Professional Documents
Culture Documents
during WWII
Introduction
For the 12 years the Nazi ruled Germany and they condemned the Jews to
death and there was no escape. At every stage of the war, the Germans
used their military superiority to crush and terrorize the Jews.
The Jews were generally abandoned by their neighbors and by the free
world. They had no country of their own to which they could turn; and
they had no means of self-defense.
On May 8, 1945 World War II ended in Europe. At the end of the war there
were about 10 million people in the Nazi labor and concentration camps,
forced labor units, and prisoner of war camps. Among the huge number of
newly liberated people who returned to their homes, there were only
about 200,000 surviving Jews from a population of about 6 1/2 million,
who had neither homes nor countries to return to.
Liberation
After the liberation, many Jewish survivors were afraid to return to their
original homes because of all the things they have suffered during the
concentration camp.
Immigration
The survivors of the Holocaust were condemned to wait many times for
long months and sometimes even years until they were able to immigrate
to Israel. Their determination to reach that land and rebuild a homeland
was a major contribution of the survivors to the eventual independence of
Israel and to the renewal of Jewish life in the Jewish State.
Impact on survivors
In assessing the impact of the Holocaust on survivors, it needs to be said
that no person could have survived Hitler's concentration camps and
emerged totally unchanged. Lastly, the effects on the second generation
of the survivors will be discussed along with the implications for family
life.
Psychological Effect
The long-range psychological effect of the Holocaust on the mental health
of survivors is indeed complex. There can be no doubt that profound
shock enveloped those arriving at the death camps.
Physical Effects
After liberation, those diseases that were apparent were treated as best as
it could be done. Among most of the survivors diseases and defective
conditions had slowly developed that nobody expected. The connection
between their sufferings in the camp and later illness was not obvious and
doctors knew little about them.
Child Survivors
Ten months before the World War II began, there was an organization
movement which moved all the Jewish children out of the Nazi Europe.
The children were bundled on trains and set off across Germany and
Holland to ferries, which took them to England. There were like ten
thousand children and only a few of them spoke English. Most of the
children had no families in England and most of them never see their
families again.
At liberation, the young ones did not know their names, country of origin,
native language, their birth dates; age has to be determined through X-
Ray to establish an approximate age through the bone structure.
Children who had been used to hunger and hiding food would usually
snatch food or hide them at dinner tables. Many are afraid to sleep, as
they fear that the Nazis would kill them in their beds.
Conclusion
No doubt that the holocaust has changed the face of the Jewish people. In
1900, 81 percent of all the Jews in the world lived in Europe. Today, only a
few sparse communities remain the Jews have ceased to be a European
people altogether. Intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews is on the
increase, and less importance is given by this generation to providing a
Jewish education for children and youth. For the Jewish people the
Holocaust constitutes a lesson in history, which is a permanent part of
their lives. The course of Jewish history has finally left Europe. The future
lies in a contest between the American Jewish community and the Israeli
Jewish community.
Visual Representation
"An Introductory History of the Holocaust | Jewish Virtual ..." [Online] 2006.
Available
<https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html>
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