Holocaust

=​HOLOCAUST= The [|Holocaust] was a genocide led by the **Adolf Hilter** and his **Nazi** followers of approximately eleven million Jews along with anyone who did not belong to The "[|Arayan Race]". [|Hitler] used his secret police, the **Gestapo**, to capture anyone liable to be a threat to the Aryan Race. The victims were sent to concentration or extermination camps where millions died.user:Tom.Cat. user:weskudela8 user:weskudela8 **Concentration Camps** During the Holocaust an estimated eleven million people were murdered in [|Concentration Camps]. Of the eleven million killed, six million of the total were Jews. Other victims were Communists, criminals, the disabled, Anti-Facists, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the mentally ill, POWs (Prisoners Of War), and others. Many of the victims killed in gas chambers and crematoriums (places where human cremation took place) of the Nazi death camps between 1942-1945. In concentration camps the inmates were used as forced labor until they were too weak to work. They were then sent into death marches, gassed, burned alive, or put into dark cells where they suffocated in or into cells where they were starved to death. In these concentration camps medical experiments were conducted. One of the most infamous physicians was Dr. Josef Mengele who worked at **Auschwitz**. He tested drugs on his prisoners, froze them, placed them in pressure chambers, injecting of chemicals, as well as amputations and other horrific surgeries.user:Tom.Cat. user:weskudela8 Jewish men and women of the Warsaw ghetto revolted after it became clear that the Nazis were taking them to concentration and extermination camps. They attacked the Nazis with small arms and molotov cocktails. In August 1943 in Treblinka Extermination Camp, many buildings were burned and 70 inmates escaped. Gassing operations were stopped for a month as well. In October 1943 in Sobibór Extermination Camp, inmates revolted and forced the Nazis to take the right incentives to repeal their inhumane and barbaric treatment towards the Jews. With the death of eleven German SS officers, including their commanding officer, roughly 300 to 600 inmates escaped, forcing the Nazis to close the camp. In October 7, 1944 Jewish men and women at Auschwitz revolted. The women smuggled explosives into a crematorium which was partly destroyed. They also overpowered the guards and some prisoners escaped from Auschwitz. The inmates also tried a mass escape, but almost all of the 250 were killed after being recaptured. Allied forces planned an attack to liberate Auschwitz and free the inmates. The plan included Allied air raids as well as Polish forces attacking from the outside. Jewish resistance in Germany consisted of sabotage, providing intelligence to Allied forces, anti-Nazi propaganda, and assisting Jews out of Nazi-controlled areas. In the Netherlands the resistance against the Nazi's was from the communist party. Many jews joined the resistance and formed a militant group. In Belgium large corporate leaders aided in the protection of Jewish people by hiding them in orphanages, private homes, and Catholic institutions.user:Tom.Cat.​ ​ The Wannsee Conference ** The Holocaust, also known as The Final Solution, was an idea hatched in 1942 at the Wannsee conference in Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany at the time. At this conference Heydrich Himmler met with 15 of the Nazi party's top bureaucrats; contrary to popular belief Hitler was not in attendance. Many minutes of the original conference are on record; however, when regarding the planned murder of millions of Jews the men in attendance had a somewhat coded language. The following is a section of the Wannsee conference transfered into english.
 * Resistance Movements [[image:200px-Ghetto_Uprising_Warsaw2.jpg width="257" height="202" align="right" caption="Warsaw Ghetto uprising"]] **


 * //“Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted from evacuation will be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the// [|Reich]//. The sterilized "person of mixed blood" is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he was previously subjected.”user:Mr.Moose// **

​ **Discovery of the [|Concentration Camp]** A Russian army was marching along Poland when they came across a concentration camp. It was the abandoned [|Majdanek] Concentration Camp .The camp was burned to try and cover up the known horrors that took place there and mask it's past. The reason that the camp was abandoned was because the Germans had retreated out of that area. Over 79,000 people died in that camp. user:weskudela8

**Torture Methods Of The Holocaust** - In the Holocaust, shooting groups shot many people at a time and then dumped the dead bodies into piles. People were sometimes mistakenly told that they were being taken to have a show when really, they were being brought to a gas chamber. Many people starved and some people were used as test subjects for medical testing. Twins were very popular for this. -The camp guards became known for their cruelty, trying to beat each other in the invention of devilish ways of killing people. One man froze because he was forced to stay in a hole of ice until he was killed. Another victim was hung, upside down, naked, for 4 hours until he was killed by the camp guards who shoved sand down his throat, using sticks. -The best well known torture method was the use of gas chambers for death. user:weskudela8

**WORKS CITED** "Concentration Camp." //Middle Tennessee State University//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."The Holocaust - Comprehensive Resources About the Holocaust." //20th Century History//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."Jewish Resistance under Nazi Rule -." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."Jewish Resistance under Nazi Rule -." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine." //Holocaust Cybrary Remembering the Stories of the Survivors - Remember.org//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."The Wannsee Conference." //The History Place//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. ."World War II: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." //HistoryNet From the World's Largest History Magazine Publisher//. Web. 29 Mar. 2010. [].http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_torture_methods_were_used_in_the_Holocaust user:Tom.Cat.