Download In The Making

Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
Holocaust Was In the Making
People around the world observe, Yom Hashoah on the 27th day of the
Nisan month (around May and June) to commemorate the lives lost, and the
great courage developed by the six million Jews who died during the
Holocaust between 1933 and 1945. In the Middle Ages powerful men use an
important aspect of the Jewish faith to accuse them so that it would be easier
to make Christianity a legitimate religion in the Roman Empire. The First
Global Age was with influential individuals who were greed-driven for wealth
and power that they used the Judaism faith as their scapegoat to unify their
Christian nation in prosperity. Lastly, the period of capitalism and pre-modern
age became an era of powerful men abusing their authority, due to using
pogroms and propaganda to stay in control and manage their nation’s
populace. In almost every society, individuals try to find anyone to blame for
their problems, instead of searching for the solution of such crises within the
problem.
Christianity was established in the Roman Empire as the state religion,
and in the great effort to legitimate itself as a new religion, Christianity turned
against its mother belief, Judaism. In 1144 C.E. in Norwich, England, Blood
Libel accusations were made due to a malicious legend that consist the
murder of Christian children for religious purposes that the Jews attributed.
(Bauer, 22) In 306-337 the Roman Empire was ruled by Emperor Constantine
the Great who signed the Edict of Milan, which was a contract to welcome
and remove the persecution of Christians: “Our purpose is to grant both to the
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Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
Christians and to all others full authority to follow whatever worship each
person has desired…”1 However, the edict did not last long as Constantine
became the first Roman emperor to issue laws that fundamentally restricted
the rights of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire. Due to Judaism influence
on Christian and Muslim legislations, one of Constantine’s laws regarding the
Jewish people was: “This prohibition [of intermarriage] is to be preserved for
the future lest the Jews induce Christian women to share their shameful lives.
If they do this they will subject themselves to a sentence of death.”3 Emperor
Theosidius I, believed that the Christian beliefs and practices were easy to
achieve conversion, plus its founder was a real historic personality and not a
myth. Therefore, he made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire
and created laws that prohibitted further act from other religions especially for
Jewish people such as: “Jews from holding any advantageous office of honor
in the Roman state,”4 to remove any influences for Christians. Lastly, after the
Crusades that killed 12 000 Jews, German Jews began to decrease in
population in 1347-50 when the Black Death plague occurred. Due to their
mystical and demonic elements, the Jews were held responsible and were
examined as the satanic element.(Bauer, 29-31) The Jewish life in the Middle
Ages were very difficult to live since past influential men believed that life as a
Christian is a better way of living and a way to strengthen their nation.
During the First Global Age, many powerful individuals were greed-driven
for power and wealth that they believed in uniting a strong nation through
baptism in the Christian faith, and accused Jews for trying to challenge the
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Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
Catholic faith. Tomas de Torquemada (1420-98) forced the conversos,
Jewish converts, Moriscos, Muslim converts and the Marranos, secret Jews
of Portugal to confess their close relations to the Jewish community through
methods of humiliation, and murder. The conversos, Moriscos and the
Marranos were thought to have converted as Christians but practiced Jewish
customs secretly. Conversos, and Marranos who did not confess their
associations with the Jewish community were forced to wear a sambenito, a
yellow shirt containing red crosses that exposed their genitals in public.5 In
March 1492, Ferdinand V and Isabella I of Spain issued the Alhambra
Decree, which is also known as the Edict of Expulsion. The Alhambra Decree
served as a way to unify Spain into a strong nation, and Ferdinand and
Isabella chose Catholicism as the religion people should be purified. All the
Jewish men and women from the newly united kingdom, Spain have been
assumed as bad influences for the conversos: “to subvert our holy Catholic
faith and trying to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs…”6 About 10
000 Jews fled to Turkey and the remaining refugees fled to Portugal. Four
years after the Alhambra Decree issued in Spain, King Manuel of Portugal
issued his own decree of expulsion. The Spanish Crowns interfered, and
pressured King Manuel to expel his own Jews for the sake of a more superior
Christendom. Finally, Martin Luther (1483-1556), a Christian theologian and
Augustine monk wanted to convince the Jews to convert as Christians but
failed. Therefore, he began preaching that the Jews were set in anti-Christian
ways, and needed to be expelled from German politics: “A brood of vipers
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Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
and children of the devil.”7 Church laws in Luther’s time excluded the Jews
from going against charging interest as Christians were bounded by. The
Jewish people in the First Global Age were treated as an easy prey for
influential men to accuse them of unnecessary things to cover up their true
intentions.
