Nazi Policy and Cultural Minorities

Paper Summary:

This paper talks about the Holocaust and the Nazi policies that were in place during WWII. The author notes that, though cultural minorities like Jews and gypsies were specifically targeted, the physically and mentally handicapped were also affected by the so called purification initiatives. The paper relates that the German policy makers during the Nazi period wanted the creation of a genetically perfect race of people, which meant that people who were impaired in any way would be killed. Homosexuals were thus discriminated against as well. The author analyzes that these tactics were nothing more than claims in which the Nazis used to exact power over various populations in hopes for a culture forced into a cruel and unnatural homogenization.

From the Paper:

"During World War II, Nazi policy gripped Eastern Europe, afflicting its peoples with unspeakable acts of cruelty and depravity. Known as the Holocaust, this was a setting in which some of the worst aspects of man's psyche emerged. A plan for extermination of ethnic impurity, known as the Final Solution, informed the German perpetration of genocide, executed through the encampment, abuse and slaughter of millions, with Jews, gypsies and other cultural minorities being specifically targeted. The cultural minorities here noted would include many of those considered to be on the fringe of German society and, in the early running of the Nazi regime, would serve as defenseless groups upon which to test strategies relating to the Cultural isolation and the so-called Final Solution."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Laska, V. (1983). Women in the Resistance and in the Holocaust. Greenwood Press.
• Speigel Online. (2007). New exhibition documents forced prostitution in concentration camps. Speigel.de.
• Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). (2005). Hitler targeted the handicapped first. Traditional Values.org.

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