Question

In the early years of the Nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS21 and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps.

To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate22 later deportation23 of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos,24 transit camps, and forced-labor camps in order to keep Jews grouped closely together during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich25 and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.26

Following the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others.

Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis27 allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.

In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called “death marches,” in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation28 of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany, they began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners en route by forced march from one camp to another. The marches continued until May 7, 1945, the day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.29

For the western Allies, World War II officially ended in Europe on the next day, May 8, while Soviet forces announced their “Victory Day” on May 9, 1945.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons (DP) camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews emigrated30 to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957.

The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied eastern Europe entirely.

According to the text, what was the relationship during the Holocaust between prejudice against Jews and oppression (cruel treatment) of them? Cite evidence from the text in your response?

Answer 1

Please put in the text to know what the question is asking,

Answer 2

@Eiwoh2 ^^

Answer 3

first half of the text has the key information.

the relationship between prejudice & oppression appears to be a cause-and-effect relationship based on the text.

p1 mentions how Jews were labelled as enemies/threats to the government ("real and imagined political and ideological opponents"), which is why it was seen fit to force them into labor camps to guard for any suspicious behavior ("To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population")

This is a common tactic called "dehumanization," where prejudiced beliefs against a certain group of people (in this case, Jewish people and other "victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps.") are used as an excuse to deny them their human rights (via extermination camps, death marches)