Jordan Giard
The holocaust pretty much demolished human rights for the Jews. Everyone has the right to live and the holocaust was the opposite of that by slaughtering and torturing the Jews, gypsies, and other groups. They totally disregarded the declaration of human rights by taking them out of their homes and putting them in concentration camps and horrible places where they were stripped of their dignity.
The Holocaust denies the principle of humanism. Hitler treated the people like they were vermin. In concentration camps they were comparable to a torture chamber by the way they were starved, beaten, and put to work in terrible condition. They were separated from their family and barely given any food. They were mentally damaged.
I think that the power that Hitler was given messed up Europe. I don't think he could handle it all. I think he abused his power. All the Nazis abused there power and acted very mean. I feel very bad for the victims of the holocaust. I feel bad that they were tortured and killed with no mercy and treated wrong. The victims were used as machine gun targets and they were burned in ovens. The fact that they were so skinny you could see all of their bones, its very saddening.
The actions that took place against the victims were not justified at all. They were extremely uncalled for and barbaric-like, cruel, and just plain wrong. Hitler was really screwed up in the head to make this situation happen and to not stop it and realize how bad it was. I think the Declaration of human rights should have been issued and created before the Holocaust or at least soon. If it was issued sooner than the mass-killings would have never happened and things would be more in control.
My opinion on the holocaust is beyond belief. I am mortified by the lack of humanity that Hitler and the Nazi’s had! The way they treated the victims is so out of control and horrid. If I could go back and change everything that happened I would. And I would assassinate Hitler before this all happened.

Reflection:

The Holocaust was the worst period of time in history. I wish I never learned about some of the things that went on during this time. The ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps had people killed or put into horrible living conditions. I don’t understand how someone could kill or hurt anyone. When we watched the movie about the Nuremberg trials that also shocked me because of the effect Hitler had on everyone. Reading the book Night also effected what I think about the Holocaust because I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know before.

The ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps were horrible. During World War 2 ghettos were created by the Nazis to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities in Eastern Europe. The ghettos were walled off and any Jew that tried to leave was shot. The ghettos had crowded living conditions, starvation diets, and little sanitation so thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation. Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration camp. About 2.5 million people had died at Auschwitz. Most of the Jews were killed in gas chambers using Zyklon-B, starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, and medical experiments.

The book Night was a very good book about the Holocaust. In some chapters I wanted to stop reading cause it was disgusting but I couldn’t because it was written in such a good way. It was disgusting how little kids were thrown into fires. Babies were also thrown into the air and were shot at like targets. How could someone kill a little kid? The people that did this obviously didn’t have a heart. Also in the beginning of the book it talked about how Jews were taken and slaughtered and buried in graves that they dug for themselves. how could someone live with themselves after doing this? I couldn’t imagine having to separate myself from my family if this ever happened to me. I would be scared out of my mind. The holocaust was really a war of it’s own. Everyone was fighting for themselves and their lives.

The Nuremberg trials we watched in school also gave me a better understanding of the holocaust. It showed how intense the trials were and how scared people were when they got sentenced to death. One part in the movie someone asked a Nazi if they new what was going on in the concentration camps. They said they didn’t know. How could you not know that 6 million Jews were killed just because of their religion? Every single one of the Nazi’s that killed a Jew was brainwashed b Adolf Hitler. They said they were following his orders to kill the Jews. How can you follow such an order kill an innocent human being?

The Nazi’s didn’t even care that they killed someone innocent. They could of said “no” to Hitler. You did not have to follow his orders. The only thing the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and many others did something supposedly wrong was have a different religion. Without that there would be no diversity in the world. I’m really glad I got to learn about the Holocaust because it gave me a better understanding of what went on back then. I really hope history doesn’t repeat itself. I think that’s why we learn about the things that happen in the past.

