Human Rights
...e official by a Jew. In many ways, this was the first major act of violence to Jews made by the Nazis. Their intentions were now clear. The Nazi's plans for the Jews of Europe were outlined in the "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in 1938. In a meeting of some of Hitler's top officials, the idea of the complete annihilation of Jews in Europe was born. By the time the meeting was over, the Final Solution had been created. The plans included in the Final Solution included the deportation, exploitation, and eventual extermination of European Jews. Most, if not all Jews in German occupied lands were rounded up and taken to ghettos or concentration camps. The ghettos were located inside cities, and were a sort of city/prison to segregate Jews from the rest of the public. Conditions in the ghettos included overcrowding, lack of food, and lack of sanitation, as well as brutality by Nazi guards. Quality of life in a ghetto was probably not much above that in a concentration camp. By 1941, most of the Jews in Europe now lived in lands controlled by Nazi Germany. In September 1941, all Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David on their arms or coats. A Jew could be killed with little repercussions for not displaying the Star of David in public. Between the years of 1941 to 1945, the main destination for Jews to be transported was a concentration camp or death camp somewhere in Poland or Germany. In these camps, innocent Jews, along with Gypsies, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, and POW's, were brutally beaten and abused, fed meager rations of poor food, worked to death, or simply shot. Jews and other deportees were transported in railroad boxcars similar to those used for cattle. Some of these cars were so crowded that people actually died standing up, there being no place for them to fall. Once at the camps, the prisoners were unloaded and stripped of everything of value. Clothing, jewelry, eyeglasses, shoes, and even gold teeth were confiscated from the arriving captives. After unloading, the people were separated into two groups. One of these groups would be lead to firing squads or, in some camps gas chambers, to be dispatched as soon as possible. These people were usually women, children, and the elderly. The second group would be lead to the barracks or used for slave labor. This group was usually comprised of able-bodied men. The prisoners were given little food and forced to live and sleep in filthy, overcrowded bunks where disease ran rampant. Thousands of prisoners in concentration camps died simply of starvation, or disease. As the war progressed, more and more concentration camps were transformed into extermination or death camps, some of which were equipped with gas chambers and crematoria for quick and easy extermination and disposal of the bodies of the captives. Some of these camps also had facilities for scientific research, where doctors preformed barbaric medical experiments on twins, dwarves, and other genetically different subjects in hopes of advancing and breeding the so-called "Aryan" race of perfect Germans for Hitler. In 1945, the great World War in Europe came to an end, with the Axis powers surrendering before the Allied invasion of Europe. When the allied powers liberated the concentration camps in Germany, Poland, and other areas of Europe, what they found there was beyond belief. Piles of bodies lay rotting in pits and sheds. The sickly prisoners wandered about, barely alive after the ordeal they had faced. Some of the camps had few prisoners remaining; the majority of the others led on a final death march to Germany. Those who remained at the camps were rescued and taken to hospitals or to shelters to recuperate from their terrifying experience at the hands of the Nazis. All told, the toll that the Holocaust took on the people of Europe, especially Jews, was staggering. By the time it was all over, an estimated 12 million people lay dead, nearly 6 million of which were Jews. The Japanese in World War II committed atrocities against British, American, Canadian, and Australian POWs, as well as countless Filipino, Chinese, and other civilians and soldiers. Japanese troops, acting in the name of the late Emperor Hirohito, carried out an orgy of killing, raping and looting in Nanking. The POWs underwent beheadings, medical experiments, forced labor, disease. The Japanese treatment of POWs was barbaric. POWs were starved, brutalized, and used for forced labor. Some were even used for medical experiments, including live vivisections and assessments of biological weapons. These savage crimes lasted from the day Nanking fell, ON December 13, 1937, to as late as March 1938. 340,000 civilians and prisoners of war were massacred. 80,000 women were raped. From 1937 on, more than 1,30...