred against the Jews started. He then talks about the night of Kristallnacht and states, " The Nazis arrested some 30,000 Jewish men between the ages of 16 and 60 and sent them to concentration camps. Police stood by as the violence—often the action of neighbours, not strangers—occurred."
- Liberation of Nazi Camps "Some 60,000 prisoners, most in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic, were found alive. More than 10,000 of them died from the effects of malnutrition or disease within a few weeks of liberation."
- Denying the Holocaust: Written by BBC, this interesting and shocking article talks about how many people believe the Holocaust is a lie and never happened. The article provide evidence and accounts of people who witnessed and were even there, however many believe, " that the Holocaust took place as conscious fabrications, or as psychotic delusions. Some even claim that Hitler was the best friend the Jews had in Germany, and that he actively worked to protect them."
Audio/Video (3)
The Holocaust: This video shows actual footage of how the Jews were treated in the Nazi camps. It also shows pictures of the people deported and how sick they looked due to the conditions in the camps.
Why we remember the Holocaust: This video gives a detailed information on how important it is to remember this event, because it took place so suddenly and surprisingly. Germany before, was a democracy and well respected. After the occurrence of mass murder this image changed quickly.
Holocaust was Worse Than Thought: Just when you thought things could not get worse, this video goes in depth researching just how severe the Holocaust was. It mentions how there were 42,000 sites found where Jews were murdered and exterminated.
Primary source documents:
In these pictures we can see one of the countless mass graves found by British and U.S troops after the liberation. To avoid any supplementary work Jew inmates were kill just in front of the grave where the would fell after being shot.
2."Survival in Auschwitz" by Primo Levi picture the atrocities of The Holocaust. The author, a 25 year old chemist at the time, has been deported from Italy to the Concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland in 1943. He spent 10 month in the camps and came out alive but the day of his death (suspected of being a sucide) Elie Wiesel another writer and survivor of Auschwitz said "Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years earlier"
In his book Primo levi goes from a straightforward description of his days in the camp to a deeper reflextion on human kind:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”
3. The Nuremberg Laws marked the beginning of the Holocaust with the discriminative laws against the Jews and the legalization of their persecution.
Important Maps:
In his book Primo levi goes from a straightforward description of his days in the camp to a deeper reflextion on human kind:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”
3. The Nuremberg Laws marked the beginning of the Holocaust with the discriminative laws against the Jews and the legalization of their persecution.
Important Maps:
Kristallnacht meaning "The Night of Broken Glass" took place on Novemeber 9 through 10, 1938. This map shows the numerous synagogues that were destroyed by the Nazis.
Auschwitz- Birkanau, was the largest concentration camp created by the Nazis. In Auschwitz about 1.1 million people were murdered there. This map displays many of the railroads that led to this camp, which indicates just how many people were sent here.
The Nazis set up many concentration camps everywhere around Europe. This map shows all the concentration camps that were spread out across Europe.
Ghettos were compulsory "Jerman Quarters". They were located in mostly the poor cities and were surrounded with barbed wire. These places were overcrowded, and involved heavy labor as well as malnutrition. Above is a map depicting all the selected Ghettos, and as shown is can interpreted that many of these ghettos were not in just one area but spread out.