The final solution
Grave at Bergen-Belsen, 1945
The Holocaust, which occurred from 1933 to 1945, involved the extermination of the Jewish race and other "unfit" people, such as Gypsies and the mentally ill. Led by Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany, the Nazi party exterminated six million Jews and five million others that were considered inferior. The Nazis, being mostly German, blamed the Jews for losing World War one. At first, the Nazis only started taking away the Jew's privileges with the Nuremberg laws . These laws segregated Jews and took away their rights. Ghettos were then built to relocate Jewish populations. In most ghettos, Jews were forced to live in tiny rooms with other Jewish families, and food was scarce. Soon after, concentration camps were built to confine Jews and other minorities while forcing them to work with receiving little to no food. Many prisoners of these camps were abused and killed, and several died from starvation and disease. Furthermore, extermination camps were built for one purpose: murder. Auschwitz, the most infamous camp during the Holocaust, was a mixture of a concentration camp and an extermination camp. After everyone gave up their belongings, those who arrived that were unfit for labor, mostly children and the elderly, were sent to gas chambers and crematoriums immediately. Others were forced to work and live cramped together in little spaces in the walls of barracks. Many prisoners were shot systematically into graves they dug. and others were worked to death. Disease spread quickly due to lack of hygiene, and several prisoners, especially children, went through horrific experiments, leaving most either mutilated or dead. In 1945, Auschwitz was liberated, and the terrors Holocaust were slowly coming to a close. These events that happened many years ago will surely be remembered throughout history to come.
This song, Ani Ma Amin, is a Hebrew affirmation of faith. Many Jewish prisoners sung it as they were being sent to the gas chambers, and would continue to sing until the gas choked them to death. It soon became known as the Hymm of the Camps. It is still sung regularly at Holocaust Remembrance Ceremonies. The words translate as follows:
"I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may linger, despite this I will wait for him each day that he may come."
"I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may linger, despite this I will wait for him each day that he may come."