Victoria Rule

Profs. Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103-011
12 Jan. 2016
Prior knowledge on the Holocaust
We all grew up hearing whispers of Adolf Hitler and how terrible of a person he was but it was only
later that we found out what exactly he did to receive such a negative connotation associated with his name. I
learned about the Holocaust in middle and high school. My teachers in middle school taught us the basics of
what had happened but never went into much detail. When I got to high school I was able to learn more by
reading a book called Night by Elie Weisel which documented his own experience in the Nazi internment
camps with his father. My knowledge continued to expand after watching the movie Schindlers List and
reading the book The boy in the striped pajamas.
The Holocaust was a product of Adolf Hitlers rule in Germany and the surrounding countries. As the
leader of the Nazi party, Hitler had many followers that would do anything to please him. He soon set out on a
mission to separate Jews and others that were viewed as the supreme race because of their beliefs or their
appearances. Hitler began to segregate the Jews from society by making them close their businesses and
forcing them to where stars on their clothing as a label.
One of the most famous accounts of the Holocaust came from a young girls diary. The girls name
was Anne Frank and during the time of the Holocaust, Anne kept a diary that documented her families daily
struggles with hiding from the Nazis in the attic and how their friends suffered at the hands of the Nazis while
keeping Annes familys presence a secret.
Hitler soon decided that he was going to take more drastic measures and decided to try to eliminate the
Jewish population. He commanded his Nazi followers to round up all of the Jews and take them to internment
camps where they would either die immediately or work until they died of malnutrition, sickness or the gas
chambers. Survivors of the Holocaust have told stories about how they lost their entire families and can still
remember the smell of burning flesh as the bodies of those who had been killed where being burned. The Jews
that were not sentenced to death immediately were forced to work and were physically and mentally abused by
a lack of food and respect from the officers in the camps.

What I would really like to know is whether or not the officers than ran the camps had any remorse for
what they did? If I was involved with something so horrific and deadly, I do not think that I could live with
myself. The officers were not the only ones that were harming the prisoners during this time. Several
scientists began using the prisoners as test subjects and inflicted pain and suffering on those people.
Many years later, it was decided that the participants in the Holocaust should have to pay for the
crimes that they committed and so any and all members of the Nazi party were tried for their crimes and a lot
were found guilty and sentenced to jail time. The worst thing about being on trial for crimes of that nature is
that the public knows who you are and you become hated by more people than you expected. I have no
sympathy for those that were followers of Hitler and killed Jewish people during the Holocaust and the fact
that they had to pay for their crimes.
The concerning thing is that most people do not know that the Holocaust was not solely focused on
persecuting the Jews. Many believe that the entire thing was centered on Jewish people and that is simply not
the case. Hitler was a man who thought that the Aryans were the supreme race and that everyone else should
be eliminated from the gene pool.
Hitler supposedly committed suicide by taking a poisonous pill while being chased by the police.
Many people believe that he and his wife actually escaped Berlin and faked their own deaths. The only thing
that we know for sure now is that he cannot possibly still be alive. One man did not cause the Holocaust but
one man was the leader of the people that enforced it and caused the casualties that eliminated two thirds of the
Jewish population in Europe.
These days, our country has issues regarding race and physical differences but Id like to believe that no
one has such strong opinions on it that they would like to completely eliminate an entire group of people in
order to have a better society. One group that comes to mind would be the KKK and the government is
monitoring them constantly to watch out for any threats. Another threat to the United States would be ISIS and
the potential of another attack like 9/11.