Red Cushion

Jewish Holocaust
(Assignment: Final Term Paper)


“Holocaust (Greek holo, “whole”; caustos, ”burned”), originally, a religious rite in which an offering was entirely consumed by fire. In current usage, holocaust refers to any widespread human disaster, but when written Holocaust, it refers to the almost complete destruction of the Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany.” (Encarta, 1) In 1889, many events were taking place in the world. In the United States, exploration and migration to the pacific coast was still taking place. We were also seeing the end of the Indian Wars caused by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Ironically, another of the significant events of this year wouldn’t be felt for another forty-three years, the birth of an Austrian boy named Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s reign of power only lasted twelve years, spanning from 1933 to his death in 1945. The horrors, conquests, and lessons taught during this twelve-year period were the culmination of hatred and delusioned self-reality that had been created and fueled in the years prior to his appointment as Germany’s Chancellor.

The horror of this time period is the Jewish Holocaust. More than six million Jews lost their lives during this period. The means of this process was horrific. More than three million were killed in concentration camps. These camps and their means of murder comprised of; Kulmhof (gas vans; 150,000 dead), Belzec (carbon monoxide, 600,000 dead), Sobibor (gas chamber, 250,000 dead), Treblinka (gas chamber, 800,000 dead), Majdenek (gas and shootings, 50,000 dead), and Auscwitz (hydrogen cyanide gas, 1,000,000+ dead). The Jewish ghetto’s claimed over 600,000 deaths, and more than 1,400,000 Jews were killed in mass shootings. When you include the death totals from the Allied nations, the total deaths from the European theater of WWII exceed fifteen million. The Jews would never find relief from this tyranny until their captors had abandoned them, or Allied forces liberated their concentration camps. Otherwise, up to that point in time, the only way out was death.

The events of the Holocaust and Hitler’s reign of destruction are over. Today, the Holocaust is nothing more than stories, memories, ruins, and museum exhibits. The greatest horror of Hitler’s time in power is found among six million lives taken, and those still living today with the memory forever etched into their hearts and minds. All of this came about because of their religious heritage, race, or disability. I feel that the greatest threat to us today that these events hold is the failure of our nation and the world to learn from this period in human history. It is the failure to learn, as well as our allowance of a repetition of the same tactics, practices, and teachings that have caused a resurrection of the demons created by Hitler’s dream and delusioned self-reality. Though presently small in comparison to what took place to the Jews in the 1930’s and 40’s, the deaths of those presently targeted by this delusioned dream will continue to pursue the haunting souls of the Holocaust. This pursuit will go on at a continuously growing rate if we continue to sit in a state of inanimate stupor.

The process by which Hitler attempted to bring to pass his delusioned dream of a superior Aryan nation began long before his accention to power. The focus of this paper is that of two key elements to Hitler’s success; the Legislative process and the civil machinery that made Hitler’s Final Solution possible. Hitler’s approach was one of carefully planned legal opposition, systematically laid out to achieve a German nation consisting of a perfected Aryan race. This included a complete extinction of the Jewish people all together. An essential and key element to this approach was the German bureaucracy, which infused all other participants with “it’s sure-footed planning and bureaucratic thoroughness.” (Browning) Hitler’s first move in the legislative portion of the final solution took place in 1933 when the German legislation passed the “Law for Restoration of the Civil Service.” This law empowered the nazi party and other’s who were also anti-semantic to remove from any civil office or position those not found loyal to the agenda’s and goals of the Nazi party. This would bring an end to the civil service and presence the Jewish people with the exception of the few who found this as an opportunity to rise up the ranks of the German government. In 1935, the “Reich Citizenship Law, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, and the Decree Defining the Mischlinge, or persons of mixed blood” were passed. This collection of laws is better known as the Nuernburg Laws. The possibility of any social identity and existence for Jews was vanquished by this collection of laws. The laws defined who was and wasn’t German, who German’s could associate with, court with, and worthy of procreation. It promoted an increase of procreation by those found to be genetically “ideal.” These laws further assisted with the desired isolation of the Jews into a more easily identifiable group. Finally in 1938 the “compulsory Aryanism Law” was passed and enforced bringing an economical crisis to the Jews. This Law forced the Jews to sell off all personal real estate, business, and equipment at a fraction of their real value. This caused a dependency upon the government for basic needs and was followed by the creation of the Jewish union in 1939, which would be placed under the control of the SS who was being led by Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s chief assassin. This in effect would begin the Jews being led like a flock of sheep before the slaughter.

