Doris Bergen's House Burning Theory
Three things are needed in Doris Bergen's house burning theory is dry timber, spark, and favorable weather. These three things all happened during 1933-1945. The first, dry timber which would be antisemitism which is defined as hostility to or prejudice against Jews; and eugenics definition is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. The next step is the spark, and which is caused by Hitler/the Nazis and for this to be the spark the Nazis created propaganda and laws against Jews making it easier for people to start hating the race and making it easier to side with Hitler and easier to side with his views. The last one would be favorable weather which during WWII this helped because people were worried about the war not so much about what was happening in Eastern Europe with Germany.
Key understandings
- USHMM definition of the Holocaust:The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
- Holocaust State Sponsored: Definition: Governmental agencies that work to help Hitler and his plan of the final solution. Three pieces of evidence: kristallnacht, concentration camps, and Eugenics.
- Systematic Persecution of Jews: Definition: mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The Nazis did this by making them do multiple things like wearing the Star of David, curefew times, and setting rules against the Jews.
- Systematic Annihilation of Jews: Definition: way for one group to use killing methods against another group. The Nazis did this by killing centers, gas chambers, mass shootings.
Primary Victims
The world and everyone in it knows that the Jews were the primary victims of the Holocaust because almost 6 million were killed and Germans belived that they were "racially superior" and that the Jews, were deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
Perpetrator
“Was there any form of filth or crime without at least one Jew involved in it? If you cut into such a sore, you find, like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light, a Jew.” Adolf Hitler
Jewish Victims
"When we arrived, the dead were not carried away any more, you stepped over them, you fell over them if you couldn't walk." Alice Lok Cahana
"And I realized at that time that self-survival is, is the most...more primary in your life. It's more than...than even your own child." Beno Helmer
Jews: Persucuted/Annihilation
Jews from Przyrow are deported to the Treblinka killing center. Czestochowa, Poland, ca. 1939–1943. Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jews from the Lodz ghetto are loaded onto freight trains for deportation to the Chelmno killing center. Lodz, Poland, between 1942 and 1944. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Human remains found in the Dachau concentration camp crematorium after liberation. Germany, April 1945. Source: United States Holocaust Mesuem
Jews carrying their possessions during deportation to the Chelmno killing center. Most of the people seen here had previously been deported to Lodz from central Europe. Lodz, Poland, between January and April 1942. Source Beit Lohamei Haghettaot
Jews captured during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Warsaw, Poland, April 19-May 16, 1943. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
Non-Jewish Victims
Nazis persecuted more than a just Jews. They persecuted Roma (Gypsies), handicapped, poles, Jehovah's Witness, and homosexuals.
Gypsises (Roma)
Handicapped
Homosexuals
Rescue & Resistance
One Resistiance group that came out of the Holocaust would be Sobibōr; which is in Poland it acted as a killing center for Jews. An underground group of inmates in Sobibōr came up with a plan to try and run away from the camp, and on October 14, 1943 the plan was in act and 300 people out of 600 made it out but didn't live to see the end of the war and the rest of the 300 people died moments later by SS officers.
Rescue during the Holocaust was scared not a lot of people did it but when people did they risked their lives and their families lies when doing it. One individual Raul Wallenberg saved some estimate of about 100,000 Jews by giving the, fake Swedish Passports for Jews in Hungry.
Lesson of the Holocaust
What people should know about the Holocaust is that it could have been prevented if less bystandered became upstandered, and took an action against Hitler and the Nazi party. Some key lessons of the Holocaust is that more than just Jews died there were gypsises, handicapped, poles, were killed, and homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political leaders were keep an eye on and watched by the Nazis. It is important to know that the Holocaust was a mass majority of Jews that were killed and Germany was already doing unmoral stuff to Jews before concentration camps/death camps, and its Important to understand and be able to tell when someone has to much power and shows signs of becoming a dictator like Hitler.