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Words of Horror Riley Starr
Gentiles Gentiles were people who were brave enough to hide the Jews. Anyone who was caught trying to hide a Jew was killed on the spot. There were over 13,700 gentiles and about 5,000 of them were murdered. In order to be considered a gentile, you had to have saved or tried to save a Jew. There was a police officer named Mario Nardis who saved hundreds of Jews by refusing to give up the names of the people who lived in that town. Nardis was tortured to death, but still managed to save so many. After the Holocaust ended, the gentiles that could be found got a medal called the YadVashem medal. Elie Wiesel once said “Each and every one of those gentiles is a reminder of what so many other could of done, of what so many did not. Sherrow, Victoria. The Righteous Gentiles. San Deigo: Lucent Books, 1998. Print. Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar Thanked Those Who Saved Jews from the Nazis in World War II http://tinyurl.com/aq257bu
Kristallnacht Kristallnacht means the Night of Broken Glass. It’s called that because on November 9th-10th 1938, Nazis came to the Jews’ synagogues and shops and burned them to the ground. This all started because of one man named Hershel Grynszpan. He was fed up with the Nazis and shot one of the heads named VomRath. This didn’t solve anything, it only made Hitler angry. Hitler decided to punish the Jews by burning down their property and sending many of them to camps. There were exactly 815 shops, 29 stores, 171 dwellings, and 267 synagogues burned to the ground. About 30,000 Jews were sent to the concentration camps those nights. The Night of Broken Glass happened all because Grynszpan shot someone without thinking about how it would affect everyone else. Mara, Wil. Kristallnacht. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2010. Print The burning of the synagogue in OberRamstadt. http://tinyurl.com/4dash
Medical Experiments There were many medical experiments done on the Jews during the Holocaust. I am focusing on the hypothermic experiments. They were conducted on men to simulate condition on the Eastern Front. Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted these in Auschmitz. There were two main things they were looking for in these experiments. The first thing was to see how long it took to lower the body’s temperature to death. The other was to see how to resuscitate the frozen victim. To freeze a person they would submerge them in ice cold water or put them in sub zero temperatures out side naked. Aly, Gote. “Medical Experiments.” Holocaust. 1994. Print. A victim of a Nazi medical experiment is immersed in icy water at the Dachau concentration camp. SS doctor Sigmund Rascher oversees the experiment. Germany, 1942. http://tinyurl.com/6ll8kgw
Pogrom Pogroms were violent riots and massacres launched against Jews. They were frequently encountered by government authorities. It was Tsarist Russia who mostly participated in the pogroms. In Russia, 1881-1917 was basically pogroms. In Germany during Kristallnacht, they preferred to stay away from pogroms. In 1941, Romania started pogroms. The best pogrom known was one at Kishinev in 1903. Legionarii, Carp, “Kielec.” Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. 1996. Print. Victims of a pogrom in Ukraine, 1941. http://grossmanproject.net/pogroms.htm
Oskar Schindler Schindler was born on April 18th, 1908. He joined the Nazi Party in 1930. He didn’t believe in being a Nazi but became one anyways. He met a girl on one of his patrols named EmilliePelzl, They fell in love right then and there. Schindler was a womanizer and soon after marrying Emillie he went out and slept with other women. Emillie even knew about this, but let him do it anyways. On September 1st, 1939, World War II started. People lost their businesses and went to Schindler for advice. A man named Itzhak Stern mocked Schindler because he was helping the poor. In order to help the Jews and put them in jobs too, he posed them as his workers. When the Holocaust ended, Schindler ended up saving all of his “workers” and moved away to Argentina with his wife. There he died at 66 in 1974. Roberts, Jeremy. Oskar Schindler Righteous Gentile. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2000. Print. Handsome and charming, Schindler gives the camera a devilish smile. (Memoirs of Emilie Schindler) http://tinyurl.com/bcndp34
Zyklon-B The real substance is called Hydrogen Cyanide. It would be dropped in a little crystal form through a very small hole in the ceiling of the gas chambers. Once the crystals hit oxygen they turn into a lethal gas. Before they ever used it on Jews, they tried it on some Soviet prisoners of war and it proved successful. It killed its victims in less than 15 minutes. It killed about 1.2 million people. Hasday, Judy L. The Holocaust. Philidelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. Print. A can of Zyklon B with adsorbent granules and original signed documents detailing ordering of Zyklon B as "materials for Jewish resettlement" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon-B