The Holocaust

There have been several catastrophes caused by humans in the past but none match the horrendous nature of the holocaust. The holocaust was a genocide done by the Nazi regime in which approximately six million Jews were killed. The genocide was done between the year 1941 and 1945, and it is considered to be one of the darkest events in the history of mankind.

During the specified time period, Jews were systematically murdered and were targeted to various degrees of oppressive acts by Nazis. During the holocaust, a number of other groups were also targeted by the Nazis however the Jews were the largest in proportion. Other targeted groups included homosexuals, communists, gypsies, and physically or mentally disabled individuals. According to some historians, the total number of people killed by the Nazis was 11 million which also included nearly 1 million Jewish children. There were nearly 42,500 facilities controlled by the Nazis that were used to confine and kill groups of people, most of them Jews. The holocaust was a very comprehensively planned act by the Nazis and it is said that there may be around 500,000 people involved in the process of planning and carrying out the mass murders.

The genocide was carried out strategically in planned stages as the German government initially worked on separating and isolating the Jewish population so that they may be able to persecute them in their isolation. In 1930s, the German government passed laws that resulted in exclusion of Jews from the civil society. During the mid and late 1930s, numerous concentration camps and ghettos were established where the Jewish population was moved. The living conditions in these camps and ghettos were of very low quality. In 1941, Germany used specialized units in its military to carry out mass murders and it is said that nearly 2 million people were killed in mass shootings. In 1942, people from concentration camps were being towards extermination camps using freight trains. Those who were not consumed by the horrendous traveling conditions were killed methodically in gas chambers. As a response to the atrocities of the Germans, there were several armed uprisings. The most notable of those uprisings is that of Warsaw where Jews fought the Nazis for nearly four weeks. In 1944, Allied troops started discovering the concentration camps and started liberating the prisoners that were left.

It can be concluded that the holocaust is the darkest and the most depressing event in the human history. It ended in millions of lost lives and millions of displacements. The irreversible damage can only serve as an example of events never to be repeated again.

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