Oscar Schindler

11 Pages 2765 Words

Oscar Schindler: One man, many actions


Of all the examples of injustice against humanity in history, the Jewish Holocaust has to be one of the most prominent. Sure the slave trade and slavery was extremely unfortunate for African Americans, as was the Nanjing Massacre for Chinese, but neither were nearly exterminated as were the Jews. In the period of 1933 to 1945, the Nazis waged a vicious war against Jews. This war came to a head with the “Final Solution ” in 1938. One of the end results of the Final Solution was the horrible concentration and death camps of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Nazi controlled Europe.
One can trace the beginnings of the Holocaust as far back as 1933, when Adolf Hitler, came to power. Hitler’s anti-Jew campaign began soon afterward, with the “Nuremberg Laws ”. These laws forced segregation between Jews and the rest of the public. It was only a dim indication of what the future held for European Jews. Anti-Jewish aggression continued for years after the passing of these laws. One of these was the Aryanization of Jewish properties and businesses. Jews were progressively forced out of the economy of Germany, their assets turned over to the government and the German public. Other forms of degradation were pogroms . The first and most infamous of these pogroms was Krystallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass”. This pogrom was prompted by the assassination of German diplomat by a Jew. Two days later an act of retaliation was organized to attack Jews in Germany. On the night of November 9th and 10th, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 175 synagogues demolished, nearly a 100 Jews killed, and thousands more injured, all for the assassination of one official by a Jew (“Holocaust, the.” Microsoft Encarta ’96). In many ways this was the
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first act of violence to Jews made by the Nazis. However, their intentions were now clear. The Nazi’s plans...