The Holocaust and the Ten Commandments

The Holocaust is derived from a Greek word meaning "sacrifice by fire". The Holocaust was the mass murder of Jewish people and other undesirables such as homosexuals, political prisoners, gypsies, the disabled, priests, and Germans who were not for the cause. This is called genocide, which is,  the deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation. The Nazis were members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and believed, like Hilter, that Germans (blond haired, blue eyed people) were the arian race. This hatred of everyone else, especially Jewish people, is called Anti-Semitism. The people were placed in Concentration Camps where they were pushed into forced labor and worked to death. The conditions were horrible. Many starved to death and died of disease or the freezing cold. Many undesirables were deported to Ghettos. Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish people and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939. From there the people would be picked up in cattle cars and sent to their death in the Death Camps and Concentration Camps this was called Deportation. Kristallnacht also called "The Night of Broken Glass" was the deliberate destruction of Jewish synagogues, homes and businesses. This marked the start of the Holocaust.

Timeline:

1933:
January 30, 1933 - Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany.
March 22, 1933 - Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central Germany, Sachsenhausen near Berlin in northern Germany, and Ravensbrück for women.
March 24, 1933 - German Parliament passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers.
April 11, 1933 - Nazis issue a Decree defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan...especially if one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith."
May 10, 1933 - Burning of books in Berlin and throughout Germany.
July 14, 1933 - Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany; Also, Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship
In July - Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects.
In September - Nazis establish Reich Chamber of Culture, then exclude Jews from the Arts.
September 29, 1933 - Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land.
October 4, 1933 - Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors.
November 24, 1933 - Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps.

1934:
May 17, 1934 - Jews not allowed national health insurance.
August 2, 1934 - German President von Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Führer.

1935:
May 21, 1935 - Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military.
June 26, 1935 - Nazis pass law allowing forced abortions on women to prevent them from passing on hereditary diseases.
August 6, 1935 - Nazis force Jewish performers/artists to join Jewish Cultural Unions.
September 15, 1935 - Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews decreed.

1936:
March 7, 1936 - Nazis occupy the Rhineland.
In August - Nazis set up an Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortions (by healthy women).

1937:
In January - Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.

1938:
April 22, 1938 - Nazis prohibit Aryan 'front-ownership' of Jewish businesses.
April 26, 1938 - Nazis order Jews to register wealth and property.
June 14, 1938 - Nazis order Jewish-owned businesses to register.
July 6, 1938 - Nazis prohibited Jews from trading and providing a variety of specified commercial services.
July 23, 1938 - Nazis order Jews over age 15 to apply for identity cards from the police, to be shown on demand to any police officer.
July 25, 1938 - Jewish doctors prohibited by law from practicing medicine.
August 11, 1938 - Nazis destroy the synagogue in Nuremberg.
August 17, 1938 - Nazis require Jewish women to add Sarah and men to add Israel to their names on all legal documents including passports.
September 27, 1938 - Jews are prohibited from all legal practices.
October 5, 1938 - Law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red "J."
October 15, 1938 - Nazi troops occupy the Sudetenland.
November 9/10 - Kristallnacht - The Night of Broken Glass.
November 12, 1938 - Nazis fine Jews one billion marks for damages related to Kristallnacht.
November 15, 1938 - Jewish pupils are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.

1939:
February 21, 1939 - Nazis force Jews to hand over all gold and silver items.
April 30, 1939 - Jews lose rights as tenants and are relocated into Jewish houses.
In May - The St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba, the United States and other countries and returns to Europe.
July 4, 1939 - German Jews denied the right to hold government jobs.
September 1, 1939 - Jews in Germany are forbidden to be outdoors after 8 p.m. in winter and 9 p.m. in summer.
September 21, 1939 - Heydrich issues instructions to SS Einsatzgruppen (special action squads) in Poland regarding treatment of Jews, stating they are to be gathered into ghettos near railroads for the future "final goal." He also orders a census and the establishment of Jewish administrative councils within the ghettos to implement Nazi policies and decrees.
September 23, 1939 - German Jews are forbidden to own wireless (radio) sets.
In October - Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.
October 26, 1939 - Forced labor decree issued for Polish Jews aged 14 to 60.
November 23, 1939 - Yellow stars required to be worn by Polish Jews over age 10

1940:
January 25, 1940 - Nazis choose the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland near Krakow as the site of a new concentration camp.
February 12, 1940 - First deportation of German Jews into occupied Poland.
November 15, 1940 - The Warsaw Ghetto, containing over 400,000 Jews, is sealed off.

