Sunday 27th January marked 2019’s Holocaust Memorial Day.
This day is for all of us to remember all the innocent lives lost during the world wars, in the concentration and death camps. This act of genocide the most intensive, industrialised genocide the world has ever seen and still is, a tragedy to this day. Many groups of people were prosecuted because of their ethnicity and religion cruelly and unjustly. The question is, how did this happen?
Concentration camps were made as a solution to the “Jewish Question”, a way to eradicate innocent Jews for something they didn’t cause, but were ultimately blamed for. Death camps were for the people who weren’t used for physical labour, as they were either too old, too young or too unfit and therefore useless to the Nazi regime.
The hatred of minorities in Germany continued as many citizens were afraid of prosecution. It was often paraded that disagreeing with the Nazi regime makes you the enemy. Germans who were not Jewish, but if you expressed a distaste to the Nazi ideal, you were taken to a concentration camp as a form of punishment. Then, they are forced to do physical labour. They are then released back into society as a threat to others.
A key question is, why is the holocaust so important and why should it be remembered? It needs to be remembered because hideous acts of genocide still happen to this day. The Holocaust should be used as a lesson, and also raise awareness to the acts of genocide still occurring to this day.
