JAKARTA - The World Jewish Congress is holding an annual campaign to commemorate the genocide of the holocaust titled #WeRemember. The campaign coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day which is celebrated every January 27 today. In order to recall how gripping the situation was at that time, we summarize some statements from historical witnesses who have experienced the tragedy of the massacre of millions of ethnic Jews.
On this year's anniversary, the #WeRemember campaign focuses on education related to the holocaust. The reason is, the campaign departs from the concerns of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) which found the fact that in 2019 there were 780 cases of anti-Semitism (anti-ethnic Jews) in the United States.
Meanwhile 22 percent of adults there had never heard of the holocaust, and 45 percent could not name one of the concentration camps or the ghetto where the Jews were massacred.
This shows a lack of knowledge about the holocaust. Therefore, in the campaign video made by WJC, it tells how the holocaust happened. The educational video also includes stories from historical witnesses who have survived the genocide.
The Nazi genocide
It all started when Germany was under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (NAZI) promised the rebirth of the glorious German nation before World War I.
In 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Under Hitler's rule, he established a totalitarian dictatorship. For example, he issued a policy so that the NAZI Party became the only political party in Germany, and prohibited the formation of other political parties and trade unions. In addition, to strengthen his influence, Hitler was also reliable in propaganda. He uses the press and radio as a means of propaganda.
Together with the military, Hitler carried out various policies including expanding the territory. In achieving his ambition, Hitler also pursued racial politics. Nationalism that was carried by Bablas became chauvinism. In German racial politics, every policy contains discrimination between people of German descent and Jewish people.
Starting from Hitler's desire to unite Europe and even the world in one family, race, and culture by destroying other ethnicities, nations, races and cultures that are considered useless and deserve to be eliminated. Hitler viewed the Aryan race as a superior race while other races and nations were inferior and deserving of destruction.
Therefore, according to George Sanford and Gerhard L. Weinberg in their book Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust (2007) to realize Adolf Hitler's ideals, what is called the Holocaust event, namely the systematic slaughter of mankind, emerged. The Jews were the prime targets of the events that occurred in 1933-1945. They are considered the cause of the crisis in Germany.
What is the Holocaust?
The Holocoust is an event of the systematic massacre of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. As reported by the official website of the Holocaust Museum in the United States ushmm.org, the holocaust comes from Greek which means "sacrifice by fire." For hundreds of years, the word "holocaust" was used in English to refer to a "great massacre," but since the 1960's the term has been used by scholars and writers to describe the genocide against Jews.
Apart from Jews, during the Holocaust era the German authorities targeted other groups because they were considered racially inferior such as Roma (gypsies), people with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, and black people. Then other groups that were also persecuted for political and ideological reasons, including communists, socialists and homosexuals.
The genocide that occurred during the Nazi regime was called systematic because it was killed in stages. Concentration camps were set up to accommodate prisoners who were required to do slave labor until they died from exhaustion or disease.
Meanwhile the Nazis ordered Jews and Roma to be locked up in a ghetto (camp) before being transferred by freight train to an extermination camp. There, if they survive the journey, most of them are systematically killed in the gas chambers. One of the largest concentration camps at that time was named Auschwitz. According to WJC data, nearly 1 million people died there.
Most historians claim that the civilian population was unaware of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi government, particularly what happened in concentration camps located in Nazi-occupied Europe. Meanwhile, according to various historical records, it was explained that most of the victims of the Holocaust, before being sent to concentration camps, did not know the bad luck that would await them. All they know is that they will be given a new place to live.
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