Written by Jaden Parker
This is a story to share but not one for me to tell. So, I have pulled all of my information from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website. Links to a bunch of things I found will be at the end of this article. I have no familial roots to the Holocaust and have only met family members of survivors throughout my time in college, but this is an important story to continue sharing. History continues to repeat itself, as we are seeing in the news today; but the millions who lost their lives deserve to have their stories shared.
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Seventy-nine years ago the most well-documented and well-known genocides reached its conclusion. The Holocaust was the Nazi-led genocide of over six million Jews. Countless accounts through movies, books, and documentaries show the struggles that those in hiding, concentration camps, and ghettos faced. Not only were Jewish people considered threats to the Aryan race but also gay men, the Romani and Sinti groups, Polish populations, and even Germans with mental or physical disabilities.
The word “Holocaust” comes from the Greek for holokauston, which is a “burnt sacrificial offering,” alluding to the killing of those in concentration camps through mass cremations. With antisemitism—anti-Jewish hatred—being a deep foundation of Nazi ideology, Jewish people were targeted as the reasons for Germany’s problems, whether they were economic, social, political, or cultural. As we know, antisemitism was not created on the day some German extremists decided to blame their loss in World War I on the Jews, but that coupled with the fears of communism led a lot of German people to empathize with the Nazi Party.
While it was believed for some time that the leader of the Nazi Regime, Adolf Hitler, had Jewish ancestors, this is not true. We as people want to understand how someone could possibly commit such atrocities and believe oneself to be right and just in doing so. While the day to reflect on and remember Holocaust survivors is in no way a proper platform to talk about this man, I think it’s important to know how Hitler came to be. Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 and served in WWI on the frontlines. Almost a year after the armistice in 1918, he attended a German Workers’ Party meeting. He and the members of his Nazi Party got arrested for treason in 1923 when he tried to initiate a “national revolution,” and he penned the infamous Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in prison.
In 1932, Hitler lost to General Paul von Hindenburg—the German President who ended up giving the position of Chancellor to Hitler—and the Nazi Party rose to power a year later. After this, the German parliament building was mysteriously burnt down, allowing for the passing of the Enabling Act that let Hitler become a dictator, someone who could rule without any parliamentary consent. Over time, the Nazis slowly brainwashed countless individuals through propaganda, even during the Berlin Olympics in 1936. From there, Adolf Hitler became the Führer of Germany, wielding unchecked power.
The vast majority of Jews were killed during the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” the mass murders through either mass shootings or gas chambers from 1941 to 1945. Late 1941 was when the five extermination camps—Chelmno, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, and Sobibor—were created. The genocide of Jews and minorities did not end until May of 1945 when Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union defeated Germany in World War II. Even when the war ended, Jews were met with postwar violence, leaving them to reside in displaced persons camps.
It is hard to reflect on something that I fear a lot of people would just rather forget. It seems to be a part of the human condition as a whole to just “let the past remain in the past.” However, if we don’t look at what has happened, we can never stop it from happening again. Learn more about the Holocaust below.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia, with articles for everything you may want to learn about
Remember Survivors and Victims
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Hours and Location
