World War II - Discussion Board
In Chapter 6, A People’s War, I found an interesting fact revealed by Howard Zinn that the United States is responsible for fighting a war a people’s war. The United States is not following the rules and values and this is the reason for war. Further, it is also an an interesting fact in Chapter 6 that in the World War II, the United States got the support from the racist elite for their own economic motives. The actions of the United States were driven largely by the economic interests and racists, which were criticized, because Hitler wanted to enjoy supremacy over the minorities and inferior groups. Further, in this chapter, Zinn has rightly mentioned that after the World War II and still in the United States nothing changed in a true sense for the betterment of the inferior groups and minorities. The United States is still following its aggressive foreign policy.
After watching the documentary “Memory of the Camps”, there is no significant change my thought regarding World War II, because the documentary is also indicative of the fact that undue power and authority was exercised on people. The genocide, which claimed that about 12 million undesirables including not only Jews, but also, Africans, Asians, the physically and mentally challenged, homosexuals, gypsies, and on and on the list could go of all the groups singled out by Hitler and the Third Reich, from throughout the European continent is also true. It can be analyzed from the fact that during the War II, many people were tortured and enslaved in the concentration camps. However, during the World War II, the Nazi concentration for the undesirables spread across the entire continent (Auger). Further, the SS formed a network of the examination camp, in order to kill millions of prisoners, and they were killed by grassing. However, Genocide was the major function of the extermination camp and the death camp (Grobman, Landies, and Milton). The prisoners, which included Jews, Asians, Africans, and the physically and mentally challenged, etc., were maltreated, they became victims of disease and starvation, and ultimately death resulted.
References
Auger, Martin F. Prisoners of the Home Front: German POWs and "Enemy Aliens" in Southern Quebec, 1940-46. Columbia: U of British Columbia, 2011. Print.
Grobman, Alex, Daniel Landies, and Sybil Milton. Genocide, Critical Issues of the Holocaust: A Companion Volume to the Film, Genocide. New Jersey: Behrman House, 1983. Print.
Wendt, Anton. Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938-1945. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2013. Print.
