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The Holocaust and Genocide Essay

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“Why is the killing of 1 million a lesser crime then the killing of one person?” (Scream Bloody Murder). Throughout history groups of people have been killed by ruling powers, but the unlawful acts went without title until recent events in the
1940ʼs. The mass killings in Germany activated against the Jews created a new word, genocide. “Genocide refers to the widespread murder and other acts committed by governments or other groups with the intent to destroy - in whole or in part- a national, racial, religious or ethnic group” (Choices Program 1). This definition was placed by international governments, but the word was developed by a single man in response to the Holocaust. Grappling for a way to express the magnitude of the …show more content…

“The worldʼs foremost superpower, America, has almost never acted to stop a race of people from being exterminated, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence”
(Rusesabagina 137). Itʼs hard to reach out in so many different areas, but itʼs also hard to see countries allowing genocide to continue when they could help end it. Many lives couldʼve been saved if America had helped to end the Holocaust, but it chose to avoid the involvement. The world closed its eyes, closed its ears, and turned its back on what was happening (Rusesabagina 98). The Holocaust went on for years and people couldʼve chosen to investigate, but instead they left it to its undoing.
World War II and the Holocaust was the result of harsh conditions in Germany after the conclusion of World War I. The war “ended in disaster for the German nation...not only the economy, but the spirit of the country was destroyed by the
Versailles Treaty of 1919” (Rossel 9). The rules set up for Germany were unfair because fault for war cannot be placed on a single country. More problems arose in the 1930ʼs when the Depression spread. “By 1932 over three million Germans were out of work...More and more the military leaders looked to Hitler for an answer” (Rossel 17).
They needed a leader, and Hitlerʼs power in Germany was growing by using the peopleʼs pent up anger

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