January 30, 1933-
Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany
February 28, 1933 through March 24, 1933 - Emergency dictatorship powers granted to Hitler as a
result of the Reichstag fire.
July 14, 1933 – the Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany
and the Nazis pass laws in order to strip Jewish immigrants living in Poland of
their German citizenship.
August 2, 1934 – the German
President von Hindenburg dies and Hitler assumes the role as Führer
March 12 and 13, 1938 - Nazi troops enter Austria which has a large Jewish
population residing in Vienna
November 15, 1938 - Jewish students are expelled from all non-Jewish
German schools.
September 21, 1939 - Heydrich
issues orders to SS in Poland regarding treatment of Jews, they are to be gathered
into ghettos near railroads for the future "final goal."
February 12, 1940 - First deportation of German Jews into Poland
December 8, 1941 - In occupied Poland the first extermination camp
becomes operational. The first gypsies and Jews are suffocated by carbon
monoxide is mobile gas vans.
In January, 1942– gassing with Zyklon-B begins
at Auschwitz-Birkenau and a second chamber is constructed later that year.
In 1943 - The number
of Jews killed by the SS passes one million. Nazis then use special units of slave laborers to dig up and burn the bodies to
remove all traces that the events ever occurred. Some camps are destroyed and
trees are planted over their locations.
In 1945- Concentration camps
liberated, American prisoners of war rescued
The nature of these events is passionately
rooted in anti-Semitism, the hatred and discrimination of the Jewish race. As
Hitler began to segregate the Jews, they steadily lost every fundamental right.
They became the target of racial hatred. Jewish proprietors were often
terrorized and lost much of their business. Kristallnacht, the night of broken
glass, was the breaking of Jewish store front windows, synagogues, and homes on
November 9th and 10th, 1938. Jewish citizens of Germany,
and eventually neighboring European countries, were forced to live in ghettos
as the situation worsened in Germany. Ghettos were essentially slums that the
Jewish people were confined to. They had little food, bad hygiene, small living
quarters for entire families, and were nearly inhospitable. The Jews were later
deported from Germany meaning that a government mandate forced them to leave
the country and they were sent to concentration camps. The concentration camps
were significantly less hospitable than the ghettos were. The concentration
camps were essentially prisons for the innocent Jews and other groups hated by
the Nazis. They provided little clothing, barely any food, and absolutely
terrible living conditions. Forced labor was prevalent and eventually the Nazis
implemented their “final solution”, the genocide of the Jews. Genocide is the
extermination of a certain race or ethnic group. This genocide became known as
the Holocaust in which nearly 6 million Jews were murdered along with various
other groups the Nazis deemed undesirable.
Throughout the Holocaust, an innumerable
amount of violations to human dignity and morality occurred. The Ten
Commandments were also violated on an infinite number of occasions. The 2nd,
6th, and 8th commandments were the ones most often broken
during the Holocaust. The second commandment which condemns the use of idols is
broken with the pseudo worshiping of Adolph Hitler. Hitler became the idol of
the Nazi people who listened to what he said and did exactly what he
instructed. It is almost a violation of the first commandment as well because
Hitler was regarded as the sole leader in fascist regime. He was literally worshipped
by the German people and his picture was required to be hung in all classrooms
and government buildings. The sixth commandment was the most flagrantly
violated regulation. Experts have given various figures for the death toll
during the Holocaust but it is generally accepted that 10 million people were
killed by the Nazis, 6 million of which were Jewish. The horror and absolute
disregard for human life has never been so apparent. The soulless persecution
of innocent people is perhaps one the most tragic events in all of human
history. Those involved in these murders are guilty of the highest and most
severe form of crime imaginable. Lastly, the eighth commandment was broken for
two reasons. Stolen from the victims of the Holocaust were not only their
lives, but the entire process drained them of a will to live. For years leading
up to the Holocaust, Jews were persecuted and racially discriminated against.
Their stores were destroyed and their families harassed. Their livelihood was
constantly in jeopardy. As the situation became worse, they were forced to move
into ghettos and eventually death camps where their most important, valuable,
and sacred possessions were stolen from them by the Nazis. They were stripped
of the last possessions they owned.
