Essay about Children and the Holocaust

Submitted By kevin235
Words: 1401
Pages: 6
Open Document
Children and the Holocaust

The persecution of children during the Holocaust has greatly affected today’s people. The Nazi party rose to power during World War II. Their main goal was to exterminate any “undesirable” races. There were an estimated 1.6 million Jewish children alive during the Holocaust. Most of them were gassed (hidden children and the Holocaust). The lucky ones were sent to Labor Camps, but they were still eventually killed when they could not do any more work. Most of the children were gassed immediately upon entering the harsh environment; there were two choices for the Jews, Death or Labor Camp, either way resulted in a tremendous number of deaths (Shuter 10). Escaping the Holocaust was very challenging for a child during this time period, because of the difficulty to leave. We should never forget the millions of lives lost during this depressing time period. When a child is first put into a concentration camp their fate rests in the hands of a German. If a child did not want to get killed, they would have to pass a number of requirements to avoid being gassed. First, they could not be a newborn, they could not have any type of learning or mental disability, and they had to be over 12 years of age (children and the Holocaust). If a child was sick he or she would be sent in large groups to be gassed and incinerated, because he or she could not work. The Germans only took people who they thought could do work (Shuter 10). Any children who lived in villages controlled by the union were sent with their family to be gassed together (children and the Holocaust). For the many children who lived in ghettos at this time, their ultimate fate was also bad. Anyone who lived in a ghetto at this time was thought of as “useless”. The Germans followed this rule and gassed all the people who lived in a ghetto (children and the Holocaust). You had to be in top physical condition in order not to be gassed (Shuter 10). The Germans were very racist because of this one fact, “If any child or adult had blonde hair and blue eyes, they were offered the job as a German, so they could help execute people (children during the Holocaust) Death or Labor Camp? This was not such a big decision for Germans, because mostly they sent the children to Death Camps. There were two main kinds of camps during the Holocaust, a Death Camp, and a Labor Camp. A Death Camp served one main function, that being to gas and incinerate (Shuter 19). It was said that it only took two hours total to transport a body, gas it, then incinerate it (Shuter 19). In one of the concentration camps a total of 216,000 Jewish children were sent through it, with only 6,000 survivors. That’s 210,000 Jews killed (hidden children and the Holocaust)! Only 11% of Jewish children survived the Holocaust, and there was an estimated 1 million Jews killed during the first year of the Holocaust (hidden children and the Holocaust). Labor Camps were very brutal, but when compared to the Death Camp the Labor Camp was the lesser of two evils. In a Labor Camp there were also many deaths. A soldier could just walk up to anyone and shoot them at random. The Labor Camp was intended to make materials for other camps that needed to be created or rebuilt. Some of the camps were built to make money (Shuter 14-15). They made trinkets or children’s toys to earn some revenue. If a Jew did not follow rules at one of these camps there would be a severe punishment. One of the common punishments was being suspended up in the air by your hand while attack dogs were biting at your legs. Another major form of punishment was experimentation (Shuter 16). You could be hoisted up into the air to see the effects high altitudes had on your body, or even put into the cold to get frostbite. Life in a Labor Camp could potentially be just a brutal as death in a Death Camp. In the beginning of World War II there were an estimated 1.6 million Jewish children before the
Show More

Related Documents: Essay about Children and the Holocaust

The Role Of Children In The Holocaust

The holocaust is a terrible event in history. Jewish people in the holocaust were taken away and killed because of their religion. Jewish children were treated just the same as Jewish adults. In some cases, the children were treated worse because they were too young to do anything. 11 million Jewish people were killed during the holocaust. Children of the Holocaust Jewish children in the holocaust were shown no sympathy. Holocaust children were killed faster than adults because they could not do…

