Holocaust Dbq Essay

The Holocaust was a horrible tragedy in which the germans caused near 6 million Jewish casualties. It was an attempt of mass genocide, from Hitler’s perspective he was cleansing the world of inferior peoples. At first he attempted to deport the Jews. Soon, countries refused to accept them. Then to contain them and use them for labor. However, the old and very young were useless for this purpose. Finally, when those proved faulty, he began the mass genocide that we today call the Holocaust. In the beginning, Jews had become ostracized by their fellow citizens. Laws were passed in the 1930s to attempt to segregate Jews. However, as WWII came along, the violence and hatred towards Jews mounted. This was around the time ghettos were formed. Some ghettos, like the Lodz Ghetto, held tens of thousands of Jews in only a few square miles. In the case of the Lodz Ghetto, it was 205k in 1.6 sq. miles! (Source 2) For context, Worcester as a city holds about this in a 38 sq. mile area. Ghetto life included the mandatory yellow Star of David to identify

Many Polish cities were victim to this. As seen in the quote (Source 11) “The rumor spread by word of mouth: “They’re coming.” The whole city was in a fever - an overt fear tempered by restrained curiosity: what will the morrow bring?”, the Citizens were prepared for an invasion, but the Holocaust was unprecedented. Here in another quote (Source 12), “During the months of August and September (1944), thousands of Jews were herded into the synagogue in the town of Kowel, Poland where they were imprisoned until their execution. In their fear and desperation, many of them wrote on the walls of the synagogue using whatever they could – unsharpened pencils, pens and even their own fingernails.”, the Jewish peoples were killed in droves. They were held in their own house of worship beforehand even. A cruel ironic