The Holocaust-Erasmus RED

The

Learning Past History for Present and Future

The Holocaust

Holocaust

"Holocaust" is the term that represents the greatest massacre in history.

During World War II they were murdered about six million Jews of all ages, mostly in Europe but as part of the "final solution to the Jewish problem" Jews were also persecuted and murdered in Asia and North Africa, according to the Jewish extermination program planned and executed by the national regime -socialist Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and his collaborators. Among the victims, there were 1.5 million children.

The term "Holocaust" refers exclusively to the massacre of the Jews, and not to other murders - the fascists and their henchmen also assassinated nonJews, such as Roma, Poles, Soviet citizens and other Slavic ethnic groups, prisoners of war, homosexuals, Jehovah'sWitnesses, blacks, political opponents of the Nazis, and the physically and mentally disabled.

Entrance to the Camp Auschwitz

Detainees in Concentration Camp

The ovens where the bodies were burned

Hitler and Nazi ideology

After the First World War, Germany lost areas of territory in accordance with the terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The German state was also forced to pay huge compensation to the Allies, who considered Germany responsible for the damages suffered, together with its associated countries. In 1923 Germany was hit by hyperinflation, money devalued and a large part of the population became very poor.

After the US Stock Exchange crash in 1929, nearly six million Germans lost their jobs. Many looked for a culprit for the created situation, so Hitler found in the "Jew" the perfect scapegoat.

In the early 1930s, confidence in Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was growing. Many Germans had lost faith in democracy and did not believe that the existing parties could change the situation. A large part of the population considered Hitler to be a strong leader and saw in him the man capable of restoring the former glory of the German state. In his speeches, Hitler said that Germany must recover the territories lost during the war and acquire more "living space" in order to develop. He was talking about a fight against "predatory capitalism" and a communism, claiming that Aryan, white or German is the "race" that is superior to all other "races". The lowest "race" was considered the Jewish one, seen by Hitler as parasitic and dangerous.

While he despised the Jews, he also considered them an enormous threat and claimed that the Jews wanted to rule the world and control other peoples. His ideas about the sinister and menacing "Jew" came from the anti-Jewish Christian tradition, where it was claimed that the Jews killed Jesus. In order to keep the white Aryan "race" pure, Germans had to avoid contact with Jews at all costs.

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More than 1.1 million children died during the Holocaust.

• Most people were killed in September 1941, near Kyiv. In just two days they were

• kill more than 33,000 Jews. They were shot by the German troops.

• Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women and children were killed. Almost half of them were Jews.

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The most frightening statistics and information about the Holocaust:

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The Nazi troops made some of the Jewish prisoners bury or cremate other Jews. Later, they were also killed.

"The Night of Broken Windows" - took place in 1938, when the Nazis attacked Jewish communities in Germany and Austria. The Nazis then destroyed more than 1,000 synagogues, attacking including hospitals, schools, homes and Jewish cemeteries. 30,000 Jews were arrested that night.

• In the largest camp dedicated to the Jews, located in Poland, around 1% of the population died every month, of hunger and thirst.

• It is estimated that around one third of the Jewish population on the planet died then.

• To avoid panic, the Nazis told the Jews entering the gas chambers that they were to be washed and disinfected. Other Jews had the role of calming them down and assuring them that they were going to shower.

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Over a million people died in the Auschwitz complex. He holds the record from this point of view.

• Most of the prisoners were transported to the labor or extermination camps with the help of animal wagons. They had no food, water, toilet or ventilation. The longest transport spanned 18 days and none of the prisoners survived.

• Doctor Josef Mangele, known as the "Angel of Death" for his sadistic experiments, was fascinated by twins. Among other things, he tried to unite two twins in an attempt to create Siamese. Guido and Ina were killed even by their parents, who could no longer see them suffer.

The lesson of the Holocaust

Elie Wiesel, the famous survivor of the Holocaust and laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in "Night", his book about the inferno of Auschwitz,that"forgetting it means danger and insult". Erasing the memory of the past, the reprehensible deeds, the crimesof our predecessors,will not make us better but only more ignorant, ready to repeat again what we now consider improbable, even impossible.

Accepting thepastasitwas preserving and passing on the memory of the holocaust, as well as commemorating the Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other victims of this intentional process of mass extermination is a sign that a society has matured and is ready to accept its reprehensible deeds of the past. Recognizing the mistakes of the past is one of the first steps to building a more inclusive, tolerant society that embraces cultural, ethnic, social differences as catalystsforprogressanddevelopment.

Commemoration of the Holocaust

In all countries there are programs to inform young people about the consequences of the Holocaust in order to avoid repeating history in thefuture.

Even in Romania, essay contests, thematic lessons, commemoration ceremonies are organized, and in Bucharest a monument was erected in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Visiting memorials, organizing trips for children, talking with survivors, as well as various media reports, help young people to understand what theHolocaust meanttothewhole world.

European programs for protection against violence and discrimination

The European Commission is concerned with developing strategies on combating anti-Semitism and promoting Jewish life, to support EU countries and civil society in their fight against anti-Semitism. Holocaust commemoration will continue to be an essential pillar of efforts to ensure that history is never forgotten.

AEuropeanlegislativeframework ensures protectionagainst violence, discrimination and displays of hostility motivated by anti-Semitism and criminalizes Holocaustdenial anddistortionthroughoutEurope.

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly Holocaust Remembrance Resolution designatedJanuary 27 as the day international commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust.On January 27, 1945,Allied forces liberated theAuschwitz-Birkenauconcentrationand exterminationcamp.

The resolution urges all UN member nations to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and encourage the development of educational programs on the history of the Holocaust to prevent future acts of genocide. It calls for the active preservation of Holocaust sites that served as Nazi extermination camps, concentration camps, forced labor camps andprisons.

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