“The machinery of destruction, then, was structurally no different from organized German society as a whole; The difference was only one of function. The machinery of destruction was the organized community in one of its special roles.” (Brown) The process of eliminating the Jews was no small task, nor could the Nazi’s SS troops do it on their own. The mechanical elements of the Jewish holocaust was a well-organized orchestra of private industry in the German nation. The printing of propaganda, the transportation of the Jews via rail system, all made possible by the privately held corporations found in Germany. The German population found within itself two types of people; those who were actively assisting with the Final Solution, and those who willfully chose to ignore what was taking place for whatever reasons they may have had. Today history finds both to blame. In 1973 the United States legislature passed the Bank Secrecy Act. This act of laws was an attempt to curtail the use of American banks for the criminal money laundering operations. One of the “violations” of this act is called “willful blindness.” It happens anytime a bank employee is aware of suspicious activity involving a customer or depositor and chooses to do nothing. Another is “willful negligence” whereas a bank employ “assumes” that somebody else will act upon the suspicious activity. Both carry severe penalties, including termination of employment for the employee, and severe fines for both the employee and the financial institution. (An example would be Bank of America, with assets of 691 billion dollars could be fined up to 6.91 billion dollars for a single offense.) The penalties for these same actions on part of the Germans was no great for them personally, but devastating to the Jewish people. In 1945, after the concentration camps were liberated, allied forces forced the leaders and residents of neighboring communities to tour the insides of the concentration cams, including the gas chambers and mass graves. This “punishment” received mixed results, but none the less far too late for the six million Jews who lost their lives to a demonic tyrant and his delusioned nation. We know how history, with it’s facts and testimonies views the Germans, but how does and will it view us, the nation that rose from this event as the superpower of the world?

The hateful arrogance that was magnified by Hitler has always existed in smaller forms within our own nation. Going as far back as colonial times, we find instances of racial and ethical persecution. Or own constitution ruled that African slaves did not constitute and complete a “full person” when population was used in determining an individual states' weight in national elections (i.e. presidential elections.) In 1836, the Missouri and Illinois state legislatures both passed “extermination orders” ordering the complete extermination of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormons) within their respective states. Missouri’s law would remain in effect until 1994 when a man used that law in defense of shooting a member of the LDS church. Following the conclusion of the American Civil War, a small group of confederate soldiers formed a anti-black organization known as the Ku-Klux-Klan. This organization would broaden its targets of expulsion to any who pose a threat to the White American. The organization, because of government action would nearly die out in the mid-60’s. Today, membership in the “Klan” is nearing all-time highs with totals in the ten’s of thousands. But more importantly, the Ku-Klux-Klan has allies within the United States, Europe, and Russia. Today we are seeing increasing racial movements among the Neo-Nazi’s and Skin Heads. While their influence and activity has varied from one region of the nation to the another, they have mastered one key Nazi trait, and that is the capitalization of Court definitions of the Bill of Rights, empowering them to broadcast, promote and recruit their cause. Again just as Germany of the 1930’s and 40’s, we have found two types of people in this country when it comes to this issue; those who act, and those who are act upon. People today have either chose to assist the cause, or actively seek to silence the hate breathing fire of these organizations. Those who assist are those who promote the cause and those who choose to be willfully blind or willfully negligent. Though they may not feel so, both parties will be found guilty of assisting the cause of these demons. What can we do? How can we bring this evil to an end and prevent the Jewish Holocaust and it’s nightmare from occurring again? We must start by putting down our foot, and say enough is enough!

“A society that permits anything will eventually lose everything!” (Maxwell, 67) We as a nation have allowed too much. The Constitution of this nation wasn’t about letting everyone do as they please. It was created in the light that man has certain rights that he is entitled to; Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. These include the right to protect life, family and property, and the right to worship God, how we may, as this was the underlying cause for many who has sought refuge from the Protestant tyranny of the English crown. Today, more than ever these rights have been under extreme attack by those who seek only there own gain and pleasures. Like Germany, this nation has seen a rapid decline in it’s moral’s and allowances. The greatest threat to us today that the events of the Nazi Germany era hold is the failure of our nation and the world to learn from this period in human history. It is the failure to learn, as well as our allowance of a repetition of the same tactics, practices, and teachings that have caused a resurrection of the demons created by Hitler’s dream and delusioned self-reality. Though presently small in comparison to what took place to the Jews in the 1930’s and 40’s, the deaths of those presently targeted by this delusioned dream will continue to pursue the haunting souls of the Holocaust. We must act now, starting with an accountability of those who lead these groups for the actions of each individual in their cause. Following his trial and sentencing, Hitler’s chief architect, Albert Speer, said “For there are things, for which one is guilty even if one might offer excuses—simply because the scale of the crimes is so overwhelming that by comparison any human excuse pales to insignificance.” (Speer, 523) Are we a people of excuses or action, do we prefer to act, or to be acted upon? I prefer to act and my call and challenge to all is to do the same. If we truly desire to call ourselves American’s, believing that all men are equal, there is no other choice. It is time for this nation and the rest of this world to rise from our thrones of thoughtless stupor, and unite against the demon’s of the Holocaust and vanquish them forever.