The Holocaust: Hitler's Mass Killing

Hitler's hatred of the Jews caused much suffering, death, and one of the worst mass killings in history. This time in which nearly six million Jews were killed became known as the Holocaust. Hitler and his followers, who were called Nazis, were the leaders of this ultimate genocide of the Jews. Hitler was a very evil man. His hatred of the Jews was so harsh that it ultimately led to the mass killing of the Jews. Anti-Semitism was Hitler's key background for his hatred of the Jews. Anti-Semitism is defined by Webster as "the discrimination or harsh prosecution of the Jews." Hitler believed that the world was a struggle between the superior race and the inferior races. The superior race supposedly included people that had blond hair, blue eyes, and were strong. Hitler called this race the "Aryans". The inferior race included all people that did not have the characteristics of the "Aryans." Among these were the Jews, Jehovah's witnesses, and Gypsies, which the Germans called "the undesirables". Hitler strongly believed that the "Aryan" race should win this battle between the races. He wrote all of his thoughts about the hatred of the Jews in a book, which he entitled Mein Kampf. This is why the Holocaust began.

To begin his ultimate genocide of the Jews, Hitler decided to "resettle" the Jews. This began in 1941. The first place that was to be "cleansed" of Jews was what was the General Government, also called Poland. To separate them from society, he moved them into tightly cramped ghettos and slums. The living conditions were so bad that this alone killed many of the Jews. After the Jews were inside the Ghettos, Hitler's advisors and leaders of the Nazis picked out the healthy Jews and sent them to what we now know as Concentration Camps. The Concentration Camps were places where Jews were sent to work long, hard hours with little or no pay to provide for the Nazis. In these Concentration Camps, living conditions were very bad. There was little food or water. This is how Hitler began his resettlement of the Jews.