- Ashly Arnesen, period 6

When we started talking about the Holocaust I was all like "Wahoo! This is something I know about." But as we got further and further into it I realized all the small details that I had not quite heard about. Like, how many people were killed in the extermination camps, the 11 million people and only a little more than half were Jews. I had thought that it only focused on Hitler, the Nazis and the Jews but there were other groups in the mix and it included all of Europe.
Humanism is the idea that all individuals matter and the Holocaust completely opposed this idea. The holocaust stripped Jews of their rights. They were killed just because they practiced a different religion and Hitler didn’t like or trust them. A couple things I found very disturbing were using babies as machine gun targets, burning people alive, and the fact that after being beaten so many times and pretty much starved to the point were you could see every bone clearly, if they didn't die, they were still walking and talking.
I don't think that anyone could ever imagine the pain that they went through and all the suffering they went through. To be separated from your family and then treated so bad you had to be sick in the head to be able to do something like that to another human being. We were all created equal with different qualities, with different beliefs, and different characteristics and that doesn't give anyone the right to disrespect someone like the way the Jews, the gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled and the Jehovah's witnesses were disrespected.
I think that the Universal declaration of human rights was issued too late but now it still needs to be reinforced. Genocides still occur today. There are people who still get killed and tortured in the thousands everyday.
I also think that Hitler needed to be extremely messed up to let something like that happen. I feel extreme sorrow for the millions of people killed and the thousands who survived with the nightmares of years past. I don't think the Holocaust was justified and I don't think it will ever be.
- Ally

Holocaust -- Ally, Jordan, & Ashly

The Holocaust was one of the worst genocides in history.

("Selection" on the Judenrampe,Auschwitz, May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the gas chambers. This image shows the arrival of Hungarian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia , many of them from the Berehov ghetto.)

The Holocaust started in Europe during World War II. It was genocide of the European Jews. They were tortured and killed because they were Jewish, homosexuals, gypsies, etc... These people where put into ghettos where a lot of them died due to bad conditions such as over-crowding. They were later transferred to concentration camps where they were to work until they died or until they were too tired out to take anymore and then they were burned alive or used for testing in labs. Concentration camps were later changed to extermination camps where the prisoners were killed just for the fun for the soldiers running the camps.

(Members of the Sonderkommando burn corpses in Auschwitz II-Birkenau firepit)

The people involved where the Nazi’s and people who were not of the “Aryan” race. While in concentration camps each person had a different colored triangle with a letter on it or a certain color that they had to wear for identification as to why they were there. Some of the victims were the Jews, Gypsies, people with physical or mental disabilities, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. These victims were selected just because they were disliked by Hitler and the other Germans and supposedly polluted the mind of the Germans. At the time Hitler was in control. Hitler is the one who issued the Nuremburg laws. These laws were for the racial discrimination of Jews and they took away Jew’s human rights such as the right to hold office, they could not marry non-Jews. Also, they took away their German citizenship if they did not have “German blood.” Jews where also not allowed to fly the National flag.

(A group of Gypsy prisoners, awaiting instructions from their German captors, sit in an open area near the fence in the Belzec concentration camp.)

These people were tortured and killed because they were Jewish, gypsies, homosexuals, or just weren’t of the “Aryan race.” Millions had died during the holocaust. Babies were used as target practice for machine guns, others were burned alive, and for many their bodies just couldn’t handle the lack of food and abuse that their body had been taking. Jews and others were put to death jus because of what they believed in. A total of about 11 million people where murdered in concentration camps, 6 million of them being Jews. The Jews were the main victims of the Holocaust because they were hated the most by the Nazis due to Hitler blaming them for Germany’s defeat in World War I. He believed that the German army was not beaten fairly because it had been betrayed by the Jews, which he called the "evil partners" of the Allies. Hitler thought that the rich merchants and the bankers, which were mostly Jews, had given all of Germany’s secrets away. Because of this, Hitler hated and helped convince others to hate the Jews.

(A child dying in the streets of the crowded Warsaw Ghetto, where hunger and disease killed 43,000 in 1941 alone.)

This event occurred during World War II after Hitler took control and made everyone believe that the Jews were the reason for Germany’s defeat in WWI. This event took 6 million Jews and about 5 million of other people who were killed just because they weren’t liked just because they were different. Of all the people put through this hell only about 250,000 people survived.

