Editing The Holocaust

|name= Evil Acts

|image=Holocaust.webp

|perpetrator= [[Nazi Party]]<br>[[Adolf Hitler]]<br>[[Imperial Japan]]<br>[[Arrow Cross Party]]<br>[[Ustaše]]<br>[[Slovak People's Party]]<br>[[Italian Social Republic]]<br>[[Nasjonal Samling]]<br>[[Republican Fascist Party]]<br>[[Belarusian Central Council]]<br>[[Vichy France]]<br>[[National Legionary State]]<br>[[Iron Guard]]<br>[[Hellenic State]]<br>[[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]]<br>[[Government of National Salvation]]<br>[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]

|date = November 9, 1938 - May 8, 1945

The Holocaust ran concurrently alongside the Nazi Party’s two other genocide programs, the [[Porajmos]] (targeting Romani) and ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' (targeting Slavs.)

Though the Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, the wider network of regimes that comprised the [[Axis Powers]] (such as [[Benito Mussolini]]'s Italy, the Croatian [[Ustaše]], and, to a lesser extent, [[Imperial Japan]], among others) also participated in the genocide. Even the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet Union]] was briefly involved.  

{{Quote|If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!|Adolf Hitler}}The Holocaust was established through stages. At first, the German government passed laws that excluded Jews from social affairs, such as the [[Nuremberg Laws]] of 1935, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade Jews to marry non-Jewish Germans.

In August 1938 the German authorities announced that residence permits for foreigners were being cancelled and would have to be renewed. This included German-born Jews of foreign citizenship. Poland stated that it would renounce citizenship rights of Polish Jews living abroad for at least five years after the end of October, effectively making them stateless.

{{Quote|It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.|Elie Wiesel}}The Holocaust was set off with an event known as ''[[Kristallnacht]]'', or the "Night of Broken Glass", a [[pogrom]] carried out by both the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' and the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'', as well as the [[Hitler Youth]] and German civilians, on November 9 and 10, 1938. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked, [[Looting|looted]], and [[Vandalism|vandalized]] as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Following the violence, police departments recorded a large number of suicides and [[rape]]s. The whole event was overseen by Minister of Propaganda [[Joseph Goebbels]].

This event was followed by mass deportations of Jews to German [[Concentration Camp|concentration camps]] at [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]], [[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]] and [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]]. At this time the camps were merely used as prison camps as deportation to Palestine or Madagascar as a final solution was under consideration and the majority of the prisoners were released by the end of the year; however, anti-Jewish laws were ramped up and Jews were stripped of all remaining rights.

With the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, paramilitary [[death squad]]s, dubbed the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', were established, with the job of eliminating all "anti-German elements". Jews were rounded up and placed in ghettoes, areas constructed to confine them until they could be deported to another location. These ghettoes had deliberately poor conditions, leading to thousands of deaths. The Nazis then begun the construction of death camps in Poland, most infamously [[Auschwitz Birkenau]], [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]] and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]]. Meanwhile, France, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia and Greece were annexed by Germany and Jews in those countries were either exterminated or deported to the German camps depending on the country. During the 1941 - 1942 invasion of the Soviet Union, the [[Wehrmacht]] were ordered to exterminate all male Jews; this was later amended to all Jews at the order of [[Heinrich Himmler]]. [[Walther von Reichenau]]'s [[Severity Order]] mandated that all Jews on the Eastern Front be treated as enemy partisans and either shot or handed over to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' for execution. The main method used was to force them to line up in front of a trench to be shot, a method devised by [[Friedrich Jeckeln]].  

 

During the genocide, SS-Hauptsturmführer [[Amon Göth]], who served as the commandant of [[Płaszów concentration camp]] in Poland from 1943 to 1944, personally executed over 500 people, arguably the most [[murder]]s committed by one man in Nazi Germany.