1941:
September 3, 1941 - The first test use of Zyklon-B gas at Auschwitz.
September 1, 1941 - German Jews ordered to wear yellow stars.

1942:
In January - Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon-B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Bunker I (the red farmhouse) in Birkenau with the bodies being buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow.
January 20, 1942 - Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution."
June 30, 1942 - At Auschwitz, a second gas chamber, Bunker II (the white farmhouse), is made operational at Birkenau due to the number of Jews arriving.
June 30 and July 2 - The New York Times reports via the London Daily Telegraph that over 1,000,000 Jews have already been killed by Nazis.
September 9, 1942 - Open pit burning of bodies begins at Auschwitz in place of burial. The decision is made to dig up and burn those already buried, 107,000 corpses, to prevent fouling of ground water.
September 18, 1942 - Reduction of food rations for Jews in Germany.

1943:
In 1943 - The number of Jews killed by SS Einsatzgruppen passes one million. Nazis then use special units of slave laborers to dig up and burn the bodies to remove all traces.
January 18, 1943 - First resistance by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
January 29, 1943 - Nazis order all Gypsies arrested and sent to extermination camps.

1944:
October 30, 1944 - Last use of the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
November 8, 1944 - Nazis force 25,000 Jews to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border, followed by a second forced march of 50,000 persons, ending at Mauthausen.
November 25, 1944 - Himmler orders destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz.
Late 1944 - Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jews by moving them from Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz.

1945:
In 1945 - As Allied troops advance, the Nazis conduct death marches of concentration camp inmates away from outlying areas.
January 27, 1945 - Russian troops liberate Auschwitz. By this time, an estimated 2,000,000 persons, including 1,500,000 Jews, have been murdered there.
April 15, 1945 - Approximately 40,000 prisoners freed at Bergen-Belsen by the British, who report "both inside and outside the huts was a carpet of dead bodies, human excreta, rags and filth."
 April 29, 1945 - U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau.
April 30, 1945 - Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker.


Many of the Ten Commandments were broken during the Holocaust including the 4th Commandment (honor your mother and father) hitler killed his mother because she was Jewish. The 5th Commandment (You shall not kill) The Nazi killed millions of innocent people. And the 7th Commandment (You shall not steal) the nazis not only stole physical items from people but also their lives.

My Personal Opinion

Everyone has their own opinions on touchy subjects like abortion, birth control, assisted suicide, etc. As for me, i could careless about what other people decide, it's their life, they can make their own decision on what is right and wrong.

In regards to abortion, I am Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. I don't think like some crazy people that you have to pick a side or you will go to hell or something. I am Pro-Life because everyone deserves to life and to have a future. Also because some people get abortions because they accidentally got pregnant and want nothing to do with being a parent, why don't you just give the baby up for adoption or use protection! It can't be that hard, people refrain from getting pregnant everyday! But i am also Pro-Choice because it is understandable that if a girl gets raped or something horrible like that that they would be so traumatized so they would want to get rid of it but that also brings me back to the point that you could just give it up for adoption. I don't understand would someone could just destroy a life when there are so many people in the world that would kill to be pregnant who can't.

 Just war also makes me slightly annoyed. I can't comprehend why it is absolutely necessary for people to fight each other. What exactly is the need for fighting? Why can't everyone just leave each other alone and learn to do what is right for everyone. For example the War Against Terror. How many years ago did the Christians take the Holy Land, almost a thousand, and the Muslim terrorists are still trying to get "revenge" by just killing people that have no idea what they are even taking about?! How did they justify that? They took millions of lives that probably weren't even Catholic. In the name of what? Religion? Something so ancient as an a thousand year old conflict would prove to be so delicate and intricate. How did the United States get to be the center of the conflict anyways?

I am all for Capital Punishment as only as the person is actually guilty of a serve enough crime like a serial murderer or a serial rapist. I know i wouldn't want a person like that in jail for the fear that they would be granted a shortened sentence or became an escape artist as well as a criminal. I believe that if the victim of the crime suffered the person would be treated the same way. No one should be treated wrongly. Capital Punishment keeps safety on the streets. I believe that people who do thinks that murder and rape are sick in the head and can never be improved. There is no point in trying, they are just completely insane to think that doing something so horrible is actually okay and acceptable to do. Some of the crazier people seem to believe that they are doing their victims a favor by doing what they do which i believe is proof enough for the electric chair or prison injection. But people with lesser crimes deserve a second chance, just send them to a jail or a correction facility and give them a second try at life.  