(Corpses in Auschwitz)

Results that occurred from this event included the death of millions of people, which affected populations all over Europe. After the war the Allies established an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany, to prosecute the surviving Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the more popular of the war crime trials, 22 of the top leaders of Nazi Germany were found guilty, and 12 were put to death. Also, military and civilian courts in many countries had hundreds of trials. The occupation governments set up by the Allies in Germany removed thousands of Nazis from their positions throughout Germany. In Germany only, almost 90,000 war crime cases were opened. Later, a United Nations resolution established crimes against humanity as a crime under international law with no limitation period for the prosecution of those accused of such crimes, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(Starving prisoners in Mauthausen camp, Ebensee, Austria, liberated by the U.S. 80th Infantry Division on May 7, 1945.)

“The most fitting tribute we can pay the victims of the Holocaust is to NEVER let the world forget that it happened. . .”

- - Ally Balboni, Jordan Giard, Ashly Arnesen

FINAL PROJECT

(in order to be helpful)

By Kim S.,Kelsey M.,

Fallon W. and Michelle S.

Period 3

One human right the Nazi’s brutally disobeyed was no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Prisoners were forced to death marches to other concentration sites. Death marches were when the prisoners were ordered to run as fast as they could, if they slowed down or fell, they were immediately shot by the Nazi guards running along side. Another example of this is the gas chambers. The gas chambers used a chemical called Zyklon-B. There was a small hole in the chamber were the chemical was thrown in. In the gas chambers people were thrown into and suffocated. Gas chambers were popular to use because it only took 5-15 minutes for the prisoners to die. The ghettos were just as bad as the gas chambers; they were holding places where the police could keep a better watch over them were almost four hundred fifty thousand Jews were crammed where only about one hundred forty five thousand people lived before. Disease spread like wildfire in these places but illness was the least of their worries, hunger was the main issue. The only way to get food was from the Nazi’s who only gave them things such as bread and potatoes.

The picture above shows the ghettos that the Jews were crammed into. You can see that they weren't in the greatest conditions, there is soot collecting on the side of the road. The picture shows that there were guards everywhere. In this one picture there are three guards. The ghettos were kept everyone very isolated from the world.

Another human right that was greatly disobeyed was everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Jews were deprived from their freedom simply because they were Jewish. Hitler showed hatred to these people because he believed they were the reason for Germany’s weaknesses and hardships. Other people that he disliked were political minorities, the communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups.

The picture above shows the hatred towards the Jews. This is a Jewish grave site, but if you look towards the back of a grave, someone drew a the Nazi symbol, a swastika. Showing disrespect to the Jewish people.

The Holocaust was a scary, depressing, and unforgettable time in Europe and all around the world, late 1938. Nazi Germany was the cause of the Holocaust and the ones running the show. They set up concentration camps all around Germany where they could torture Jews, homosexuals, criminals, politicians, and others of a different belief or those who opposed of Hitler. Thank goodness not everyone was brainwashed into the idea of trying to destroy a human race. Britain, the United States, The Soviet Union, and France tried to take down Hitler before all of Europe was suffering from the consequences. In the meantime, it was mainly the Jewish race that did the suffering. Germany government agreed to this act because Hitler was the only person making sense since World War One and the Treaty of Versailles, therefore the people followed. Other countries and nations were not aware of the Holocaust and what Hitler was doing inside Germany. As a result, the League of Nations, or the government trying to keep peace could not do anything about it. Unfortunately, for those who did know they could not do anything about it. It was an act of National Sovereignty meaning that Germans could do whatever they wanted as long as it was in their own boarders. The only way the countries could stop this craziness was to invade Germany. While most countries were on their way to invasion many Jews were interrogated and imprisoned like the Germans were later on after the Nuremberg Trails. However, more than half were put into concentration camps where they were starved to death or worked to death. The sick ideas of one man cost us about eleven million lives and if we had not stopped it, it could have been millions more.

Adolf Hitler is shown above wearing the symbol of the Nazi’s, the swastika, as an armband. The idea of the swastika was taken from the Native Americans to represent Nazi’s symbolism. It was suppose to symbolize a person running which showed Germany’s progress to take over Europe.

The Weimar Republic’s economic and political collapse enabled Adolf Hitler to come to power and eventually become chancellor. Once in power, Hitler suspended the Weimar Republic. He started to use his ideas from his book Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. Hitler wrote in a section where he discusses his coming to power: "At this time endless plans chased one another through my head.” He was very angered by the results of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was forced to pay reparations, the army was reduced to one hundred thousand men with no tanks supplied, the navy was allowed only six ships and no submarines, and the air force was destroyed. Hitler began to blame the Jews, political minorities, the communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups for economic hardships, the weakness of Germany and most of all the treaty of Versailles. He defined these people as “sub-humans”, or regarded as not being fully human.

