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To encourage
a universal understanding, information is presented
about the history of that period throughout the Memorial.
Factual statements about the Holocaust, its many victims
and heroes, are inscribed in the granite walkway.
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WHILE MOST PEOPLE
AIDED THE NAZIS or simply looked the other way, there were
some courageous individuals in Germany and throughout Europe
who risked their lives to save the Jews.
MOST INFANTS
AND CHILDREN WERE KILLED immediately upon arrival at the camps.
The Nazis murdered as many as one and a half million Jewish
children.
THE NAZIS ALSO TARGETED THE ROMANI PEOPLE, commonly called Gypsies,
as "racially undesirable." Hundreds of thousands of
them were imprisoned or murdered.
AFTER THE GERMAN ARMY INVADED DENMARK, the Danish people mobilized
to ferry 7,800 Jews to safety in neutral Sweden. At the end
of the War, 99% of Denmark's Jews were still alive.
THE NAZIS CONSIDERED THE SLAVIC PEOPLE to be "sub human"
-- the elite were to be exterminated and the rest were to be
used for slave labor. Millions died under German occupation.
THERE WERE MANY ACTS OF JEWISH RESISTANCE against the Nazis.
With little or no resources, there rebelled in the ghettos,
fought as partisans in the forests, and revolted as prisoners
in the camps.
JEWS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO REVOLTED against the Nazis on April
19,1943. A handful of Jews heroically held off the German army
for several weeks. Finally, the Nazis destroyed the ghetto.
GERMAN HOMOSEXUALS WERE EARLY VICTIMS of Nazi persecution. Many
were imprisoned. Some were castrated or used in medical experiments.
Thousands died in concentration camps.
IN POLAND, ALONE, THE GERMAN ARMY KILLED more than six million
Polish citizens -- Jews and Christians -- including 2,600 Catholic
priests.
BY LATE 1942, THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ALLIES were aware of
the death camps, but did nothing to destroy them.
Dedication
Statement| Chronology|
Personal Statements
Factual Statements| Martin
Neimoeller
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