The Holocaust

Hitler's antisemitic beliefs formed a major backbone of the Nazi Party. These policies gradually denied Jewish people their rights as German citizens. The government soon encouraged its paramilitary forces and regular citizens to destroy Jewish businesses (such as during Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," in November 1936), forced them to live in ghettos, and eventually transported them to their deaths in forced labor concentration and extermination camps.

Historians estimate the German government killed six million Jews and at least five million prisoners of war during the Holocaust.

Read this discussion of the Holocaust. Pay attention to the roots of antisemitism, which Hitler outlined in his bestselling book Mein Kampf, and how he convinced his enablers to commit such crimes against humanity.

Notes

  1. History: The Holocaust: Timeline and History of the Holocaust - What is the Holocaust? Yad Vashem. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  2. Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know (United States Holocaust Museum, 2006), 104.
  3. Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 I.C.B. Dear and M.R.D. Foot, The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 019280670X).
  4. North Africa and the Middle East Yad Vashem. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  5. Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, September 15, 1935 Yad Vashem. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  6. The Nuremberg Laws: The Reich Citizenship Law (September 15, 1935) Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  7. Lorraine Boissoneault, The First Moments of Hitler’s Final Solution Smithsonian Magazine, December 12, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  8. Jump up to: 8.0 8.1 Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, 1933–1945 (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1986, ISBN 0553343025), 403.
  9. The Fate of the Jews Across Europe Yad Vashem. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  10. Donald L. Niewyk and Francis Nicosia, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN 0231112009), 83-87.
  11. Richard Breitman, What Chilean Diplomats Learned about the Holocaust U.S. National Archives. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  12. Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1988, ISBN 978-0060915339), 503.
  13. Donald L. Niewyk (ed.), The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co., 1992, ISBN 0669272914).
  14. Gordon McFee, Why 'Revisionism' isn't May 15, 1999. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  15. Tom W. Smith, The Polls - A Review: The Holocaust Denial Controversy Public Opinion Quarterly 59(2) (Summer 1995): 269-295. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  16. Richard Rashke, Escape from Sobibor (New York: Avon, 1982, ISBN 0380753944), 309.
  17. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1966, ISBN 0801842859).
  18. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1994, ISBN 025332114X).
  19. Elie Wiesel, A Jew Today (New York: Vintage, 1978, ISBN 0394740572).
  20. Hugo Gryn, Chasing Shadows (London: Viking, 2000, ISBN 0670887935).
  21. Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1982, ISBN 0816134650).
  22. Eliezer Berkowitz, Faith after the Holocaust (KTAV Publishing House, 1973, ISBN 978-0870681936).