The picture above shows the numbers imprinted on Nazi-captured prisoners. Once the prisoners received this number, they were no longer a human being, just referred to as a number.

The Holocaust took place during World War II from about 1938 until 1945. On November 9th and 10th, 1938 many Jewish people died in Germany. This was called Kristallnacht or in English “Night of Broken Glass”. The losses that occurred on these nights were only the start of many more deaths to come. The idea of purging Nazi Germany of all Jews and minorities is referred to it as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. Although the Holocaust started in 1938 the idea was brought up 1942 and was the way of planning for the Holocaust. During the Holocaust about six million Jews died. But in total there were about nine to eleven million victims. Other groups that were ostracized were Romanians, disabled people, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies, politicals, Serbs, Poles, Jehovah Witnesses and more.

This is a picture of Kristallnacht when the state of Germany organized the Nazi’s to go through Germany and beat, tortured, and killed all of the Jews. This was also known as the “Night of the Broken Glass”. This happened on November 9-10 1938 and it was the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany.

-By Kim S., Kelsey M,,Fallon W, and Michelle S, Period 3

Reflection
The holocaust was a time unlike any other. I never knew the exact amount of people killed in this terrible time and I wish I never found out. So many innocent people were put to death by the German Nazi’s simply because of their religion. When discussing the Holocaust in class, we never really learned the reasons why these people were tortured and killed. After doing my research I am appalled at why they were killed and tortured. Hitler blamed people such as the Jews, political minorities, the communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups for Germany’s economic hardships and weaknesses. Its interesting to me how these people became sub-humans because of who they were. I was fooled into believing things like this didn’t happen nowadays, but I was wrong.
It’s amazing to see what happened in the holocaust in terms of laws and human rights. When I was researching what Nazi’s had done to these poor innocent people I was shocked to find out some of the things they did to them. I never knew the exact statistics of how small the ghettos were but I learned that only one hundred forty five thousand people had lived there previously however, four hundred fifty thousand Jews were crammed into them later. I also never knew the conditions of the ghettos I only knew that Jews were crammed into them. Things like hunger and disease killed many Jews daily. Obviously the human right ‘No one shall be subjected to tortured or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ didn’t bother the Nazis.
The book Night really helped me get a better understanding of what was happening in the Holocaust. I knew all of the information I was reading was correct because it was written by a holocaust survivor. The book described things like ghettos, gas chambers and the overall labor performed at concentration camps in great detail. I really did not like how the men and women were separated, if I were a victim I would be greatly upset by that because I would have to part with my father knowing that I may never see him again. The book also explained how in a way the Holocaust was almost like a war of its own. Every man was fighting for himself. They were fighting for their lives. People went to extremes to try and protect their precious lives.
During history class we were fortunate enough to watch many movies on the Holocaust. It was helpful to actually see what was generally going on instead of just reading about it and seeing it in our imaginations. One movie in particular was the Nuremburg Trials. While listening to the Nazi’s defend themselves on trial it sounded as if they were all brainwashed. They claimed that they were only following orders and that it was okay for them to kill all of those innocent people. I believe that every single one of those Nazi leaders should have suffered like they made others suffer, however that would be inhuman.
The whole Holocaust subject made me realize what has happened in the world and why it’s so important to remember. I think we study the Holocaust to help prevent it from happening again. The more we learn about the Holocaust, the better we can understand it, which helps us to prevent history from repeating itself.
-By Kim S. Period 3

Reflection:

When I first heard about the Holocaust I couldn’t believe that one person could have so much

control and influence so many people. He manipulated people’s thoughts to what he wanted them to do. I couldn’t imagine how many people that had died from the Nazi’s during the Holocaust. I don’t know how they didn’t do anything to be in that position and had no chance to change the Nazi’s or Hitler’s way of thinking. Also that they were born into their death. They had no idea what they were if for. They had no clue that they would be endanger just for being born a Jew or anyone else that Hitler killed.

