Volume XXV – Number 1
Regina Sztajer
Abstract: Hitler’s rise in 1933 began the scapegoating of the Jews for all of Germany’s problems. The Nuremberg Laws initiated the dehumanization of Jews across the country and set the stage for the Holocaust. Not long after the Nuremburg Laws, Reinhard Heydrich ordered that Jews be concentrated into forced labor camps and ghettos. Jewish populations did what they could to persevere and survive in the horrific conditions. The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 triggered the mass killings of Jews with 1.4 million dead by the end of 1942. After seeing that mass killings alone were insufficient to deal with Europe’s Jews, Heydrich decided in 1942 on the need for a “Final Solution,” which resulted in Jews being sent to death camps throughout Poland. Jews attempted to resist, but their efforts proved futile. Allied leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill did nothing to come to the aid of the Jews despite being well informed in regards to the tragedies, thus acting as passive accessories to the genocide. By 1945, it became clear that the Germans would lose the war. In response, the panicked SS intensified their cruelty and carried out death marches that lasted for days in the freezing cold. Allies began liberating camps by April 1945. They were in disbelief at the accounts of the few remaining survivors. Hitler’s manipulation of post-WWI Germany led to the deaths of six million Jews despite Jewish resistance. The story of the Jew is not one of a “sheep being led to the slaughter” but one of courage, faith, and an unshakable will to live.
Keywords: Holocaust, Jewish, Hitler, WWII
