|
The
truth of the photos of various crimes and atrocities included in
this Shoah project Holocaust - The Nazi Genocide needs to
be shown. The photographs are of graphic nature and disturbing -
before providing access to younger learners, parents and teachers
should preview the sites and guide through what they may read and
see.
The Shoah
was the
systematic annihilation of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during
World War 2. In 1933 approximately 9 million Jews lived in the 21
countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the
war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed.
The European Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust.
But the Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution
by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. One-half million Gypsies, at least
250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than
three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi
genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats,
Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and
other undesirables were also victims of the hate and
aggression carried out by the Nazis.
The KZ Camp Dachau
was the first concentration camp established in Nazi Germany - the
camp was opened on March 22, 1933. In the late 1930's the Nazis
killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection and
poisonous gas. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in
June 1941, mobile killing units following in the wake of the
German Army began shooting massive numbers of Jews and Gypsies in
open fields and ravines on the outskirts of conquered cities and
towns.
Eventually the Nazis created a more secluded and organized method
of killing. Extermination centers were established in occupied
Poland with special apparatus especially designed for mass murder.
Giant death machines. Six such death camps existed:
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and
Treblinka. Large-scale murder by gas and body disposal through
cremation were conducted systematically by the Nazis and Hitler's SS
men ..
Victims were deported to these centers from Western Europe and
from the ghettos in Eastern Europe which the Nazis had established.
In addition, millions died in the ghettos and concentration camps
as a result of forced labor, starvation, exposure, brutality,
disease, and execution.
The number of
children
killed during the Holocaust is not
fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who
died will never be known. Some estimates range as high as 1.5
million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2
million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and
thousands of institutionalized handicapped children who were
murdered under Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe.
/Louis Bülow
Privacy
©2007-09
|
HOLOCAUST - The Nazi Genocide