Holocaust may be regarded as a tragic aspect of human history characterized by the mass killing of people by a population group who defined them as racially, physically, and ideologically inferior. It began in 1933 with the political rise and power consolidation of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Inspired by the United States’ eugenics movement and racist history, he managed to spread the ideas of racial purity among people affected by the consequences of a global depression, promising the restoration of the country’s greatness and a better life. In general, there are multiple words related to the brutality of Holocaust, characterised by authoritarianism, intolerance, murders, concentration camps, and terror. At the same time, the word that describes Holocaust in the most appropriate way is genocide, as it reflects the Nazis’ values, beliefs, and actions to the fullest extent.
First of all, genocide is characterized by the recognition of particular racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups that should be defined as inferior in comparison with others. In Hitler’s Germany, called “The Third Reich,” the German race was regarded as the superior one, and the ideas of Aryanism were widely spread (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 2). According to the Nazis, pure, white, Germanic race should conquer and dominate all over the world by colonizing lands outside of the country’s borders. In turn, non-Aryan groups that included Jews, Blacks, Roma, Sinti, Slavic people, disabled individuals, and homosexuals, supposed to be terrorized and eliminated (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 2). They were regarded as racially inferior and invalid people who may spoil the German race – that is why they should be murdered or kept in concentration camps for labor, medical experiments, and entertainment.
Moreover, genocide is characterized by killing the members of these racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups. In 1939, Hitler authorized the mass killing of developmentally disabled infants and adults across the country to purify the race as these people were defined as “useless eaters” who placed a burden on Germany (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 8). This program was more horrific due to the fact that doctors and nurses, whose main responsibilities were to provide health care and medical treatment, played a key role in it. Thus, 250,000 disabled people who could not be used for labor were killed by lethal injection (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 8). Other disabled individuals were killed by Nazi police or murdered by systematic starvation. Moreover, in 1941, the Nazis decided to establish the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” to underline Aryan supremacy (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 14). For it, all Jews under the Nazis’ control were supposed to be killed.
Finally, genocide is characterized by causing serious physical and mental harm to the members of these racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups. People who were defined by the Nazis as subhumans were placed in concentration camps where they were used as materials for medical experiments regardless of serious consequences for their physical and mental health or death. A series of inhuman and cruel experiments were conducted on approximately 7,000 incarcerated individuals, including Jews, Roma, Sinti, Poles, homosexuals, and others (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 26). German scientists and doctors aimed “to test the limits of human physiology, practice surgical treatments, attempt to prove their racist theories, and advance the science of the German war effort” (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 26). People were burnt, immersed in freezing water, and placed in chambers with changing air pressure to receive the results that could improve medicine for the superior race. Moreover, in concentration camps, people died in terrible conditions, and the transition between these camps represented scores of prisoners “tightly packed into the cars for days—shoulder to shoulder—with little food or water, standing in their own urine and feces, and often alongside corpses of those who died along the way” (Kupferberg Holocaust Center 21). At the same time, women suffered no less than men – those who were too young, too old, or weak were executed, while others were sent to forced labor camps or brothels across Europe occupied by the Nazis, where they were raped by soldiers and police officers. The majority of women were sterilized or subjected to forced abortions if pregnancy occurred.
To conclude, on the basis of data analysis, it is possible to state that genocide is the word that characterized Holocaust to the fullest extent. The principles of genocide include the recognition of particular racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups, mass killing, and causing severe physical and mental harm to their members. In the same way, Holocaust is characterized by the Nazis’ recognition of the superior Germanic race and inferior non-Aryan groups, including Jews, Blacks, Roma, Sinti, Slavic people, disabled individuals, and homosexuals, that should be terrorized and executed. Moreover, since its establishment, “The Third Reich” authorized the mass killing of disabled individuals and planned to kill all Jews to eliminate this nation. Finally, the members of non-Aryan groups were used as materials for medical experiments, entertainment, and forced labor regardless of the consequences of these measures on people’s mental and physical well-being.
Work Cited
Kupferberg Holocaust Center. “The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide.” KHC Exhibit, Web.