Read Related Article #1: Resistance
Read Related Article #2: Survivor Profile: Yala Korwin
Read Related Article #4: Liberation
Read Related Article #5: Survivor Profile: Werner Kleeman
Read Related Article #6: Where they went
Read Related Article #7: Survivor Profile: Hanne Liebmann
Read Related Article #8: Survivor Profile: Richard Sonnenfeldt
Read Related Article #9: Survivor Profile: Larry Wenig
Read Related Article #10: Justice after genocide
Although the Jewish people suffered the greatest at the hands of the Nazis, the desire to create a master race and get rid of Nazi opposition affected others who were also killed and brutalized.
Near the beginning of Hitler’s reign, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), targets included Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats and leaders of the trade union.
As the Nazis began to target other groups, a euthanasia program was used to start to get rid of both children and adults who were institutionalized.
Another group that was targeted was Jehovah’s Witnesses “because they were unwilling to accept the authority of the state, because of their international connections, and because they were strongly opposed to both war on behalf of a temporal authority and organized government in matters of science,” according to the USHMM website. Also, their apolitical actions were often viewed as being anti-Nazi.
Many Jehovah’s Witnesses were sent to prison or concentration camps, where they were marked by purple triangle badges. It is estimated that 1,000 German Jehovah’s Witnesses died during their imprisonment, as well as 400 from different countries. Also, 250 were executed because they refused to serve in Germany’s military.
Male homosexuals were also persecuted by the Nazi party. Among the reasons for this was that they were viewed as too weak to fight for their country and “unlikely to produce children and increase the German birthrate,” according to USHMM.
During the Nazi reign, many thousands of homosexuals were arrested, also ending up in prisons and camps. They were forced to wear pink triangles.
Another group singled out for racial reasons were the Roma, or gypsies. They too were sent to camps and killed. There are no exact figures on how many European Roma were killed during the Holocaust, although a rough estimate is that it was between 25 and 50 percent of their population.
