Brittany Finger

World War II

Dr. Spurlock

October 3, 2019

Final Essay

Upon learning about World War II there are so many atrocities and genocides that of

happened because of evil leaders. I would like to focus on Hitler and everything that he had done

to the Jews. There are some interesting points in the text that talk about how the Germans would

capture and kill the Jews. I also have an interest in talking about concentration camps, because I

have been to one myself. How did a leader like Hitler become so popular and brainwash most of

Germany that the Jews were bad and to take over the world?

How did Hitler convince the Germans that the Jews were bad? Hitler himself actually

made the Germans think that it was right to kill and capture the Jews. In the voice thread

Propaganda and Racism there was a lot of interesting discussion. In particular the second slide

was a picture of a Jewish man with a yellow background. In the photo the Jewish man was drawn

in black and looked like he was a villain. He is holding a whip in one hand and money in the

other. This is a poster that could convince the Germans that the Jewish are bad and have lots of

money. This gave the Germans someone to blame for their poor economy, and making them an

enemy. Hitler’s two main hatreds were communism and Judaism, but if you look back in history

this isn’t the first time the Jews have been discriminated against in the past. Back in the Middle

Ages they were discriminated against, because of religious reasons. Very similar to the hate they

got form Hitler. In 1939 Adolf Hitler said on a radio broadcast, “We shall only talk of peace

when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.”
This quote from Hitler just explains what kind of leader he was. He was not going to stop until

he one and got rid of the Jews.

In the ordinary men book there’s a chapter called the Jew hunt, and there are two main

Jew hunts. One of the hunts was in the Parczew Forest in 1942 and the other was also in this

forest in the spring of 1943. But Jews were not the only targets in this hunt, they were also

looking for escaped Russian prisoners of war. But the Jews were the main victims of the hunt in

the fall of 1942. (Browning 122). It is just awful that human beings were hunting down other

human beings. These soldiers believe that their leaders all right and that what they are doing is

the right thing. They were convinced that the Jews were bad people. They did not think the

Russians were bad people, but the Russians were in the way of conquering all of the world. Any

Jews that refused to listen to the Nazis and come with the Nazis to be locked away is prisoners

were shot. If any Jews were caught wandering and being free were shot as well. The Nazis were

given an order called the shooting order, the name of the order explains what’s being done.

(Browning 123). That goes on to talk about how there were some Jews still hiding in the forest

and when they were caught they were told to lay down and they were shot in the back of the

neck.(Browning 124). It amazes me that these men would actually listen to these orders and

killing innocent people. Hitler had the Germans convinced that it was right to kill the Jews.

In the Romanian massacre there was over 50,000 Jews killed in October 1941. When I

was 15 I went on an exchange program through my high school to Germany. On our trip we

went to a concentration camp. We went to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. I

remember being very large and when we went into their living quarters they had very little room

to sleep and they were all up against each other. We also went into the gas chambers which is

kind of creepy and sad at the same time. It was very dark and dreary n those quarters as well. It is
horrible enough that many of the Jews were killed by being shot, but to be taken to a gas

chamber to be killed would be just as bad. The worst part about the gas chambers too was the

fact that these poor people knew that they were being taken to their death. At the camp there was

a museum part with lots of information and picture of what it was like there and the people that

were there. Being at the concentration camp I had a lot of emotions including; happy, sad, and

scared. The reason why the concentration camp made me feel all of these different emotions is

because when I went into the museum part of the camp, I felt joy because they turned something

tragic that has happened into something good and educational. All in all, I thought that going to

the concentration camp was a great opportunity and very educational.

In conclusion, I think that there are people in this world that are evil and when they

become high in power they are either feared or so convincing that everyone will follow them no

matter what they have them do. Hitler was a great example of an evil leader that caused many

atrocities and genocides. He became a very powerful leader that destroyed the lives of so many

Jews and was very cruel to them. They were treated like animals, and I witnessed it myself in

person how these poor people were treated. What baffled me the most was how these prisoners

had to sleep, they were literally squished together and stacked basically on top of each other. Not

only were the Jews takes as prisoners, but so were the Russians that were captured.
 Works Cited

Chappel, James, and Tom Stammers. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final

Solution in Poland. Taylor and Francis, 2017.

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erandNav=true.