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Admiral Karl Doenitz took Hitler’s place as president on April 30th, 1945. He was Germany’s leader for about 20 days. After the war he served 10 years in prison. During his short position in charge, Doenitz ensured the loyalty of the German forces. He also tried to make sure that Germany would surrender to England or America – not the Soviets. On May 8th, after days of bloody fighting in the streets, the German Instrument of Surrender was signed by Alfred Jodl. Three of these documents were signed; one for Great Britain, Russia, and France. The war was finally over, and the Jewish people were starting to get their rights back.
On January 10th, 1941, the first event of the Holocaust took place. The Jewish citizens in the Netherlands were registered. This event is the second to Auschwitz as the worst crime against humanity since it really begun the 5 years of torture and pain for so many innocent people. On that day a ‘Compulsory registration in Netherlands of all persons wholly or largely of Jewish blood’ was conducted. All Jewish citizens were to register themselves as a Jew. 140,000 Jews registered themselves with the Germans as being German. A painstaking 107,000 of those were deported to either a ghetto or a concentration camp, and of those, only about 5500 came back. Somewhere around 24,000 people went into hiding. Over 8000 were caught.
Shortly after this the regulations and rules for Jews began. No promotions, telephones, public transportation, and no Jews allowed at German schools were common rules. Soon the restrictions would be stricter, including certain hours of when you could be where. Jews were to wear a gold star or their arm so officials could notify if they were Jewish or not. The penalty for not wearing your star was usually death.
Germans began to send out call-ups to family members all over Germany cities. By definition, a call-up is a summoning to a military service. But for the Jews, a call-up was an invitation to a concentration camp and almost always death. People could try to flee the wrath of the German controlled cities, but if they were caught they would only be sent to a camp anyway. For a while it seemed to Jews like there was no hope of gaining the rights they once had or returning to their homes.
Overall, the Holocaust is definitely the most atrocious incident of our history. Not only were millions of guiltless civilians murdered, but even more were left homeless. The worst part was Auschwitz, however. A few hundred Jews and other races were burned, gassed, dissected to death daily. The strenuous work or lack of food also killed many in the end. The registration of Jews in the Netherlands is second only to Auschwitz. This crime was only the foundation for Hitler’s idea of genocide. These small rules eventually grew over five years until it was practically illegal to be Jewish. The mass murdering finally ended on April 30th, 1945. Hitler had seemed to know that the war was coming to an end, and committed suicide. The Germans then surrendered not only to the war, but also to their hopeful idea of taking over the world. We don’t know how many people were granted with such an unfair death, but the guesses range from about 1 to 4 million people. It’s hard to imagine what it was like being a Jewish person back during World War II, but here’s an example. What if someone of importance suddenly decided they wanted to get rid of every brown-eyed person, and later even brown-eyed blooded persons, just to show everyone that they could? Eventually our brown-eyed friends would be killed and burned. This scenario is similar to the Holocaust in that two groups of people were unfairly picked on. It’s hard to believe that anyone would do that to a group of people just because they were brown-eyed. But then again, isn’t that what happened to every Jewish citizen? Hopefully everyone world wide has learned enough from the mistakes of the Holocaust – from the beginning in the Netherlands to creation of Auschwitz – to realize how much suffering one leader can do. But in reality, nothing else did more damage than Auschwitz.
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