The Holocaust, was the World War II genocide of the European Jews. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
The Holocaust (Shoah) is the term for the murder of around six million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators during the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis sought to eliminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. Jews were murdered by death squads called Einsatzgruppen or transported to extermination camps. Six million of the eleven million European Jews perished. The Holocaust mainly occurred in Eastern Europe, in places such as Poland and Ukraine. The term ‘Holocaust’ can also refer to the orchestrated murder of Roma. Other groups were also targeted by the Nazi regime: disabled people, Soviet Prisoners of War and civilians, Polish civilians, homosexuals, socialists, communists and trades unionists, Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Nazis did not act alone. Countries which were occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, such as Lithuania and the Ukraine, assisted the perpetrators.
The History Place - Holocaust Timeline: Map of Nazi Conce
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Source A: A photograph of Boys inside the wired compound of a concentration camp Published______ (Retrieved FROM ONLine museum https://www.ushmm.org/remember/resources-holocaust-survivors-victims/individual-research)The origin of this source is unknown however it is likely that it was a photographer from a local newspaper or a large scale newspaper for all of Europe, this source is a primary source. It was created for the purpose of informing the public in the 1940's what was really going on inside the concentration camps and extermination camps. In the foreground of this image you can see young boys in a stripped uniform behind sharp barbed wired fences, the boys in the image look scared, sad, confused and as if they dislike the place they are being forced to stay at. The audience for this source are students studying the holocaust in today's world, news paper articles back then, the population, could be historians studying the holocaust, or anyone else interested in and about the holocaust. the perspective of the source is the photographers outside the fence. This source could be useful to historians learning about the experience of the holocaust victims (how they were living in poverty, everything was unsanitary, no clean clothes) and the survivors (how they survived, what they ate, what they went through) as it gives them a clear view and understanding of what the people trapped inside them lived like and what they went through. This source would be reliable because it was taken the time of the holocaust, it is displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and historians who work there have already gone through the process of checking its authenticity, the boys in the photo don't look like they are posing to recreate a Holocaust photo, they are wearing clothes that are falling apart and look like there living in poverty.
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The origin of this source is the allied forces of the Jewish victims, this source is a primary source. The source was created to show people how poorly treated the Jews were in the concentration camps but how soldiers still have compassion for the victims. In the image you can see some newly imprisoned Jews, and some soldiers standing on the outside of the blockade, the Jewish people had there hands through the fence whilst one of the soldiers are handing out cigarettes. The audience of this particular source is certainly a more mature viewer as the content is more harsh then other sources. The perspective of this source is most likely a fellow solider capturing the good deeds of his comrade. This source would be useful to historians learning about the experience of the holocaust victims and survivors because it shows them another perspective of how they were treated and that the Jewish people imprisoned were not hated by everyone. This source is reliable because it is a primary source and there would be no reason not to trust it because the holocaust was a serious event the affected a lot of people and society.
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empathy response
My name is Henri Kichka, i was born in Brussels to parents who had fled anti-semitism in Eastern Europe to build new lives in the West. In the first week of September 1942, my family and i were taken from our home in the Rue Coenraets. The German soldiers sealed off the street in the middle of the night. They went from building to building shouting: "Alle Juden raus!" (All Jews out!)
It is hard to establish now to what extent the Jews of countries like Belgium, the Netherlands and France knew the fate that awaited them in the East, but i can remember some of the Jewish women in my street throwing themselves from upstairs windows with their babies, killing themselves as the last desperate way to avoid the round-up.
Within a week, my family was in a convoy of cattle wagons on a railway transport heading back east - first to Germany and then, ominously, onwards to occupied Poland.
My father and i, Josek, were taken off the train with the other men in the small town of Kosel. We were to work as slave labourers, destined to be murdered in the gas chambers only when we were no longer of economic use to the Third Reich.
The women of the family - my mother, Chana, my sisters Bertha and Nicha and my Aunt Esther - were taken to Auschwitz where they were gassed and cremated as soon as they arrived.
When Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Belgium, we were left with nowhere to hide. I was taken to Auschwitz with my family at the age of 16, we got arrested by Hitler. I was in Aushwitz for one year and it was absolutely horrible, it was not a life, it was dead, only dead. I lost my whole family in Auschwitz, they were gassed and burned. I was marched to a German camp in 1945, You had no name in the camp - just a number tattooed on to your forearm.. my number was 177789. The worst of all was the March of death, the death march La marche de la mort with the feet to march with no shoes it was horrible, all my feet are kaput! i was liberated from Buchenwald camp in 1945. I was 90% dead, after the war i was in a hospital because i was very, very sick. i could see my skeleton, i was a skeleton. I was in a sanitarium for lungs, two years later i was married and i built a big family. Anti-semitism is an idea from crazy people, i will never understand why they hated us Jews, we were all innocent.
personal reflection:
I believe that it is extremely important to continue creating commemorative spaces in Australia and the broader world to memorialise the legacy of the Holocaust victims and survivors, because the event changed the world in a way so bad that there is no chance of it happening again.
People need to remember the way that the Jewish people were treated as a reminder to never let something as horrific as the Holocaust repeat itself later on in history ever again.
Remembering, discussing and learning about the Holocaust is important not only because it helps us gain a better understanding of the past, but because it also raises awareness about antisemitism, xenophobia and hatred. It shows how these can create the preconditions for genocide.
The 20th century saw several genocides and crimes in addition to the Holocaust, including the Armenian genocide, ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslavia area, the Cambodian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide. Conflicts claiming hundreds of thousands of lives continue to plague society today. Commemoration and education raise awareness about the danger of prejudice, hatred, radical and extremist movements. They show appreciation for the different cultures around the world. Commemorations contribute to the promotion of human rights and foster the personal responsibility of citizens in society.