Holocaust

Holocaust
Holocaust was a genocide that happened in Europe which Adolf Hitler and his supporters killed about six million Jews that were living in Europe on the verge of the outbreak of the World War II. The people who were killed included approximately 1.5 million innocent children who represented about nine percent of the total population of people living in Europe. (Waligóra, 61) The killing took place in all those territories that were conquered and occupied by the Germans under Adolf Hitler. Additionally, there were reported crimes against humanity and violation of human rights whereby women were raped and others subjected to slave labor.
The genocide was said to be carried out in various stages as a way of making the whole of Europe a German territory. In 1933, the Jews were put in concentration camps where some were killed in gas chambers while others were subjected to forced labor without food and water. The genocide continued until 1945 when World War II came to an end. Furthermore, in concentration camps the Jews were made to stay for long without food and these caused many people to starve to death. In the concentration camps, the living conditions were poor and hence the mortality rate was almost 50%. In 1942, there was high demand of these concentration camps, and this led to Hitler to authorize construction of six larger camps in Poland.These camps were designed for mass killings. It is estimated that Hitler was able to establish about 1500 camps in the whole of Europe.

Moreover, some camps tattooed their inmates with registration numbers for identification upon arrival. The registration numbers also helped to subdivide labor among the prisoners, but most of the inmates would die due to exhaustion. To carry out mass killings, Hitler’s and his Nazi party supporters would either shoot or use gas chimneys.
The genocide took long because of the appeasement policy adopted by Britain and France. When Hitler came to power, he violated the peace treaty signed in 1919. Instead of taking action against Hitler, Germany and France adopted appeasement policy since they never wanted to anger Hitler and to hope that his efforts will come to an end. Due to this reason Hitler continued perusing his ambition in making the whole of Europe a German territory. (Waligóra, 55) Also, the League of Nation formed after the First World War was very weak and thus it was not able to prevent Hitler from attacking the Jews. The USA, on the other hand, adopted noninterference policy, whereby it vowed not to interfere in European affairs.
The Spanish civil war 1936-1939 formed the basis of the outbreak of the Second World War; the European powers took sides hence forming a system of alliances. Earlier in 1931 there was a republic revolution which finally ended the Spanish Monarchy. However, after the revolution, the struggle between the socialist and the royalist continued. (Knight, 33) This rivalry between the royalist and the socialist formed the basis of alliances that took part in the Second World War. France, Britain, and Russia supported the royalist while Germany and Italy supported socialist. The socialist were led by General Franco who was fighting from exile in Morocco. Members of these alliances promised that in the case of an attack they would assist each other both logistically and financially.
Moreover, the alliances encouraged Germany to continue in his mission to occupy the whole of Europe. When the 2nd WW broke in 1939, the two alliances combined forces and assisted each other. Thus the significance of the Spanish civil war is that it formed the basis of the formation of a system of alliances which countries promised that they would combine effort against a common enemy.
Works Cited
Knight, Patricia. “The Spanish Civil War.” (1991): n. pag. Web.
Waligóra, Janusz. “The Discreet Horror of the Holocaust in Ida Fink’s Stories.” CLEaR 3.1 (2016): n. pag. Web.