What was the Holocaust?
By definition, the Greek origin of the word Holocaust means “sacrifice by fire” (“United states holocaust,” 2012). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines the Holocaust as “the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators” (“United states holocaust,” 2012). In order to deeply understand why the Holocaust took place, the history of the Holocaust needs to be explained.
History of the Holocaust
In 1920, all of Germany was angry and upset due to their loss during World War I. The loss of this war meant that jobs were scarce and that money had become worthless. A man by the name of Adolf Hitler attempted to give the Germans hope for the future. He claimed that the Jewish people were the cause of all problems and by destroying their race, the life of the Germans would soon flourish. At first people were skeptical of Hitler’s ideas but in 1929 when unemployment reached an all time high, the people turned to Hitler to take the easy way out. Instead of trying to figure out what was truly wrong with the economy, the German’s turned to Hitler and decided that he was right about the Jews. Soon the national socialist German workers (Nazi) grew and Hitler’s followers grew as well (Rosenberg, 1994).
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