History Of The Holocaust Essay

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Frank Doumbe History of the Holocaust Final Exam Fall 2012 Dr. Fritz Part I: Essay: Answer the following question (40 points): A. Christopher Browning has noted in Ordinary Men that in “March 1942 some 75-80% of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20-25% had perished. A mere eleven months later, in mid-February 1943, the percentages were exactly the reverse. At the core of the Holocaust was a short, intense wave of mass murder.” How was such extensive mass murder possible in such a short period of time? This task required a massive mobilization of soldiers and voluntary involvement of local populations to carry out these acts, and that this mobilization of troops for the sake of carrying out genocide occurred at the same time that large numbers of German soldiers and material were committed to the battle for Stalingrad. They’ve been ordered to do…show more content…
They became informers in some cases and in other cases; they were the straw-bosses for the Nazis but Jews in German-occupied Europe primarily resisted the Nazis. Many Jews throughout occupied Europe attempted armed resistance. Individually and in groups, Jews engaged in both planned and spontaneous opposition to the Germans. Jewish partisan units operated in France and Belgium. They were especially active in the east, where they fought the Germans from bases in dense forests and in ghettos. Because anti-Semitism was widespread, they found little support among the surrounding population. Even so, as many between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews fought the Germans in the forests of Eastern Europe. Organized armed resistance was the most direct form of Jewish opposition. In many areas of Europe, Jewish resistance instead focused on aid, rescue, and spiritual resistance. The preservation of Jewish cultural institutions and the continuance of religious observance were acts of spiritual resistance to the Nazi policy of
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