When I started to learn more and more about the Holocaust I couldn’t even stand how one person could torture and/or kill another person of their own kind. It just disgusted me thinking about being in their position, and having to be separated from my own family. Also having no clue what is going on or what is going to happen to myself and family.

When I first started reading Night I read about what Elie Wiesel’s teacher went through and saw what I can’t imagine it. Or what I would do if I was in his situation. When he said that the “babies were thrown into the air and that machine gunners used them as targets,” my jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe it. It was nauseating. Also how the Gestapo stopped the train full of deportees and took charge of them. Then all of a sudden they were brought to the concentration camp and they were separated from their family. They had no clue what was going on and most of them were killed. That was just disgusting, how people could do that to other human beings.

When we were watching the movie in class of the trial that German officers had to go to because of the war crimes. When they asked them if they felt bad for what they did to the people in the concentration camps, and they all just said no because they got an order to do that and they didn’t want to disobey their orders. I couldn’t believe that they said that. In my head I was thinking FREEDOM OF SPEECH! If all of the officers and Nazi’s just said no to Hitler, the population would be higher right now. Also we wouldn’t even have to think about the past and all of the people that suffered and died during the Holocaust. When the German officers said that it wasn’t really their fault it actually was.

When I think about the Holocaust I don’t think of happy, happy, joy, joy! I think of death, depression, sadness, torture, hatred, and disgust. Doing this project on the Holocaust just opened my mind and gave me a better idea about the Holocaust. It made me think about how lucky I am to not be living back then and having to go through seeing and hearing of what was actually happening right there and then. There would be no where to escape because the whole world was in a huge war. All of my feelings toward the Holocaust would have to be disappointment, disgust, and sympathy. I don’t know how people who went through the Holocaust could ever live life like it never happened and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was a Nazi doing anything like that to anyone.

-Michelle Scanlon Pd.3

Reflection:

During the Holocaust human rights were completely disregarded. With the ghettos, concentration and death camps, people were killed or put into dreadful living conditions. I don’t think that it is right that the Nazi’s weren’t all killed for taking so many innocent lives. I learned a lot of things that I previously hadn’t known especially when I was reading Night by Elie Wiesel and watching the film the Nuremburg Trials. All in all, I think that the Holocaust was a terrible event that should have never occurred.

First of all, the people were stripped of their rights when they were brought into the ghettos. The Nazi’s restarted the use of the ghettos in Europe before the start of World War II. The ghettos consisted of very small areas were thousands of the “minorities” were packed together. The largest ghetto in Europe was the Warsaw Ghetto. There were about 450,000 people forced to live here. This ghetto was known for starving its inhabitants as well as carrying many diseases. By the time this ghetto was shut down its population is said to have decreased to about 70,000. These ghettos should not have even been in place. How could the Nazi’s start such a terrible thing?

Later on, The Jews and other minorities were sent to concentration camps were they were forced into even worse situations than in the ghettos. In these camps millions of people died. I think that it’s such a terrible thing that not only were they forced out of their homes to live in the ghettos but they were then taken from there into the concentration camps. It’s not right to do such terrible thing for anyone.

I learned a lot from reading the book Night. Like when they described the little children being thrown into the fires that is a scene that will forever be engraved into my mind. For someone to brutally kill such little kids and babies in that manor is truly sickening. Also in the beginning of the novel when Moshe the Beadle described how the Jews were taken away and slaughtered to be buried in the graves they had dug for themselves. And how he described how babies were thrown into the air to be shot like targets for machine gunners. It was so horrible to read but written in such away that I couldn’t stop. I think that this book taught me a lot about the brutality that took place during the Holocaust. In class when we watched the movie Nuremburg Trials I couldn’t believe some of the things that the Nazi prisoners said in their defense. They all seemed to think what they did was right because they were only following orders. These orders that they followed killed eleven million people so how could that have not realized what they were doing was wrong?

Learning about the Holocaust, if anything, was a real eye opening experience. While I always heard that it was a terrible thing I never really processed just how many people were affected by it. I also learned that it wasn’t just the Jewish population that was sent into such horrible conditions but it was other people as well like the Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, gypsies and so many more. These people never did anything wrong but were blamed for the loss in a war and so much more.

- Kelsey Morse pd. 3

I always knew that the Holocaust was a dark time for all people but I had no clue of the extreme torture the Jews and other prisoners went through. Imagine being forced to leave your own home because of the way you look of the religious belief you have. I tried to understand the feeling of a life or death situation because this is what all Jews had to go through during this time. It was an awful thing to even consider and I wasn’t living it like those innocent people were. I learned that they beat and starved little children along with the elderly which was bad enough. I couldn’t understand how people could be so cold and why someone would create the Holocaust. Then I learned more about Adolf Hitler and the mad man he was. My thoughts became much clearer and my sympathy grew even more for those affected by the Holocaust.

While learning about the Holocaust I read the book Night where I found out about even more disturbing events. Sometimes prisoners were buried while they were alive. Nazi’s would take thousands of prisoners and put them in a hole, cover it back up with dirt, and waited for them to suffocate to death. Another event was when they hung those who were too weak to continue in the concentration camps. While reading this book I was nearly sick to my stomach and I found the same questions popped into my head again and again. Who would do something like this and why? I asked this question in my head millions of times when I figured out there was no “why” to this event, which caused me to feel even sadder.

I was shocked when I saw the movie about the Nuremberg Trials. In the movie they showed what occurred at the Nuremberg Trials and some of the Nazi’s on trial. I still can’t understand how some Nazi’s were so brainwashed into Hitler’s tactics that could reflect on what they’ve done and be proud of it. It just showed how sick Hitler was but mainly his followers. Something I also couldn’t understand was how some prisoners were proven “not guilty”. I would have put them all imprisoned for life after the acts they did to the Jewish race. Their acts were unjust and I felt as if too many were showed mercy they didn’t deserve.

When I read in the text book about the Holocaust I found interesting information on topics I didn’t know was apart of the Holocaust. For example, I read about the harshness of the Ghettos and the poor conditions Jews had to live in while being in the Ghettos. Innocent Hews were taken from their homed and placed in Ghettos. Ghettos were not safe for anyone at anytime. People learned not to go out unless it was a necessity which was just the beginning of their problems. Next, they were placed out of the Ghettos and put into concentration camps where they were separated by the strong and the weak. The weak ones were killed and the others continued until it was their time to go.

It bothered me when Nazi’s didn’t even think twice about what they were doing. Most Nazi’s said that they were just following orders while others claimed they did nothing wrong. This didn’t sit well with me and still doesn’t. I felt as if the Nazi’s were cowards because to hide what they were doing in their own country they continued to move concentration camps therefore they would not get in trouble with the law. Nazi’s defended their leader who was supposedly an amazing leader with great ideas. However, he killed himself before he went to trial. This not only makes him a coward but shows that Nazi’s knew what they were doing and how wrong it was. The Holocaust taught me a lot about racism and derogatory terms which are still around in our society.
- Fallon Welch Period 3

Human Rights

One human right the Nazi’s brutally disobeyed was no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Prisoners were forced to death marches to other concentration sites. Death marches were when the prisoners were ordered to run as fast as they could, if they slowed down or fell, they were immediately shot by the Nazi guards running along side. Another example of this is the gas chambers. The gas chambers used a chemical called Zyklon-B. There was a small hole in the chamber were the chemical was thrown in. In the gas chambers people were thrown into and suffocated. Gas chambers were popular to use because it only took 5-15 minutes for the prisoners to die. The ghettos were just as bad as the gas chambers; they were holding places where the police could keep a better watch over them were almost four hundred fifty thousand Jews were crammed where only about one hundred forty five thousand people lived before. Disease spread like wildfire in these places but illness was the least of their worries, hunger was the main issue. The only way to get food was from the Nazi’s who only gave them things such as bread and potatoes.

The picture above shows the conditions of the ghettos. As you can see theres soot on the walls and German guards. You can tell that everyone around is afraid.

Another human right that was greatly disobeyed was everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Jews were deprived from their freedom simply because they were Jewish. Hitler showed hatred to these people because he believed they were the reason for Germany’s weaknesses and hardships. Other people that he disliked were political minorities, the communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups.

The picture above shows hatred towards the Jews. This is a Jewish grave site for some of the victims of the Holocaust. Notice on one of the graves someone spray-painted the German Nazi symbol a swastika. This shows disrespect towards the Jews.

