Question

Write a 2 paragraph summary about the Holocaust. Explain what lead up to the Holocaust, what happened and how the world responded.

Answer 1

Answer:

The Holocaust is the most infamous genocide in history. It came close to wiping out the entire Jewish population of Europe but questions remain over who has a share in the responsibility for it. After 1919, Jewish people in Germany were free and legally equal and often felt more German than Jewish. Many were wealthy and successful. but there was an undercurrent of anti-Jewish racism, called 'anti-Semitism', in Germany. Hitler appealed to this anti-Semitism by blaming the Jewish people for Germany's defeat in the First World War. Nazi race-scientists incorrectly claimed that the Jewish people were sub-human.

As soon as Hitler came to power he introduced a programme of persecution. The Nuremberg Laws (1935) deprived Jewish people of many of their civil rights. On 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht or the 'Night of Broken Glass' took place. Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes were attacked and destroyed. This was a response to the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jewish man in Paris. After the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, the Nazis stepped up the persecution of the Jewish people.

Explanation: