The Holocaust

There have been many acts of human brutality over the history of mankind. Few have entered the public consciousness as deeply as the holocaust in which millions of European people of Jewish descent, homosexuals, gypsies and people with disabilities were murdered by the German authorities. Here are some of the key facts that led to this taking place.

Germany was not doing well at that point in time having aligned itself poorly during World War 1. There was not enough of anything to go around and many people felt a sort of resentment that could not easily be fulfilled. At the same time, many prominent Jewish families were quite successful and their wealth made them an easy target for hostility at that time.

This level of discontent was gradually increased and focused. There were propaganda campaigns that began to portray Jewish people as morally inferior and the so called Aryan race as superior in all ways. These were accompanied by caricatures and this way of thinking was taught in schools. After the population became more comfortable with this, the restrictions and abuses began.

While some Jewish families escaped immediately, others stayed because they did not realize the extent to which their rights would be forfeit. Their property was stolen, eventually some of them were sent to concentration camps in which they were forced to engage in slave labor, their bodies were used for inhumane experiments and when they died, they were burned or buried in mass graves. All of this under the instructions of the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.

Jews were not the only ones victimized. Homosexuals and gypsies were also seen to be inferior and a threat to the master race. At the time of their torment, camps had been set up through which children with blond hair, blue eyes and any other features deemed ideal were bred to take their place in society.

Fortunately for most everyone, the Nazis and their allies were defeated and the prisoners who survived to that point were released. The United Nations took this opportunity to appropriate a portion of the land known as Palestine to give to these survivors for the formation of a Jewish state. At present, this solution has proven to be less than ideal with suffering continuing on both sides of the border, although considerably more on one side than the other. The human tendency to oppress others has continued to pop up in Rwanda, Bosnia and many other countries.