The Holocaust was one of the largest genocides ever. The Holocaust started in January of 1933.

Adolf Hitler-the German dictator- had the idea of a super-race which consisted of blue eyed, blonde haired people who were all the same. In order to get people to follow his ideas, he blamed Germanys problems on the races that he didnt approve of, this included by doesnt limit to; Jews, and Gypsies. He said that they had shamed Germany, and was causing all of their problems. Under pressure, and wanting to get out of their dark days, many Germans believed him and followed him. This caused the Holocaust. Millions of Jews, Gypsies and other outlaws were slaughtered in concentration camps, and gas chambers. The Holocaust changed history forever; humanity learned things like the Holocaust could not be repeated, ever.

Anyone not accepted by the Germans was killed, either in camps or on the spot. The majority of the people were transported in cramped cattle cars, where over a hundred people were stuffed into them, others were taken by train. The Germans used freight trains to transport the people to labor camps. During transportation, the passengers got no food or water, they had no bathrooms and there was no fresh air to reach them in the cramped quarters so many younger and older people suffocated on the way there. Once they were taken off the trains or cattle cars, they were met with the camps. Brimming with people who were no more than skin and bones, and working day and night. You were separated into two lines. One line was people who would continue working and living in the concentration camps. The other was the line who would go to the gas chambers to be exterminated. This was repeated through thousands of camps all over Germany, and spread outwards to other areas where the Holocaust had taken over. As said above, the transportation was a large part of the Holocaust. Without it, the Germans wouldn't have been able to transport the men and women to camps or gas chambers. There may have been no Holocaust at all without the trains and cattle cars. Getting into the cattle cars and freight trains led them to the camps, and what atrocities where inside the gates waiting for them. If they hadn't sent them to the camps, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened, and it wouldn't have changed history. "The camps destroyed you, it didn't matter how strong you where. There was no way out." The Nazis made two types of camps; they made concentration/labor camps and death/extermination camps. In concentration camps, they were forced to work endlessly, and keep up with everything, if they couldn't they would get a severe beating or be shot. At concentration camps, they where given little to almost no food, older prisoners snuck younger children food to keep them fed. Anyone who could not work was killed, for they were of no use to the Germans. They were given cramped bunk beds, were two to three people slept on one mattress with think blankets to shield them from the freezing cold air outside and

around them. They were forced to wear striped uniforms and armbands to show what type of prisoner they were, different colored bands represented different groups of people. Due to harsh treatment from their Nazi guards, lack of food, and disease, many people shared the same fate as those who went to the death camps. Bodies of the dead were stacked up and taken away on carts or cremated. The death camps were directly set up for mass killings. Most of those who were sent to the death camps were too young to work or too old. All arrivals were immediately put into gas chambers, or shot. When going to the gas chambers, the Nazis told them they would be taking a shower. But once all were inside, they sealed the doors, and expelled Zyclon B, a poisonous gas into the chamber, suffocating all. The only exception was Auschwitz-Birkenau; they were a concentration camp with working gas chambers. This made AuschwitzBirkenau have the highest death rate of any of the camps. More than one point one million prisoners died there, over half Jewish. Whether death camp or concentration camp, the chance of your own death was almost inedible. As said above, life in camp changed anyone who went through the gates. Memories were stuck in the mind of anyone who was lucky enough to escape that is, if you went to a concentration camp. The death camps main execution style was gas chambers, and it greatly impacted your life whether you went to the death camp or concentration camp. The death count for the Holocaust was hugely impacted because of the use of gas chambers. If you weren't useful to the Germans, you were sent to the gas chambers. All death camps had a gas chamber. A gas chamber resembled a shower house, built of brick, cement and concrete the gas that was dumped inside had no way out. The gases commonly used in gas chambers were; carbon monoxide, Zyklon-B and Hydrogen Cyanide. The gas was either pumped in through a small hole in the ceiling or dropped in pellet form onto the ground. Originally, the Germans used "Gas Vans" which were mobile killing units. The Germans then came up with the idea of large Gas Chambers. The first Gas Chamber was built in Chemlo, Poland in 1939. Carbon Monoxide, one of the gases used in Gas Chambers, is an odorless, colorless, toxic fume. At low levels of exposure, it has the same side-affects as the flu. In Gas Chambers, with use of Carbon Monoxide, victims were dead with 30-40 minutes. This had begun to take too long for the Germans so they begun using Zyklon-B. Zyklon-B, cyanide based pestilence, originally made to kill rodents. The Germans began to use it in gas chambers, for it took 25 minutes to kill the humans inside. Hydrogen Cyanide, another toxic fume used in gas Chambers, is colorless and odorless. In gas and liquid form it is highly toxic and can be absorbed through the skin, but the most dangerous way is it being inhaled. It reacts quickly and can kill a victim rapidly. As clarification, the gas chambers played a very important role in the Holocaust. The many gas chambers lead up to the large death count of the Holocaust. This impacted how the Holocaust changed history. If the death count hadn't have been so large, the Holocaust may have been a smaller genocide,

rather than being one of the largest mass murders that changed history so significantly. Thus, the Holocaust wouldn't have impacted the world as greatly as it did. The Holocaust dramatically changed history forever. The Holocaust taught us many things that are still in use today. We take away from the Holocaust an idea of how far a "simple hate crime" can go. The Holocaust was the watershed on genocides, and hate crimes. There are many more laws about discrimination against certain groups of people. If we stopped remembering the Holocaust, we stop remembering certain truths about mankind that are easily forgotten. It reminds us that one person set out to do something can convince thousands of people to go against morals and kill thousands of innocent people. We must think about the purpose of life, and how easily it can be lost in selfish intentions. Hitler had the intention to make his nation better, but within doing so, he lost the idea of boundaries. While trying to help his nationality he destroyed another. The Holocaust must always be remembered, for the Holocaust dramatically changed history, for everyone all over the world. Through learning about the Holocaust, the world realized genocides and mass killings like the Holocaust were unacceptable, and couldn't be repeated throughout history. The Holocaust finally ended May 8, 1945. Throughout 12 years of suffering, all camps were liberated. But it was no victory; over 10 million socially-unaccepted people had been killed just because of one man's idea. Within those 10 million, 1.1 million young children had been harshly murdered. The children had been targeted by the Nazis because they could grow up and parent a new generation of "outlaws". The most intensive killing took place in September 1941 at the Babi Yar Ravine outside of Kiev, Ukraine where more than 33,000 Jews were killed in two days. Before the Holocaust began the Jewish population of Europe was nine million, after the Holocaust, there were about three point three million left. Auschwitz was the largest and a highly organized camp. It was nineteen square miles, and guarded by six thousand men. Six million Jews was a minimum number killed, the Nazis killed thousands, even millions of infants before their births were recorded. Finally, a year after the Holocaust was over, Tesch and Stabenow, the producers of Zyklon-B, were tried before the British Military court with charges of genocide. They were convicted and killed. Eleven million people are now dead, and will never be forgotten. The Holocaust was a turning point in history, something that will never be forgotten and will forever be mourned.