Treatment of Jews during the HolocaustThe Nazi massacre of European Jews during World War II, commonly referred to as the Holocaust, holds a special place in our history. The genocide of innocent people by one of the most advanced nations in the world is the opposite of what we believe about the human race, human reason and progress. This raises doubts about our ability to live together on the same planet with people of other cultures and beliefs. Before this happened, virtually no one thought such a massacre was likely or even possible. Certainly, for centuries, anti-Semitism had been widespread throughout Europe. Devout Christians viewed Jews as Christ-killers and willful disbelievers, but conversion was seen as the inevitable remedy, however long it took. After the emancipation of Jews from discriminatory laws in the 19th century, the old religious anti-Semitism was joined by a secular nationalism that questioned the qualifications of Jews to belong to the nations in which they lived. Secular anti-Semites opposed this when Jews newly freed from persecution often linked their fate to the growing capitalist economy, architecture, and theater. As we learned and discussed in class, their success in banking, business, politics, and culture made Jews far more visible in society than their small numbers were. Europeans who felt threatened by modernity, and particularly those who lost their status as a result of economic changes and the spread of democracy, sometimes blamed the problems on Jews. Political parties that supported anti-Semitism before about 1914 rarely won, but anti-Semitic political parties rarely won. Jewish attitudes have become quite common in many European countries. From what I... middle of paper ......d, all causes, the range varies from just over five million to over six million. They were not the only innocent victims of Nazi racial madness. Hundreds of thousands of gypsies and millions of Polish slaves and Soviet prisoners of war died at the hands of the Germans. The treatment of humans for the purpose of “purification” is undoubtedly a total embarrassment to the entire world. And it is so unfortunate that it took until the Nuremberg Trials in the 1960s for the world to truly hear what one man's beliefs did to the entire world.Bibliography:BibliographySources Other Than School MaterialsThe "Final Solution ". http://www.remember.org/guide/Facts.root.final.htm. November 6, 2000. Schindler's List. Real. Steven Spielberg. Universal Studios, 1993. War and Remembrance. Director/writer. Herman Wook. ABC Video, 1988.