The Jewish population and the economy dramatically increased in the
nineteenth century in European countries though eventually, the Jewish social
structure changed drastically that many superiors turned to pogroms, and
propaganda to stay in control and remove the distractions and weaklings—the
Jews. The Ascension of Tsar Alexander II (1855-81) was the beginning of
industrialization and many Jews began working in small industrial enterprises
to earn a living. A few became involved in Russian cultural life, and captains
of industry. However, the rising of Russian middle class and intelligentsia saw
the Jews as competitors to be expelled: “caused by a fear of too much Jewish
“power.” (Stalin and The Jews, 10) Sixteen pogroms were motivated by hatred
and jealousy anti-Semites to eliminate the Jews from the economic and
cultural life of Poland. (The Jews in Poland, 22) Additionally, many antiSemitism believed in the myth of the Jews’ desire for power, and several
resentments and hatred were focused on the stereotypes of the Jews. (Bauer,
48) Lastly, after German’s defeat in World War I, it served as the leading path
for the Holocaust we know of today. Germany experienced economic distress
because they lost World War I, and were humiliated by the Versailles Treaty.
The Versailles Treaty drastically reduced Germany’s armed forces, economy
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Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
and power.9 In 1916 Erich Ludendorff, German General Staff fabricated a
census that Jews were loyal to Germany because from the actual results,
80% of all Jewish soldiers served on the front lines, however this was never
released to the general public.10 Lastly, the Final Solution in March 1941,
Hitler informed his general regarding the coming struggles against the
Soviets. He believes that the upcoming World War II will be a war which they
will show no mercy for their enemies. Adolf Hitler issued the Commissar
directive, which ordered the execution of all Communist Soviet officials, and
later ordering the murder of all “communists” and Jews among the Soviet
Prisoners Of Wars.11 Unfortunately, all of this is just propaganda to stage the
killing of all Jews using concentration and death camps to be tortured, or
forced to do work because of their looks and religion, and became guinea
pigs for medical experiments and tested for diseases and cures. When Adolf
Hitler was sent to prison he wrote in his book: “Terror is the most effective
political instrument...It is my duty to make use of every means of training the
German people to cruelty, and to prepare them for war...There must be no
weakness or tenderness.” (Mein Kampf (My Struggle)) The Capitalism and
Pre-Modern Age showed that accusations and propaganda became a longstanding tradition of anti-Semitism in “explaining” crises and social problems.
The Holocaust was in the making for over 700 years because throughout
the millennium, powerful men demonstrated different methods of indifferences
to strengthen their supremacy in their nation. At a time in the Middle Ages,
Many of the influential people in the Middle Ages who were strong believers in
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Millicent [my last name]
HRE3M1-04
[teacher’s name]
superstitions, and legends accused Jews of their demonic elements to
strengthen the Christianity religion in their nation. Additionally, Jews were
easily indicted for luring conversos, Moriscos and Marranos to disregard the
Catholic faith and return to their original beliefs, Judaism. Lastly, economic
distress in a society demonstrates the harsh actions authorities derive to have
a better nation. There are people in almost every society that would try and
use others as scapegoats to cover their real intentions to avoid humiliation
and dishonour. One needs to realize that discrimination against a person due
to their race, religion or morals is utterly unjust. We should respect the human
life and remind ourselves that every human being is unique, and should be
preserved.
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