Short Overview of the Holocaust

After the first world war, Germany was in a very bad state it was bankrupt and poverty-stricken. Its people were mixed up into different political beliefs but a lot of them had the same view that Jews were to be blamed for the countries bad state. The German people were jealous as they couldn’t afford food they believed that the Jews held too many positions of power and responsibility in the country. Also they believed that Jews were too successful in business and that the German people owed money to the Jews.

When Hitler and his Nazi party first came into power in 1933 he changed the way Jews were treated, at first no violence came to them but there was. For example, Jewish children in schools were made to stand in front of everyone in class and the teacher would point out to the class what was wrong with this child such as facial features. The other students would laugh at the child and make fun of him/her. Also, a lot of Jewish people were made to leave the country and go to others such as Britain and America. Doing this actually saved a lot of Jews from the persecution and the horrors which followed from the Nazis.

Jews were also made to wear the gold star of David on there clothes to make it clear that they are Jewish. After a few years some acts of violence occurred which as smashed up shops and house to getting thrown out of houses and beaten. This is defiantly proven by the time of “Kristalnact” this was when a German official was murdered by a Jewish man, as his punishment Storm Troopers swept across the country and smashed up Jewish businesses and homes, members of the public were thought to have joined in aswell in the destruction. But when the war started the rulebook stopping the Nazis was thrown out of the window.

Now the Nazis could do what they wanted to the Jews, firstly they rounded them up and put them into concentration camps where they would work. It was not only Jews though in these camps Gays, Disabled and Old people were sent there too to work. In the first couple of years of the war the Nazis used to go into towns, villages etc. and round up all of these people then make lists they would then move on. But after these men would leave, S.S. Storm Troopers would come in, rally them up and shoot them all.