The Holocaust And The United States Research Paper

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The Holocaust and the United States The word Holocaust originally meant sacrifice burned by fire, but after Nazi, Germany appointed a new leader, Adolf Hitler, the word Holocaust changed its meaning to the slaughter of humans on a large scale. (Feil, Dave, Dale, 2001, page 1) What exactly happened to the millions murdered during the Holocaust and why didn't the United States do more to stop the tragedy? Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust was peaceful. In Eastern Europe most Jews lived in Poland, Soviet Union, Hungary and Romania. The Eastern Jews were more old fashioned and lived in towns called "shtetls". In Western Europe, however, people of Jewish decent lived in places such as Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium. The Western Jews had a more formal education and lived in cities instead of "shtetls". Though the Eastern and Western Jews had a lot of differences, most had one thing in common, majority of them would be sentenced to death between 1933 and 1945.

The dictator who came to power in 1933 promised a new and better Germany. Adolf Hitler, a powerful, spellbinding speaker, attracted Germans desperate for change. He planned on enforcing Germany to have a one party dictatorship and relied on terror to achieve goals. Adolf Hitler was a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazi's for short. With Hitler's cunning intellect, he led the German population into what is known today as the Holocaust.

Germany Declared war on the United States on December 11th, 1941. With this declaration, World War II began. With the war in effect, there was very little the United States could do to prevent the terror that was taking place in Europe. In 1944, President Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board. The War Refugee Board insisted that the...