holocaustBy Jesus Gallegos

THE HOLOCAUST The Holocaust,, in Hebrew, is the

term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during world war 2, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National socialist regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of

Germany from 1933, and Furer Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. He was leader of the National socialist Germany party, the Nazi Party.

Hitler gained power in a Germany facing crisis after World War 1. Using Propaganda and charismatic oratory, he appealed to the economic needs of the lower and middle classes, while sounding resonant chords of nationalism, and anti-communism. With the establishment of a restructured economy, a rearmed military. Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German Lebensraum. This triggered World War 2 when Germany annexed Austria, the Czech islands, and invaded Poland, much of which was also annexed to form the “Greater Czech Reich”

Where It All Took Place the Holocaust took place mainly in Europe. Citizens -

mainly Jews - of western European countries were deported to extermination camps, especially Auschwitz, where they were murdered with poison gas. Citizens of Poland, Russia, Hungary and several other central and eastern European countries were murdered by mobile shooting squads, and by poison gas in extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor.

Casualties An estimated 5 to 6 million Jews

including 3 million Polish Jews Estimates place total number of Polish

deaths around 5.4mln . 1.8 – 1.9 million Christian Poles and other (non-Jewish) Poles (estimate includes civilians killed as a result of Nazi aggression and occupation but does not include the military casualties of Nazi aggression or the victims of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and of deportations to Central Asia and Siberia)

200,000 – 800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies)

200,000 – 300,000 people with disabilities

80,000-200,000 European Freemasons]

100,000communists 10,000 – 25,000 homosexual men 2,500 – 5,000 Jehovah's witnesses

The Cruel Experiments the Auschwitz concentration camp, Dr. Josef was infamous for carrying

out medical experiments on human subjects. These included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing various drugs on them, freezing them to death, and various other usually fatal traumas. Of particular interest to Mengele were twins, Gypsies, dwarves and infants Beginning in 1943, twins were selected and placed in special barracks Almost all of Mengele's experiments were of little scientific value, including attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations and other brutal surgeries, and in at least one case attempting to surgically transform normal twins into Siamese twins The full extent of Mengele's work will never be known because the two truckloads of records he sent to Dr. Verschuer at the Kaiser Will ham institute were destroyed by the latter. Subjects who survived Mengele's experiments were almost always killed after the experiments for dissection.

While Mengele's experiments were the most notorious, his behavior was not an isolated aberration. Other Nazi physicians also engaged in human experimentation at several concentration camps, including Dachau, ,Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and Natzweiler concentration camps.

The Cruel Experiments…

How did it end The holocaust ended as the Germans had lost the war.

The massive annihilation of Jews lasted till the very last minuets before the Russians came to the Germans.He did it end?With the death of millions of innocent people who were murdered systematically (most of them Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, Poles etc).

There were loads of good people who helped the persecuted minorities (Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals etc) and gave them food, shelter, or assistance to escape.Some of these great people who risked their lives have got the honor of "Righteous Among the Nations", as it was requested by the survivors after the war.

Eli Wiesel People like Eli Wiesel took the

Holocaust and made it an learning experiment. He said that the Holocaust unit and is designed to "pull together" the lessons of the Shoah by asking the very simple questions, "What have I learned from the Holocaust?" and "How can I make a difference?" This is a return to the preliminary question asked at the beginning of our study, "Why study the Holocaust?" The follow up student activities can be adjusted and modified to fit into any classroom time schedule and can easily be integrated across the curriculum.

This is why Wiesel does this To help students to recognize the

responsibility of society to preserve the basic human rights of all of its members. 

To assist students in answering the following questions: How can I make a difference? What does the Holocaust mean to me? 

To help students internalize the lessons of the Holocaust and intolerance.

To encourage tolerance of diversity and opposing views.

To raise students' concern about apathy, indifference, prejudice, social responsibility and the nature and dynamics of unchecked power.

To help students to understand the unique nature of the Holocaust

The Aftermath A lot of the Jewish community did

not return to their homes because of the hate towards them. With few possibilities for emigration, tens of thousands of homeless Holocaust survivors migrated westward to other European territories liberated by the Allies. There they were housed in hundreds of refugee centers and Displaced Persons camps such as Bergen- Belson in Germany. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Allied armies administered these camps.