Propaganda In The Holocaust

The precursor to concentration and death camps were the ghettos in Poland and Hungary. Ghettos were built similar to concentration camps, except they were in an urban area and consisted of pre existing buildings. One apartment would normally house multiple families, and this cramped environment facilitated the spread of disease. Jews were intentionally allowed to only buy a small amount of food. Combined with the sheer cold, many lives were taken just by the poor living conditions. “Jewish councils” were appointed to dictate life in the ghettos. The “ghetto police” enforced the word of the councils and the Nazis. If someone disobeyed, it wasn’t an unusual punishment to get shot. Jews whose turn it was to be killed were killed either by
Soldiers arrived at the camps to find emaciated people left to die by the people running them. Survivors were tended to and allowed to go back to their homes. Despite the war in Europe being over, Germans still had a hatred of Jews. The soldiers forced German citizens to come and see what their support of Hitler and Nazism has done. Only after that did German citizens realise the wrongdoing in their approval of the hatred of Jews. This goes to show how effective the use of propaganda on a people can be, to have a nation support such an atrocity. “During these past forty-six years, these memories have been creeping out of my mind, leaving me with sleepless nights afterwards. Never the whole story at once. Until now. I relive that night sitting on that machine gun bench, smoking a cigar, staring at the darkness. That night I sat in the dark and went through two or three cigars, and several cigarettes. I stared out at the darkness, and there were two reasons for not seeing anything: my eyes couldn’t see anything, and my mind wouldn’t see anything. My thoughts kept me too busy. They do now also.” - Harry J. Herder, Jr., Buchenwald liberator.