Badges of the Holocaust

Essay by nubianorchidCollege, UndergraduateA-, May 2004

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Badges of the Holocaust

Life continually act it self out over and over again. I hope this is the right saying for what I am thinking. I never thought about the fact the Nazi's system of labeling prisoner of the Holocaust affects us today and most are not even aware of it. Let me begin by giving you some background of what I am talking about. See if you agree.

The concentration camp was one weapon in the campaign to bring state and society into conformity with the governmental rulership at that time (fascism). Ranges of attempts were made to isolate people and to use fear to inhibit "undesirable" behavior. Whatever the reasons for imprisonment, all incarcerations were the result of Nazi ideology and posed a danger to the prisoner's life. The categories of prisoners differed from one another in how they were selected and treated. Those groups whom the Nazis deemed inimical but not racially undesirable were not completely rounded up, but taken only in random samples Homosexuals, political prisoners, and Jehovah's Witnesses are among the groups who were sent to the concentration camps for reeducation.(

) They were supposed to renounce their particular orientation. In many cases the political and social prisoners dies for what they believed. The Nazi's thought that incarceration would stop their religion or their way of life but it did not.

In the camps the prisoners' uniforms were marked with a colored cloth triangle to denote their offence or origin. Their prison number was sewn below the triangle. The usual triangle was about five centimeters across, but for prisoners who were set for reeducation their triangles was about 2 or 3 centimeters larger so that it could be recognized from a distance. The triangles were stitched onto the left breast pocket of the jacket...