DEAR Blog
Disaster Experiential Activity and Reflection
Project by Noah Hass-Cohen, Psy.D., Alliant International University School of Professional Psychology
Contributors: Jeremy Arzt, M.A.; Joanna Clyde Findley, M.A.; Anya Kavanaugh, B.F.A;
Alliant International University, Couples and Family Therapy, Crisis and Trauma course students
1933-1945: THE HOLOCAUST
Background
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The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory.
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Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds perished.
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More than one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.
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Broad definitions of the Holocaust include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other groups, including Romani (more commonly known in English by the exonym "Gypsies"), Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were of German or non-German ethnic origin. Using this definition, the total number of civilians murdered by the Nazis is between 10 million and 11 million.
Lager Nordhausen, a Gestapo concentration camp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rows_of_bodies_of_dead_inmates_fill_the_yard_of_Lager_Nordhausen,_a_Gestapo_concentration_camp.jpg
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Victims in concentration camps suffered not only unimaginably cruel mass murder, but also violent physical and sexual abuse, slave labor, starvation, horrific “medical experimentation,” and many other kinds of torture.
Psychological Impact
The psychological impact of this genocide is so far-reaching and widespread, both on an individual and worldwide scale, that it cannot be summarized here. Its immediate impact included multiple generations, and long-term impact continues to further generations.