FINAL

Jared Wilson

Professor Kelly Warren

ENC 1102

4 April 30, 2013

                         

Holocaust impacts felt today

            “A single landmark of justice and honor does not make a world of peace.” —Former U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, January 1947. The holocaust was undoubtedly the most horrific time of the 20^th century and a watershed event in human history. The world’s eyes where opened by the events that took place, the holocaust showed the horror’s that apathy can cause. The impacts from the holocaust shaped the world we live in today; Strict laws were emplaced to prevent genocide from happening again, the creation of Israel, and the Nuremberg trials set a precedent for war crime trials today.  Although this was a very dark time for Jews, these actions the Germans took changed the world in a good way.

 Immediately following the end of World War Two the world was faced with a challenge, how to seek justice for an unimaginable amount of criminal behavior, the annihilation of the European Jewry. The term “Genocide” came from a Polish-Jewish lawyer by the name of Raphael Limpkin in 1944. December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” (commonly referred to as the Genocide Convention (Holocaust). Laws now strictly pertaining to genocide that were formed by the Genocide Convention made the crimes of genocide punishable under international law. This set the standard that is in affect today.

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Even after it became known that Hitler was committing unspeakable acts of genocide against the Jews, many countries, including the United States and Britain, still refused to allow unlimited amounts of Jewish refugees into their land. Thus after the war the creation of Israel was mandated. On November 29th, 1947 the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian states (as England had initially, but unsuccessfully, attempted to do in 1937), and the vote passed, giving Israel 55% of the country. (Creation of Israel) However, War broke out between the Arabs and Jews soon after. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, established the state of Israel as an independent state, with the rest of the British Mandate of Palestine split into areas controlled by Egypt and Transjordan. The establishment of the state of Israel was seen by Christian Zionists as a sign that God was fulfilling his promises to Abraham and Jacob.  

After the war, some of those responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust were brought to trial. Nuremberg, Germany, was chosen as a site for trials that took place in 1945 and 1946. Judges from the Allied powers -- Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States -- presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals.(Nuremberg Trials). Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. Most of the defendants admitted to the crimes of which they were accused, although most claimed that they were simply following the orders of a higher authority. Those individuals directly involved in the killing received the most severe sentences. Other people who played key roles in the Holocaust, including high-level government officials, and business executives who used concentration camp inmates as forced laborers, received short prison sentences or no penalty at all. Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the exportation of millions of Jews was found in Argentina and brought to trial in Israel. Eichmann

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was found guilty and hung in 1962. The reality is that in the long perspective of history the present century will not hold an admirable position, unless its second half is to redeem its first. These two-score years in the twentieth century will be recorded in the book of years as one of the most bloody in all annals. Two World Wars have left a legacy of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any way that made ancient or medieval history. No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities.(U.S Prosecutor)

            The holocaust has brought forth light to an area that was dark. The suffering that the Jews endured and the wrath that man can create was brought to the attention of the world after the war. It’s hard to imagine being involved in something to that nature on either side of the fence. The tragic acts that conspired during those times impacted the world greatly, even today we see the effects from the holocaust. Before the holocaust genocide wasn’t punishable under international law, Israel was not yet created and the Nuremberg trials set forth the trials of today.

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Work Cited Page

Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, et al. "Surviving The Holocaust: A Meta-Analysis Of The Long-Term Sequelae Of A Genocide." Psychological Bulletin 136.5 (2010): 677-698. PsycARTICLES. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

"How the past catches up with you." New Statesman [1996] 28 May 2012: 10+. Academic OneFile. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

Ozick, Cynthia. "Life Isn't Beautiful." Newsweek 15 Mar. 2010: 54. Academic OneFile. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.