Holocaust: Taking Steps Toward Evil

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Causes

Holocaust, or the killing of six million Jews and other community inferiors, was caused by Nazi anti-Semitism. Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi German party persuaded the Germans to kill the Jews and five million other outgroups (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). To the Nazi leader, the Jews were an inferior race and were an alien threat to the German racial purity. The Germans blamed the Jews for having lost the World War 1 and accused them of having the plot to start a war. Jews would not convert to Christianity and had separate social norms that differentiated them from others. Thus, as the Germans grew up in their society, they were taught to hate the Jews. Having lost in the World War 1, the Germans acted towards restoring the nation’s power. In other words, the Holocaust victims were targeted for ideological, political, racial, and behavioral reasons.

Reasons

Hitler managed to brainwash the Germans by spreading his anti-Semitism propaganda. The Germans were convinced that they were protecting their land from their enemies. The Germans already had negative attitudes towards Jews but the Nazis made it worse by attributing many negative stereotypes to the community. From the Nazi’s perspective, the Jews were the root of all evils, including diseases, cultural decline, social injustice, communism, and capitalism (Persaud, 2019). Furthermore, early Christianity viewed Jews as unwilling to accept the word of God, as for murderers of Jesus, and agents of the devil (Persaud, 2019). The German law prevented Jews from owning land or an office. Thus, prevented from taking various occupations, the Jews started trading, lending money, and doing commerce. They were constantly discriminated against for their efforts to remain as a separate group instead of conforming to the religious and social customs of their superiors.

Lack of Resistance

When the Germans were called for the mass killing, they did not resist. Their desire for conformity with the superior race and to show obedience as ingroups of the Nazi regime attributed to their willingness. The Nazis polarized the two fighting communities by spreading prejudiced sentiments through art, films, music, books, radio, press, and educational materials(“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Through these propagandas, the Germans were pressured to conform to anti-Semitism and Nazi leadership. Indeed, the Nazi government would arrest all press members who opposed or criticized Hitler or the party. Various European countries, for their reasons, supported the Nazi’s actions and their sentiments against the Jews. The bystander effect from these nations and that of most Germans who were not involved in the fight allowed millions of people to be murdered. While other war participants were acting from a thinkgroup phenomenon, others saw compliance as a way to win Jewish property.

Justification of Beliefs for Actions

Anti-Semitism boosted with unrealistic beliefs about Jews practices helping German anti-Jews to justify their actions. According to Persaud (2019), Nazi ideology about races and Jewish inferiority was taught in schools. Teaching the prejudice about Jews in school helped in the process of impression formation about the community, thus having a reason to believe that the Jews needed to be eliminated. By the Nazis incarcerating those who supported Jews, they gave the superior race the reason to believe that favoring the Jews was a crime. The idea to avoid imprisonment, therefore, gave the willing participants of war a reason to justify their actions (Persaud, 2019). The Nazi propaganda spread through various mainstreams was formulated to convince people that they were protecting their race from evil.

Small to Dangerous Steps

The Nazis and the collaborators moved from taking small steps about anti-Semitism to killing the Jews. The small steps involved failure to defend the Jews from negative stereotypes and prejudices against their characters. In this step, the collaborators of the Nazis watched Jewish accusations from a distance and never wanted to announce their position in this matter of social categorization. Tired of being in a cognitive dissonance position, the collaborators take the position bias of anti-Semitism by disregarding the Jews. The next step is agreeing with the Nazi propaganda and accepting the social categorization of Jews as an evil race that should not exist (Persaud, 2019). Finally, the dangerous step is engaging in their fight when the Holocaust happened. The continuous communication of anti-Semitism by Hitler and his party and pressuring people to conformity slowly moved the supporters from the small step to the dangerous one.

Hitler’s Transformation

Hitler’s aggressive character started after Germany lost the 1^st World War. During the war, he was a compassionate German army who fought for his country. After losing the war, Hitler started scapegoating the Jews by blaming them for the defeat. While imprisoned for his treasonous role in Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler wrote an anti-Semitism propaganda memoir named my struggle (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). The memoir predicted that there would erupt European war which would dehumanize and cast the Jews from Germany. The Nazi leader grew an obsession for superiority and the desire to serve a pure (Aryan) German race and expand it. When he was released from prison, Hitler became the Nazi leader and quickly overtook the nation’s powers. Following his desire to eliminate the Jews race as a “bad or impure blood,” Hitler became a dictator who later caused Holocaust.

Vague and Ever-changing Rules

After the Nazis overtook the German leadership, they stripped off Jewish citizenship in 1935. In the first year of the ruling, Hitler revoked Jews’ rights to attain high-profile occupations such as journalism, public offices, radio, teaching, and even farming. Posters for “Jews not welcome” would then be put in shops, hotels, and even public arenas (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Laws were passed to prevent Jews from marrying Aryans or getting employment from the pure race. It later became difficult for Jews to access food, groceries, and even healthcare. These continually changing rules were not explained and later led to the killings.

Re-labeling of Jews

Germans and their collaborators used local identifications and paper records to identify Jews for killing. The Jews were formed to identify with their race and other listings including parish, police records, government taxes, and denominations (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Some Jews were forced to wear marked clothing or add new names like Sara or Israel to their IDs (Persaud, 2019). In other conforming countries, the non-Jewish neighbors would show the local authorities some Jews hidings. Jews were identified from the Aryans by having lighter hair and eyes compared to the blonde and blue eyes of the Aryans.

Social Models of Compliance

Hitler changed social norms for both Aryans and the Jews by demanding them to take certain social roles. Through his memoirs and propaganda, the Nazi leader demanded that the Aryans would not interact with the Jews. The Aryans would no longer welcome Jews to their homes or workplaces (Persaud, 2019). The Jews were forced to live in the ghettos, change some of their cultural practices, and names. Aryans were prevented from supporting Jews and those who broke this rule were punished by imprisonment or killing.

Verbal Dissent Allowance

Hitler would allow the Jews to disagree with his ruling so long as they did all he demanded. The Jews were allowed to fail to convert to Christianity, speak against the Nazi ruling but not in media, or publish any material that would influence opposite views (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). Hitler expected Jews to agree to be marked with stars for easy identification, admit that they were Jews, and conform to all changing laws.

Dehumanization of Victims and Diffusion of Responsibility

By terming Jews as an “impure blood” race, Hitler and his supporters dehumanized the Jews community. The Nazis changing laws made conditions impossible for the Jews to live. Indeed, the re-labeling, segregation, and killing were the worst acts of dehumanization towards the Jews (Persaud, 2019). When the Nazis reached out to other European countries to deport all Jews, they diffused the non-Jewish Germans from the responsibility of protecting Jews. The Germans saw that the situation’s bystanders were many thus regarding them less responsibility of taking an action.

Jewish Difficulties to leave and Possibility of Holocaust

The Nazis ensured that the Jews had no country to run to when they made most countries including Croatia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary their partners. They also made them abandon their property and assets thus making them hard to escape (“Introduction to the holocaust,” 2022). America and other nations were already depressed by the events of World War 1 hence did not have a say in the issue. Consequently, the Nazis took advantage of these situations to eliminate the “Jewish Blood.” The situations like the Holocaust could happen in the future based on the revealed scriptures of the bible. In the last days, the true believers who will refuse the mark of the beast labeling will be put together and destroyed. Otherwise, in ordinary political situations, such events would never happen because the world is no longer blind to such possibilities.

References

Introduction to the holocaust. (2022). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web.

Persaud, C. H. (2019). Israel against all odds: Anti-semitism from its beginnings to the Holocaust years. Christian Publishing House.

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