The Holocaust
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Prejudice against or the hatred of Jews, also known as antisemitism, has been around for more than 2,000 years. The Holocaust, the state sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany ands its collaborators between 1933 and 1945, also meaning “sacrifice by fire” is historys most extreme example of antisemitism. During World war 2 the Nazi Germany ands its collaborators murdered about six million Jews. Beginning with racially discriminatory laws in Germany, the Nazi campaign expanded to the mass murder of all European Jews. During the Holocaust, the Nazis also attacked other groups because of their “racial inferioty”. Other groups that were persecuted on political and behavioral grounds were: Communists, Socialists, Jehovahs Witnesses and homosexuals. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933. The Nazis frequently used euphemestic language to disguise the true nature of their
crimes. According to this vocabulary, Germans were known as ” racially inferior” and the Jews and others deemed “inferior” were considered “life unworthy of life”. In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million.
Most Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War 2. The Nazis established concentration camps to imprison Jews. The camps were an essential part in the mass murder of Jews, political adversaries and others considered racially and socially undesirable. There were concentration camps, forced labor camps, extermination or death camps, transit camps, and prisoner-of-war camps. The living conditions for all of the camps were brutal.During the war years, the Nazis and their collaborators created ghettos (to isolate Jewish populations) and thousands of new camps for the imprisonment of targeted groups and forced labor. Dachau, one of the first Nazi concentration camps, opened in March 1933. Six death camps were constructed in Poland. In the beginning of the murders of the Jews, Nazis used moblie killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen. These consisted of about 500 and 900 men. By the time it was called to a halt they had murdered approximately 1,500,000 Jews. The death camps were proved to be a better, faster, less personal method for killing Jews, one that would spare the shooters, not the victims, emotional anguish. In September 1941 the Nazis started using gasing vans. These vans were used until the first death camp