The Colors Of The Holocaust Essay Research

The Colors Of The Holocaust Essay, Research Paper

The holocaust was the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Adolf Hitler planned to wipe out the entire population of the Jews as part of his plan for world domination. The Nazis killed approximately 6 million Jewish men, women and children by the end of the war in 1945. Many members of other ethnic groups were also killed.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler began his 12-year dictatorship of Germany. With little or no delay, repressive measures were taken against groups that did not submit to Nazism. The government imposed many laws and restrictions that deprived many their rights and possessions. On November 9, 1938, known as Kristallnacht, the Nazi Party killed dozens of Jews and sent nearly 30,000 others to concentration camps.(1) They destroyed over 200 synagogues and about 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses.

The Concentration Camps

Concentration camps, were set up by the Nazi regime as part of the “Final Solution” of systematically torturing and killing not only Jews but political prisoners, homosexuals and other “undesirables” by means such as gassing, execution style killing and medical experiments. Auschwitz was the most notorious of the concentration camps, for claimed the lives of over two million Jews from all over Europe during the course of WWII. Bergen-Belsen, did not fit the mold of most concentration camps, as death came not from gassing or mass executions, rather from starvation, malnutrition and the rampant diseases that hit the camp in the final stages of the war.

The camps held three types of prisoners. The politicals were the Communist, Social Democrats, and Jehovah s Witnesses. The second group were the asocials , primarily habitual criminals and sex offenders. The last group were members of inferior races , the Jews and the Gypsies. Prisoners of the camps were given distinctive insignia for identification purposes. All prisoners were prescribed markings on their clothes to indicate their category. These were a serial number and a colored triangle pointing down, sewn on the left shirt breast and the right trouser leg. Red denoted politicals; green, criminals; purple, Jehovah s Witnesses; black, vagrants; pink, homosexuals. The classification for the Jews was yellow. It was sewn on point-up, so that if a Jew were placed in another category, the two triangles would form a six-pointed Star of David. (2)

The Purple Triangle

Jesus said: Because you are no part of the world, . . . on this account the world hates you. This has applied to Jehovah s Witnesses not just in Nazi Germany but all around the world because they have stood by Christ s principles and teachings. In Germany,

there were approximately 20,000 Jehovah s Witnesses. Sticking to Jesus command of being separate from the world, Jehovah s Witnesses in Nazi Germany refused to vote in

any elections. The Nazis subjected them to public humiliation. Hitler saw them as a rival ideology to nazism. He seized their literature and sought to wreck their organization.

Conditions in Nazi camps were generally harsh for all inmates, many of whom died from hunger, disease, exhaustion, exposure to the cold and brutal treatment. Witnesses were uniquely sustained in the camps by their faith, loyalty to their God Jehovah and by their support they gave to each other. Individual Witnesses astounded their guards with their refusal to conform to military-type routines like roll call or to roll bandages for soldiers at the front. At the same time, Witnesses were considered unusually trustworthy because they refused to escape from camps or physically resist their guards. For this reason, Witnesses were often used as domestic servants by Nazi camp officers and guards

The children of Jehovah’s Witnesses also suffered. In classrooms, teachers ridiculed children who refused to give the “Heil, Hitler!” salute or sing patriotic songs. Classmates shunned and beat up young Witnesses. Principals expelled them from schools. Families were broken up as authorities took children away from their parents and sent them to reform schools, orphanages, or private homes, to be brought up as Nazis.

An outstanding example in this respect is the Kusserow family from Bad Lippspringe in Germany. Franz and Hilda had a large family of 11 children, 6 boys and 5 girls. Under the Nazi regime, 12 members of the family of 13 were sentenced to a total of 65 years in prisons and concentration camps. In 1940, at the age of 25, Wilhelm was shot as a conscientious objector. Two years later his brother Wolfgang, age 20, was beheaded in Brandenburg penitentiary for the same reason. In his last words to his family, Wolfgang exhibited courage and confidence. He sought to comfort and encourage his family to remain faithful. In 1946, at the age of 28, brother Karl-Heinz died of tuberculosis after being brought back sick from Dachau. The parents and the daughters all served time in prisons and concentration camps. Imprisonment had strengthened their faith and they morally defeated the Nazis. (3)

Of all the groups in captivity, only Jehovah s Witnesses were given what was considered a lifeline for freedom. They could secure their release by signing a declaration that denounced their faith. Of the thousands that were in prison, only a few had succumbed to the pressure. Many remained integrity keepers until