Remembering the Holocaust:
More than half a million Hungarian Jews were killed during World War II. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler believed Jews and some other groups were an inferior race and were a threat to the Germans so he ordered their persecution resulting in the Holocaust. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning, “sacrifice by fire”. The Nazis came into power January, 1933. The Jews were targeted because of their religious beliefs and the Nazis implemented a policy of destroying "life unworthy of life”. They passed a declaration which ordered all Jews in Hungary to prominently wear yellow stars so they could easily be identified by officials. Concentration camps were used to collect the Jews. These camps had electrified, barb wire fences surrounding them. Prisoners were starved and numbered with tattoos on their arms. They were treated inhumanely and killed in gas chambers. Ovens were used to cremate the bodies of those who died in the camp. Some camps made the Jews work for the war effort by building war machines. |