Reaction to the Trayvon Martin Case

Everyone is outraged that something like this, if not for the prejudice and brutatility of the case, would otherwise just slip under the radar.

Except from;  http://rvanews.com/news/local-reactions-to-trayvon-martin/58163

Pastor Lance Watson, St. Paul’s Baptist Church

Q What has been the general reaction among people you’ve talked to, either in your congregation or around town, to the death of Trayvon Martin?

A It has been one of shock, frustration, and anger.

Q What is, in your opinion, the main reason why so many people across the country have been both saddened and angered by Martin’s death?

A It appears to represent such a miscarriage of justice. A young, unarmed teen is gunned down by someone who said that he felt threatened, although police asked [Zimmerman] during the dispatch call not to pursue the young man. People are angry because the shooter was not arrested and there is a widespread belief that if Trayvon (African American) had been Terrance (Caucasian American), no matter who the shooter was he would have been detained, arrested, and arraigned.

QWhat was the reason for titling last Sunday’s service “Hoodies Up?”

A To bring public attention and awareness to three critical issues:

1. The need for justice in the Trayvon Martin case.
2. The need for our entire culture to evaluate our use of stereotypes and to highlight the negative impact of the bias and prejudices that we carry, particularly related to people of color.
3. To highlight the need to value all life, regardless of a person’s ethnicity AND to express similar outrage and disgust when persons of the same race kill one another.

Obviously this issue has shook the whole nation and they will not rest until justice as come for 17- year old Trayvon Martin.

Trayvon Martin: Lawfully Killed, But At What Price?

I'm sure you all have heard by now about the 17 year-old African American teen from Stanford, Florida. His name was Trayvon Martin. On his way to his father's fiancee's house, after going to a local convenience store, he was fatally shot in the chest. The man who shot Martin was 28 year-old George Zimmerman white male who was part of the local Community Watch program in the quite gated community of Semiole County

.

The man who shot Trayvon has still not been charged, despite the act of murdering an unarmed child. He told police he shot Trayvon in self-defense, and police say they have no evidence to refute his story. The local and state authorities have not even tried to look deeper into the core of this tragedy because it is a state law that you can "Stand Your Ground" if you feel threatened even if it is just a few unfriendly words, or even a look.

This story made headlines when the release hit not only the news but all the social media sites on the Internet; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Yahoo!, Google and many other sites are speaking up in protest. It is just flat out wrong, no matter what the law says, to shoot a person if you aren't hurt by them. In the 911 call Zimmerman claimed that there was "There's a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he's up to no good, on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around looking about... These a**holes always get away." Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, made a statement in reply to Zimmerman's accusations about Trayvon's hoodie pulled over his head and jeans outfit the day of his death, saying "Thousands of people wear that outfit every day, so what was so suspicious about Trayvon that Zimmerman felt as though he had to confront him?" Plus it was raining. Who doesn't want something to over you head while you walk in the rain?  The dispatcher on the 911 call told Zimmerman that it was unnecessary to follow the boy after telling the woman that he was running, but Zimmerman didn't listen.

Since there was no real danger and Zimmerman still felt the need to shoot an innocent boy, many consider his action prejudice or racist. Zimmerman was carrying a 9 millimeter handgun while Trayvon was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. It's it quite safe to assume that an ice tea bottle and a bag of Skittles on a 17 year-old child would be much safer than with a 9 millimeter handgun? There was no reason to shoot Trayvon.

Zimmerman has quite a reputation for calling 911 on "suspicious" active of African Americans of all ages. He has been tying up emergence phone lines for 14 months, prior to the shooting, complaining of this and that and everything in the book. Nothing he said had ever been a threat to the small, gated community.

Recent news has told us that, finally, FBI and Flordia law enforcement are taking a stand and investigating the case. Hundreds of protests and rallies are underway to provide for the arrest of Zimmerman. They believe he has committed a hate-crime. Zimmerman "was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer. The charges appear to have been dropped." This is completely whacked! Who blatantly beats a police officer and has their charges dropped. He honestly must be mental, along with any other judges and lawyers involved in letting the charges dropped.

