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Amanda Spence
Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103
13 January 2016

My Previous Holocaust Education

The first time I was exposed to information about the Holocaust was in my
eighth grade World History class. My teacher set aside a few days to discuss the
Holocaust while we were learning about WWII. I was horrified to learn that 11 million
people were murdered during the Holocaust. My outrage peaked when I learned that six
million of those people happened to be Jews. I was shocked to learn that Hitler and the
Nazis wiped out one third of the Jewish population living during that time.
In my history class I also learned that the Holocaust began in 1933 when Hitler
came to power in Germany. The Holocaust ended in 1945 when Germany surrendered to
the Allies. This marked a turning point in history and was known as Victory Day in
Europe. The remaining prisoners in Holocaust camps were liberated and finally returned
to society. They were no longer considered inferior and were viewed as human beings.
Hitler developed the concept of a master race that was superior to everyone
else. Those considered superior were of Aryan descent and generally had blonde hair and
blue eyes. He mistreated and disliked anyone who did not meet these requirements. The
main group targeted by Hitler was the Jewish race. Other groups that were outcast during
the Holocaust included Gypsies, Jehovahs witnesses, homosexuals and disabled people.
These people were labeled the inferior race. The inferior race was mistreated and
ostracized.

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Hitler forced Jewish people to sew a yellow Star of David onto their jackets. This
easily identified those who were Jewish. In 1935, Hitler enforced the Nuremberg laws,
which excluded Jews from society. These laws forbid Jews from marrying Germans.
The Gestapo, the Nazi police force searched houses and rounded up those of the
inferior race. With the start of WWII in 1935, Jews were forced into ghettos. Ghettos
were fenced off areas in the city. They lost their jobs and influence in society once they
were placed in ghettos. The ghettos were overcrowded and unsanitary areas. Each week
trains picked up Jews from the ghettos and transported them to concentration camps in
the countryside. During this process, Jews lost their belongings and were separated from
family members. They were crammed into cattle cars like wild animals. In these cattle
cars some Jews were trampled and suffocated to death. The cars lacked toilets, personal
space, proper sewage disposal and ventilation. Many Jews died on the ride over to the
concentration camps.
Once placed in a concentration camp, Jews were examined based on their skills,
physical appearance and former job. They were divided up and forced to complete
physical labor tasks. Everyone in the camps was overworked and underfed. Most of the
men were worked to death or were tortured. The women and children were sent to the gas
chambers to be extinguished. Jews were forced to bury those who died or dispose of their
bodies in the creamatorium. My teacher taught me that Auschwitz was one of the
deadliest German concentration camps. Auschwitz was located in Poland.
Everything I learned about the Holocaust in my eighth grade history class sparked
my interest in the subject. Since then, I have watched two movies on the Holocaust and
read two books about it. I have also visited the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C.

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