Religion and Theology

The term Holocaust has been used to refer to massive sacrifices and massacres. The term has been used to refer to the mass murders of the Jews during and before the World War II (Niewyk and Nicosia, 2000). However, as they explain, the term can also be used broadly to refer to the death of about 17 million people of the inferior races.  This article will focus on Holocaust in the context of the state sponsored massacre of the Jews by the Nazi of Germany and its sympathizers before and during the Second World War.

In 1933, the Enabling Act was introduced and it gave Adolf Hitler absolute powers (Niewyk and Nicosia, 2000). As they further note, Hitler had come to a conclusion that for Germany to survive the struggle with other races and nations, it had to be viciously united and be of a purified of impure races.

Fischel (1998) notes that the first concentration camp was established in March 1933 in Dachau. This was shortly followed by a nationwide boycott against Jewish businesses. Fischel further notes that by the end of the 1933, books and other literature materials written by the Jews and other inferiors had been destroyed. At the same time all the Jews were removed from literature, art, theater, and broadcasting positions in Germany. In August, 1934, the then German president, Paul von Hindenburg died and Hitler took this opportunity to establish a dictatorship. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. The laws essentially prohibited the intermarriages with the Jews and annulled the existing intermarriages. The laws stripped the Jews of their citizenship, prohibited them from working as civil servants and denied them their civil rights (Fischel, 1998). Niewyk and Nicosia (2000) reported that the laws were introduced by Hitler to protect the blood and honor of the Germans. Furthermore, they noted that Hitler did not consider the laws as a lasting solution to the Jew problem and that the Nazi party would provide the final solution. To clearly identify the Jews to be targeted, the definition of the Jews was introduced. A Jew was defined as that person with more than two Jewish grandparents (Niewyk and Nicosia, 2000). However, the Jewish couples married to the Germans were not subjected to the anti-Jewish measures. The subtle legal methods were intended to demoralize the Jews so that they could relocate to other countries. The methods were also preferred for the purposes of public opinion, both locally and abroad.

Throughout the late 1930s, mercy killings were being carried out to eliminate those who were deemed insane and those who were biologically inferior (Fischel, 1998). Fischel further notes that these led to the establishment of the laboratories that were used for mass murders and were responsible for the death of about 80,000 to 100,000 people.

However, in 1936 during the summer Olympics games, the discrimination against the Jews was moderated. In the weeks preceding the games, the anti-Jewish signs were removed and the Nuremberg laws were relaxed. Violence against the Jews was also dissuaded (Markusen and Kopf, 1995).

In March 1937, Pope Pius XI issued a statement against the oppression that was happening in Germany. Nevertheless, the move did not alleviate the situation because as Fischel (1998) reports another concentration camp at Buchenwald was formed. In the year 1938, other measures were introduced to oppress the Jews. In Germany, the Jews were required by law to register their property while in Austria, property belonging to the Jews was expropriated (Fischel, 1998). In addition, the Jewish economic participation in Hungary was limited to 20 while the Jewish doctors in Germany were allowed to treat only the Jews. By the end of that year, Fischel notes that Jews were banned from practicing law in Germany and had to have their passports labeled with letter J. In November 1938, a German diplomat was assassinated and the Nazi took the opportunity to move away from repression to utter violence against Jews and according to Niewyk and Nicosia (2000), this led to large scale detention of the Jews in the concentration camps. During this time, they noted that the Jews were ordered to sell their businesses, land, jewelry, and any other possession by the end of 1938. This was later followed by expulsion of the Jewish children from schools. They also note that the Jews were ordered to collectively pay a fine of 1 billion Reichsmark and this led to mass emigration of the Jews. The assassination of the diplomat also led to destruction of over 200 synagogues, 7000 Jewish businesses looted, 91 killed and over 30000 imprisoned in the concentration camps (Markusen and Kopf, 1995).

The Germany invasion of Poland together with the seizure of parts of Czechoslovakia increased the number of the Jews that the Nazi had to deal with. According to Markusen and Kopf (1995) the Nazis attempt to deport the Jews failed because no country in Europe was ready to accept Jewish refugees.
In 1939, an order was given out to concentrate all the Polish Jews in cities (ghettos) that had railway connections (Markusen and Kopf 1995). In addition, they note that Odilo Globocnik, an administrator at one of the areas proposed the establishment of labor camps where the Jews were forced to work in overcrowded situations without food. This led to a continuous steady death of the Jews that were subjected to the forced labor.

Later another concentration camp was established in Auschwitz. This was the largest camp where 1.2 million Jews were taken and 1.1 million of them lost their lives (Lande, 2003).

In the late 1930s, the euthanasia program, which was initially meant for the mercy killings of the irreversibly insane, was modified and used as gas chambers for the killing of the Jews (Markusen and Kopf, 1995). They further report that the gas vans and rooms were disguised as shower rooms where Jews were packed and poisonous gas (particularly pure Carbon Monoxide) was released through vents to the locked compartments. However, this method was terminated following complaints from the Germans but by then it was already responsible for the death of up to 100,000 people. At the peak of gassing, up to 8,000 people were executed daily at Auschwitz alone.

Fischel (1998) reports that in 1941, the Nazi with the help of the Ukrainian militia executed over 100,000 near Kiev and buried them in a mass grave. By the early 1940s, the primary concentration and extermination were Auschwitz, Dachau, Belzec, Ravensbruck, Treblinka, Klooga, Sobibor, among others. Sobibor, Treblinka and Belzec camps were created specifically to handle mass extermination of the Jews. In most of the camps, extermination of the Jews was through forced labor (Markusen and Kopf, 1995). Bodies were burnt and the ashes used as fertilizer (Niewyk and Nicosia, 2000).

Subsequent to the Soviet attack, about 3,000,000 Jews were left to the mercy of the Nazi. Most of these Jews were massacred in collaboration with the locals and at the end Niewyk and Nicosia (2000) put the number of European Jews who died during that period at 5.9 million representing 78 of the total Jewish population in Europe.

The period between 1930 and 1945 represents a bleak period not only for the Jewish community but to the entire humanity in general. It is a period in which millions lost their lives and remains one of the darkest periods in history of mankind, bearing the highest number of human deaths caused by man.