The Holocaust was a scary, depressing, and unforgettable time in Europe and all around the world, late 1938. Nazi Germany was the cause of the Holocaust and the ones running the show. They set up concentration camps all around Germany where they could torture Jews, homosexuals, criminals, politicians, and others of a different belief or those who opposed of Hitler. Thank goodness not everyone was brainwashed into the idea of trying to destroy a human race. Britain, the United States, The Soviet Union, and France tried to take down Hitler before all of Europe was suffering from the consequences. In the meantime, it was mainly the Jewish race that did the suffering. Germany government agreed to this act because Hitler was the only person making sense since World War One and the Treaty of Versailles, therefore the people followed. Other countries and nations were not aware of the Holocaust and what Hitler was doing inside Germany. As a result, the League of Nations, or the government trying to keep peace could not do anything about it. Unfortunately, for those who did know they could not do anything about it. It was an act of National Sovereignty meaning that Germans could do whatever they wanted as long as it was in their own boarders. The only way the countries could stop this craziness was to invade Germany. While most countries were on their way to invasion many Jews were interrogated and imprisoned like the Germans were later on after the Nuremberg Trails. However, more than half were put into concentration camps where they were starved to death or worked to death. The sick ideas of one man cost us about eleven million lives and if we had not stopped it, it could have been millions more.

- Fallon W, Kim S, Kelsey M, Michelle S

Adolf Hitler is shown above wearing the symbol of the Nazi’s, the swastika, as an armband. The idea of the swastika was taken from the Native Americans to represent Nazi’s symbolism. It was suppose to symbolize a person running which showed Germany’s progress to take over Europe.
- Fallon, Kim, Kelsey, and Michelle
Period 3

Human Rights

One human right the Nazi’s brutally disobeyed was no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Prisoners were forced to death marches to other concentration sites. Death marches were when the prisoners were ordered to run as fast as they could, if they slowed down or fell, they were immediately shot by the Nazi guards running along side. Another example of this is the gas chambers. The gas chambers used a chemical called Zyklon-B. There was a small hole in the chamber were the chemical was thrown in. In the gas chambers people were thrown into and suffocated. Gas chambers were popular to use because it only took 5-15 minutes for the prisoners to die. The ghettos were just as bad as the gas chambers; they were holding places where the police could keep a better watch over them were almost four hundred fifty thousand Jews were crammed where only about one hundred forty five thousand people lived before. Disease spread like wildfire in these places but illness was the least of their worries, hunger was the main issue. The only way to get food was from the Nazi’s who only gave them things such as bread and potatoes.

The picture above shows the ghettos that the Jews were crammed into. You can see that they weren't in the greatest conditions, there is soot collecting on the side of the road. The picture shows that there were guards everywhere. In this one picture there are three guards. The ghettos were kept everyone very isolated from the world.

Another human right that was greatly disobeyed was everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Jews were deprived from their freedom simply because they were Jewish. Hitler showed hatred to these people because he believed they were the reason for Germany’s weaknesses and hardships. Other people that he disliked were political minorities, the communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups.

The picture above shows the hatred towards the Jews. This is a Jewish grave site, but if you look towards the back of a grave, someone drew a the Nazi symbol, a swastika. Showing disrespect to the Jewish people.

The Holocaust took place during World War II from about 1938 until 1945. On November 9th and 10th, 1938 many Jewish people died in Germany. This was called Kristallnacht or in English “Night of Broken Glass”. The losses that occurred on these nights were only the start of many more deaths to come. The idea of purging Nazi Germany of all Jews and minorities is referred to it as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. Although the Holocaust started in 1938 the idea was brought up 1942 and was the way of planning for the Holocaust. During the Holocaust about six million Jews died. But in total there were about nine to eleven million victims. Other groups that were ostracized were Romanians, disabled people, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies, politicals, Serbs, Poles, Jehovah Witnesses and more.

By: Kelsey, Michelle, Kim and Fallon.

This is a picture of Kristallnacht when the state of Germany organized the Nazi’s to go through Germany and beat, tortured, and killed all of the Jews. This was also known as the “Night of the Broken Glass”. This happened on November 9-10 1938 and it was the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany.

By: Michelle, Kelsey, Kim, and Fallon.