Context Summary of Anne Frank as a PLAY
Uploaded by xsparklyvix on Sep 05, 2005
Context
Synopsis of World War 2
Nearly six million Jews were killed and murdered in what historians have called "The Holocaust." In the years between 1933 and 1945, the Jews of Europe were marked for total annihilation. Moreover, anti-Semitism was given legal sanction. It was directed by Adolf Hitler and managed by Heinne Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The Germans under Adolf Hitler believed that the Jews were the cause of all the German troubles and were a threat to the German and Christian values. Following the defeat of the Germans in WW1, the Treaty Of Versailles and the UN resolutions against Germany raised many militaristic voices and formed extreme nationalism. Hitler took advantage of the situation and rose to power in 1933 on a promise to destroy the Treaty Of Versailles that stripped Germany off land. Hitler organized the Gestapo as the only executive branch and secret terror organization of the Nazi police system. In 1935, he made the Nuremberg Laws that forbid Germans to marry Jews or commerce with them. Hitler thought that the Jews were a nationless parasite and were directly related to the Treaty Of Versailles. When Hitler began his move to conquer Europe, he promised that no person of Jewish background would survive.
Before the start of the second world war, the Jews of Germany were excluded from public life, forbidden to have sexual relations with non-Jews, boycotted, beaten but allowed to emigrate. When the war was officially declared, emigration ended and 'the final solution to the Jewish problem' came. When Germany took over Poland, the Polish and German Jews were forced into overcrowded Ghettos and employed as slave labour. The Jewish property was seized. Disease and starvation filled the Ghettos. Finally, the Jews were taken to concentration camps in Poland and Germany were they were murdered and killed in poisonous gas chambers in Auschwitz and many other camps. Despite the harsh treatment of the Jews, little Germans opposed this. When the news reached the allies, they all refused and put down any rescue plans to aid the Jews. American Jews were warned against seeking any action for the benefit of the European Jews although Zionists managed to save small groups of young Jews and brought them to Palestine. The Vatican condemed racism in general but did hardly anything to stop the German actions. The victories of the Germans in the early years of the war...