Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 22, 2016

The Holocaust, sometimes called The Shoah (Hebrew: ), was when Nazi Germany killed people in a planned and forced way during World War II. Approximately six million Jews were killed,[1][2][3] as well as millions of others that the Nazis said were bad (e.g., Romani/Roma people, homosexuals, communists, nonwhites, the disabled, Slavs, transgender people and Jehovah's Witnesses).[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Many were rounded up, put in ghettos, forced to work in concentration camps and then killed in big gas chambers.[11]

There was hatred and persecution of Jews (anti-Semitism) in Europe for hundreds of years. Many people wrongly thought that all Jews were rich, mean, and not social. These simple ideas were popular in the German speaking world and elsewhere in the late 1800s. Hitler was born in Austria during this time when many people disliked Jews. He may have been jealous of Jewish success in Austria, but he also wrote down his belief that Jews were to blame for economic problems and that they were to blame for Germany and Austria losing World War I. Many people agreed with Hitlers ideas and supported him as the leader of the Nazis.[12][13]

The numbers below are not known entirely because many of those killed were never written down. The numbers given below are those most thinkers agree on.

Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazis led an unprecedented mass slaying of millions of Jews. Jews were forced to wear the golden Star of David on any highly noticeable part of their upper body. Jews were rounded up by the thousands and crammed into trains that took them to concentration camps as well as death camps. Most of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were not German; they were from Poland or the Soviet Union.

Millions of Jews were murdered by the usage of gas chambers (used to suffocate hundreds of people at a time in packed rooms) and ovens where Jews were burned alive. Others were sent to dig giant holes in the ground where, after days of hard work, they were shot, buried, and burned in a mass grave. Others were shot, beaten, or stabbed to death. Still others were trampled by other Jews in merciless marches from one camp to another.

On the other hand, there were people who saved Jews from The Holocaust, out of conscience and with courage against oppression. They were later awarded "Righteous Among the Nations".

Some people say the Holocaust did not happen at all,[14] or they say that it is described wrongly. This is known as Holocaust denial. However, almost all historians agree that there is a lot of evidence the Holocaust happened and is described correctly.[15] Some people denying the Holocaust say that the numbers of those that were reported "killed" are wrong. At the time, many people were weak, and diseases were common; also food was scarce. For that reason, many people died of malnutrition or disease, and were not killed by the regime, Holocaust deniers say.

In some countries in Europe, it is against the law to say that the Holocaust never happened.[16]

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The Holocaust - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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