The word holocaust comes from the Greek words holos meaning "completely", and kaustos meaning "burnt". Some of the definitions of holocaust include a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire, or a great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire, hence the term deriving from kaustos, "burnt". But the term Holocaust, spelled with a capital H, is usually used to refer to the mass genocide of European Jews during World War II.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, causing Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and France to declare war. Hans Frank, a German lawyer, was appointed Nazi Governor-General in October. He asked "nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear." The Jews were herded into ghettos, mostly in the General Government area of central Poland, where they were put to work. There many thousands were killed in various ways, and many more died of disease, starvation, and exhaustion, but there was still no method of killing. The Nazis did see forced labor as a form of extermination. Hans Frank noted that this many people could not be simply shot. "We shall have to take steps, however, designed in some way to eliminate them." He said. It was this predicament which led the SS to experiment with large-scale killings using poison gas. Thus the gas chambers were born.

The Holocaust was not only limited to Jews. It is estimated that 3.3 million, approximately fifty-seven percent, of Soviet Prisoners of War died by starvation, mistreatment, and execution between June 1941 and May 1945. The German Nazis also imprisoned and killed the mentally ill and disabled. Between 1939 and 1941, 80,000 to 100,000 mentally ill adults in institutions, 5,000 children in institutions, and 1,000 Jews in institutions were killed. Also imprisoned and killed by the Nazis were homosexuals. Between 5,000 and 15,000 German gay men were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Another group persecuted by the Nazis was Freemasons. They were sent to concentration camps as political prisoners, and forced to wear an inverted red triangle. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 200,000 were killed. Approximately 12,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were forced to wear a purple triangle and placed in camps, where they were given the option of renouncing their faith and submitting to the state's authority. Between 2,500 and 5,000 were killed.

Almost every part of the country's government supported the Nazis. Parish churches and the interior ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish. The post office delivered the deportation orders. The finance ministry took Jewish property. German companies fired Jewish workers and disenfranchised Jewish stockholders. The universities refused to admit Jews, and they denied degrees to Jews already studying. Government transport offices set up the trains for deportation to the concentration camps. German pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners. Companies bid for the contracts to build the ovens. Detailed lists of victims were drawn up using the Dehomag Company's punch card machines, creating precise records of the genocide.

Other than being used for slave labor, the prisoners were used for medical experiments. German physicians carried out experiments at many of the infamous death camps. Some of the experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, amputating them, along with freezing them, and attempting to change their eye color by means of injection. Subjects who survived these gruesome experiments were usually killed, and dissected. One Jewish prisoner, Vera Alexander, who looked after over 50 children at Auschwitz, recalled when one physician took two twins, and sewed them together back to back. She described their wounds as infected and oozing pus.

In December of 1941 and early January of 1942 The Final Solution was put into effect, the plan to exterminate all Jews. In January the Nazis began the deportation of Jews from all over Europe to six main extermination camps established in former Polish territory: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek. These camps were killing centers designed to carry out the Nazis Jewish genocide. Over three million Jews were killed in gas chambers in extermination camps.

In the final months of World War II, SS guards moved Holocaust prisoners by train or on death marches trying to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of attacks against the Germany Army, they began to find and liberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners on death marches. The marches continued until May 7, 1945, the day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, marking the end of World War II and the Holocaust. But the damage was done; over 6 million Jews and other victims were killed by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust.

To me, the worst part of the Holocaust is the fact that some people deny that it was as severe as it was. Even with proof of countless numbers of survivors and eyewitnesses, there are many people out there who deny that the genocide of Jews and other groups was severe. The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, by Arthur R. Butz, has said to be the basis of much of the denial of the Holocaust.

The German Holocaust was no the only genocide to happen. During World War I, On April 24, 1915, remembered worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being gathered. The leaderless Armenian people came next. Most men were drafted to the army and then either killed, or worked to death. The Armenians hunting weapons were confiscated for the army. The Armenians were then told they were to be temporarily relocated. The women and children were then taken on death marches. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and kidnapped along the way; it is not sure how many died. This is just one example of another gruesome holocaust. Other holocausts and genocides include the Cambodian holocaust that took place around 1978 and the holocaust in Rwanda in 1994.

The Holocaust is viewed as the one of the largest catastrophes of the twentieth century. Even though it is sad, and horrific, we still have to acknowledge that it occurred, and try to prevent such events in our future.

Bibliography

"The Holocaust." Wikipedia. 21 Jan. 2008. 22 Jan. 2008 http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust.

"Holocaust." Internet Modem History Sourcebook. 22 Sept. 1997.21 Jan. 2008 <http://www .fordham. edulhalsall/mod/modsbook44.html>.