The Holocaust was a Significant event during World War II essays

The Holocaust was a Significant event during World War II essays The Holocaust was a significant event during World War II. It was perhaps the worst atrocity against humankind throughout history. The Holocaust was the systematic extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. As well as Jews, hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, and at lest two hundred and fifty thousand mentally or physically disabled persons were also victims. Hitlers motivations for the holocaust were entirely racial. Hitler tried to implement his concept of racial superiority for Aryans, by trying to kill off the Jews. The persecution of the Jews began before World War II had started. When the Nazi regime came to power one of their first acts was to define the term Jew. Anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was automatically a Jew, regardless of whether that individual was a member of the Jewish community. Half-Jews were considered Jewish only if they themselves belonged to the Jewish religion or were married to a Jewish person. All other half-Jews, and persons who had one Jewish grandparent, were styled Mischlinge or half-breeds. The Nazis then attempted to eliminate Jews from economic life by wiping them out of business. This process was called Aryanization. The Nazis then went on to kill two out of every three European Jews by 1945. Of the approximately 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust about 3 million were killed in concentration camps, about 1.4 million killed in shooting operations, and more than 600 000 in ghettos. Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzek and Majdanek are just some of the concentration camps. The camps were usually filled with women, children, or older men, who could not work; Jews capable of labor were retained in shops or plants, but they too were eventually killed. Initially these camps were designed to incarcerate political prisoners, enemies of the regime, criminals and security risks. But in 1939 the T4- Euthan ...

Overview of the Sans-culottes

Overview of the Sans-culottes The Sans-culottes were urban workers, artisans, minor landholders, and associated Parisians who took part in mass public displays during the French Revolution. They were frequently more radical than the deputies who formed the National Assembly, and their often violent demonstrations and attacks threatened and cajoled revolutionary leaders down new paths at key moments. They were named after an article of clothing ​and the fact that they didn’t wear it. Origins of the Sans-culottes In 1789, a financial crisis caused the king to call a gathering of the ‘three estates’ which led to a revolution, the declaration of a new government, and a sweeping away of the old order. But the French Revolution wasn’t simply the rich and the noble versus a unified body of middle and lower class citizens. The revolution was driven by factions across all levels and classes. One group who formed and played a massive role in the revolution, at times directing it, were the Sans-culottes. These were lower-middle-class people, craftsmen and apprentices, shopkeepers, clerks, and associated workers, who were often led by the true middle class. They were the strongest and most important group in Paris, but they appeared in provincial cities too. The French Revolution saw a remarkable amount of political education and street agitation, and this group was aware, active and willing to commit violence. In short, they were a powerful and often overwhelming street army. Meaning of the Term Sans-culottes So why ‘Sans-culottes?’ The name literally means ‘without culottes’, a culotte being a form of knee-high clothing that only the wealthier members of French society wore. By identifying themselves as ‘without culottes’ they were stressing their differences from the upper classes of French society. Together with the Bonnet Rouge and the triple colored cockade, the power of the Sans-culottes was such that this became a quasi-uniform of revolution. Wearing culottes could get you into trouble if you ran into the wrong people during the revolution; as a result, even upper-class French people sported the sans-culottes clothing to avoid potential confrontations. What Role Did the Sans-culottes Play in the French Revolution? Over the early years the Sans-culottes program, loose as it was, demanded price fixing, jobs, and crucially provided support for the implementation of the Terror (the revolutionary tribunal that condemned thousands of aristocrats to death). While the Sans-culottes agenda was originally focused on justice and equality, they quickly became pawns in the hands of experienced politicians. In the long run, the Sans-culottes became a force for violence and terror;Â  the people at the top were only ever loosely in charge. End of the Sans-culottes Robespierre, one of the leaders of the revolution, attempted to guide and control the Parisian Sans-culottes. Leaders, however, found that it was impossible to unify and direct the Parisian masses. In the long run, Robespierre being arrested and guillotined, and the Terror stopped. What they had instituted began to destroy them, and from them on the National Guard were able to defeat the Sans-culottes in contests of will and force. By the end of 1795 the Sans-culottes were broken and gone, and it is perhaps no accident France was able to bring in a form of government which managed change with far less brutality.