Words 523 - Pages 3

Essay on Holocaust Children

Children of the Holocaust Advanced Composition/ ENGL 135 June 20, 2011 Alena Synjova once stated, “ I’d like to go away alone where there are other, nicer people, somewhere into the far unknown, there, where no one kills another. Maybe more of us, a thousand strong, will reach this goal before too long” (Volavková, 1994, p. 50). During the Holocaust, people craved opportunity to escape to a place where there were polite people and no one killed each other. The Holocaust affected everyone…

Words 2981 - Pages 12

Children During The Holocaust

During the event known as the Holocaust, six million from the nine million Jews in Europe were slaughtered. The Holocaust was the mass persecution of millions of Jews and other groups. This was done by the Nazis beginning in the 1930s and ending in 1945. The leader of the Nazis, Adolf Hitler ordered them to kill these people even if they were harmless and didn’t commit a crime. Groups of people were treated poorly and unfairly. Many innocent people were sent to death camps and were either tortured…

Words 824 - Pages 4

children in the holocaust Essay

during the holocaust, between 1.2 and 1.5 million Jewish children were worked, starved, or gassed to death- that's 89 percent of all Jewish children living in Germany (faqs.org). The circumstances that the children were forced to go through in the holocaust took away the privileges of childhood. The extermination of the Jewish people that happened during World War 2 was one of the most horrible events in history. Not only did this happen to the adults, but innocent children were also targeted…

Words 1119 - Pages 5

Children During The Holocaust

Children of the Holocaust Many children would live or die in terrible and terrifying conditions during the Holocaust. The Jewish children of the Holocaust had very little chance of survival. The ways children died, and survived is something no one should ever have to go through. Some children spent most of their lives begging for food on the streets and ended up being killed. If someone who was Jewish had a disability during the Holocaust they did not get to live their life like everyone else…

Words 1510 - Pages 7

Ignorance Of Children During The Holocaust

The Holocaust lasted from 1933 to 1945 and was one of the most tragic events in history. During the Holocaust, over six million Jewish people were systematically killed for their beliefs and religion. Gypsies, Russians, Czechs, and LGBTQ people were in those camps. This happened because Hitler and the Nazi Party put them in concentration camps during World War 2. The war lasted from 1939-1945. Hitler believed Jews were evil and that they did not belong in this world. They also thought of the Jews…

Words 607 - Pages 3

Holocaust: Nazi Germany and Innocent Children Essay

Navjot Girn 4/30/12 6th Holocaust The holocaust was an event in which the discrimination against Jews happened. The holocaust was very horrific event in history. Though this macabre event happened, it had no start date. The discrimination slowly built up from the Nuremberg Laws and continued until the Germans eventually started to mass murder the Jews. It all begun in the night of broken glass when the Germans started discriminating the Jews. A lot of their rights were taken away and…

Words 713 - Pages 3

What My Children Knew About The Holocaust

through it because why would you want to have to take the pain”People were starved to death and killed for seemingly no reason, many ss guards at the camps would either beat up or even sometimes kill inmates for no reason, they killed many young children and many old people as soon as they got to the camps, when the inmates were starving for food the ss guards told them to eat grass and snow. If you were caught trying to steal or escape you would be publicly hung in front of everyone, even if you…

Words 644 - Pages 3

How Did Kindertransport Take Care Of Children During The Holocaust

Many children had been taken away from their homes during the holocaust, and sometimes they were separated from their families. The children were then taken to a german doctor who would determine whether they would live or die. If they were sick, crippled, or injured they would be sent to one side and they would be sent to somewhere they would die. All of the healthy children would then be sent to live in ghettos or concentration camps. None of the children were taken care of at all. The holocaust…

Words 1207 - Pages 5

Maus And Night: Literary Analysis

The Holocaust is the most atrocious event in human history and is taught to high school students all over the world. Over the years, countless authors have written works in what is now known as the Holocaust genre; of these books, high school teachers have to decide which one is best suited for teaching their students about the Holocaust. Between Artie Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus and Elie Wiesel's autobiographical novel Night, Maus is better at teaching high school students about the Holocaust…

Words 1620 - Pages 7