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Amanda Parrish
Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103-007
January 11, 2016
One of the most horrifying examples of human genocide, that took the lives of millions of
Jews along with other ethnicities, is known as the Holocaust. During the 1930s and 1940s, this
act of genocide continued throughout the second world war without much knowledge from the
allied forces. The Holocaust was caused by powerful leadership and the racist motives of one
man, which led to genocide and devastatingly affected not only the axis countries, but the entire
world.
Evil is behind the most atrocious acts of murder ever committed, and that evil comes in the
form of the infamous Adolf Hitler. Perhaps he was not always driven by his demons, coming
from what some conspiracist believe was a Jewish mother however this has not been proven.
Hitler strategically worked his way up through the German army during and after the first world
war. The German government was in a bad state, so it was easy for Hitler to work his way to
eventually become the leader of Germany. He persuaded the civilians into thinking he was doing
what was best for them through his effective use of rhetoric during his speeches. Hitler was a
strong leader in the sense that he was able to control Germany and the states around him,
however what he did with his power was disastrous. No one knows exactly why Hitler was racist
and had such a disgust with those belonging to the Jewish faith. Maybe something horrible
happened to him as a child that was done by a Jew, or maybe it was just his destiny to be a cold
hearted person. By the time the German civilians realized what their dictator was doing, it was
too late. There was nothing civilians could do to speak up against the genocide without risking

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their own lives. Even soldiers who had to work the death camps could not revolt against the
regime without costing them their lives. Hitler had gained control in a way that many dictators
had never been able to do before. This monstrous man was the sole cause of the Holocaust, had it
not been for his racist ideals, millions would have never lost their lives.
Adolf Hitlers dictatorship affected the lives of all of those throughout Germany and even the
entire world. This led to the murder of millions of innocent people simply based on the fact that
they were of a certain religion. The Holocaust did not happen overnight. It started with Jews
having to wear the star of David on their clothes to show the rest they were Jewish. Next came
the forced relocation to ghettos, which were a few blocks of apartments that thousands of Jews
were overcrowded into. These ghettos spread to neighboring countries as well, even as far as
Hungary. During the night, Nazi soldiers would sweep through the ghettos taking several
hundred Jews a night to the most dreaded concentration camps or death camps. One of the
most infamous concentration camp is Auschwitz, located in Germany, it was one of the first. At
the concentration camps the Jews would perform hard labor all days of the week, while being
malnourished. The weak would quickly die off, and even the stronger of the Jews would be
randomly killed in various ways. One of the most popular method of killing was through the gas
chambers. The Nazis would pack as many Jews as they could into these chambers and fill them
with gas to kill off the Jews. This atrocious act of genocide continued until 1944 when the Allied
powers filtered their way into the Nazi controlled countries. Germany was finally liberated, but
the affects of Hitler and the Holocaust will forever be a scar in history.
The holocaust was caused by Hitler and affected the entire world. Today Germany and the
axis controlled countries have all moved on into the twenty first century, and if it was not for the
history books or memorials, one might not ever know the malicious acts that took place.