{{Quote|The Holocaust is very much alive. The wounds are still there. The scars are still there. The influence is still there.|Avner Shalev}}After all the concentration camps were liberated by the Americans, British/Canadians, and the Soviets; most of highest members of the Nazi party and the SS were standing on trial in the Nuremberg trials. Many that were involved in the Holocaust were sentenced to death for [[war crimes]] and [[crimes against humanity]], only a few were sentenced to prison, for example [[August Becker]], [[Albert Speer]] and [[Rudolf Hess]] (who committed suicide in Spandau Prison in 1987 at age 93.)

Other Nazis that were involved in the genocide, such as [[Hermann Göring]] and [[Heinrich Himmler]], committed suicide before they even got to trial; others such as [[Amon Göth]] were captured and put into Soviet gulags or were executed. Still others, such as [[Adolf Eichmann]], [[Franz Stangl]], and [[Klaus Barbie]], remained on the lam for decades before being captured.

Some Nazis were able to evade capture entirely. Here are several notable Nazis who were never captured:

*[[Josef Mengele]] managed to stay in hiding and died in Brazil in 1979 without ever facing justice.

*[[Martin Bormann]] would die shortly after the war ended but his remains would go unidentified for three decades. It is believed that he was killed by Soviet troops as he tried to flee Berlin.

*[[Heinrich Müller]] vanished completely and was never seen alive again; his ultimate fate remains unknown to this day.

*[[Kurt Becher]] was never charged with any offence and was only called as a witness at the Nuremberg Trials due to his having accepted bribes to ignore Jews escaping.

{{Quote|For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.|Elie Wiesel}}The Holocaust is believed to be the most horrific example of humanity at its worst. The Holocaust was also the most significant genocide to have ever occurred in the 20th century, leading to the deaths of approximately 11 million people, including children. Many people were killed in absolutely deplorable ways, including various forms of sadistic [[torture]]. Many victims of the Nazi Party's campaign of carnage would either be burned alive to death in the various ovens scattered throughout the camp, or some would even be forced to dig their own graves, and then be shot into said graves after they were finished digging. Many Jews were starved beyond recognition, and some of the Jewish people would be so weakened from malnutrition, that they would often fall into ditches whenever they escaped their captivity from the hands of Hitler and the Nazis. Many Jewish people were also [[Nazi Medical Experimentation|used as human guinea pigs in various experiments]]. For example, many Nazi doctors, such as [[Josef Mengele]] (who was perhaps the most infamous of the Nazi doctors) attempted to change their eye and hair colors to match what they considered to be the superior race, and these experiments would often lead to failure. Many people of Jewish descent were killed from these failed experiments. Because of this fact, many Nazi doctors were found guilty for crimes against humanity, and were executed.

Many people, including former Iranian president [[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]] and American white supremacist [[David Duke]], among others, try to claim that these mass murders [[Holocaust denial|never happened]], and that the government most likely made them up in order to acquire sympathy from their listeners; this is, in fact, a very common belief in the [[Anti-Semitism|anti-Semite]], [[white supremacy|white supremacist]], and [[Alt-Right]] communities of the modern era. This is mostly because they believe Hitler was a good leader and will not admit that the Holocaust occurred because it would paint him in a negative light.

*Pink - LGBT people, as well as other people who the Nazis considered sexually immoral, namely [[Rape|rapists]], [[Pedophilia|pedophiles]], [[Zoophilia|zoophiles]], [[necrophilia]]cs, [[incest]]uous etc.

* Green - Mundane criminals: low profile and high profile. People with these badges were often assigned "kapo" roles by concentration camp staff, giving them overseer-esque authority over other inmates.

*Red - Political opponents such as, but not limited to communists, socialists, liberals, anarchists and feminists.

*Brown - Adult Romani men.

**Drug users and dealers, suspected and confirmed.

**People with developmental disabilities such as Autism and Down syndrome.

**Illegal immigrants.

[[Category:Elitist]]

[[Category:Mass Murderers]]

[[Category:Terrorists]]

[[Category:Animal Cruelty]]