In recent news, there has been a police video of Zimmerman released on ABC news. It shows Zimmerman clean of inguries...unlike the claim made by Zimmerman of Martin's beating. This is excellent new evidence.
Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-20/trayvon-martin-teen-shot-stereotypes/53677634/1
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/justice/florida-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2
http://www.thegrio.com/specials/trayvon-martin/trayvon-martin-15-facts-you-need-to-know-about-teen-shot-in-sanford-florida.php
http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/20/my-12-year-old-son-knows-he-could-be-trayvon/?hpt=hp_t1
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/19/148905661/killing-of-fla-teen-trayvon-martin-becomes-national-story-about-race
http://www.thegrio.com/news/past-zimmerman-911-calls-war.php

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10915887-police-video-shows-george-zimmerman-shortly-after-trayvon-martin-shooting

The "R-Word"...Is it really that bad?

The "R-Word", or more commonly known as retard or retarded. This word and other slurs like it have been raising controversy in the media every since there has been people who are different. This article by CNN interviews a mother of a son with cerebral palsy. She believes that using the word is just down right insulting to her son and other people with mental disorders. She fears that the negative meaning will be association with her son and a whole other issue will arise........bullying. 

After reding this article i found that the word itself it's bad its just how it is used and interpreted. It is not very practical to change "mentally retarded" to "intellectually disabilited" in every document, book and mind. It's just not realistic. Besides, the word itself it's even that bad. Techinqually it means slow, or the inability for the brain to function how it should. We all have one of those moments where you just can't think of what to say or what comes out of your mouth sounds like you just woke up, still drunk, with the accent from Star Wars or something.

Though I do thing the word is poorly used it's not enough to create a "Word Banning Policy". One of the comments said how if the government does create a word banning policy, leaving only the politically sound words available for human speech then we would be reduced to grunts and groans because when you think about it they are right. People have trouble with everything so if i go around calling people "purple" or something to that degree of simpilicy it would still be a big deal. Creating a law against words will only cause there to be new words, maybe even "worse" than they are right now.

Have you noticed that other words, such as, "special" and "gay" are on the rise too? They are exactly the same as retarded. They are just words, they mean nothing. Bottom line; nothing one group of people can say can make another group of people change their minds. 


http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/07/living/end-r-word/index.html?iref=allsearch

My teacher won't let me swear on the Internet.

We see it everyday. Whether it be one swear word or everyone one is a swear word. It's disgusting and hard to look at, for most people. It makes that person look like a slob and a brat. It is totally unnecessary. You're a human being, start acting like a gentleman  or lady.

I may do it from time to time but i'm not like some people now-a-days. It a moment of frustration i can see this happening but just use a filter! Goodness! There are so many other words you can use like, heck, darn, gosh, freak....so many other words.

Now that my teacher put a restriction on profanity, many people in my class are using the excuse that, that is taking away their right to freedom of speech. They kind of have a point, they have a right to say whatever they want. The sight of it reflects poorly on the person so it's their loss.

Modern Slavery

Slavery. You would have thought people would've learned by now that slavery was a horrible, inhuman, punishable way to treat people; that it's just down right evil. But no, they haven't. But know instead of slavery they call it "Human Trafficking". Even with a different name, slavery and human trafficking are still the same.

Just before the month started, President Obama declared that January was to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. He stated:

"Human trafficking endangers the lives of millions of people around the world, and it is a crime that knows no borders. Trafficking networks operate both domestically and transnationally, and although abuses disproportionally affect women and girls, the victims of this ongoing global tragedy are men, women, and children of all ages.
"Around the world, we are monitoring the progress of governments in combating trafficking while supporting programs aimed at its eradication. From forced labor and debt bondage to forced commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary domestic servitude, human trafficking leaves no country untouched.
"With this knowledge, we rededicate ourselves to forging robust international partnerships that strengthen global anti-trafficking efforts, and to confronting traffickers here at home."

Under the comments section of this blog someone posted:

"Someone should probably tell Obama that slavery ended roughly 150 years ago. These symbolic browny points are just a diversion to the fact that Obama is doing nothing to address his now very large list of domestic and foreign problems."

Actually, if he or she was reading the speech Obama made maybe he was see that, no, slavery didn't end, it is still going on even in the U.S. It is hard sometimes to cope with people's ignorance. They jump before they look every time.

Did you know that annually, human trafficking reels in an enormous profit? But just how large is this "enormous profit" you ask? About $32 billion a year. A YEAR! That could pay an average of 1, 600, 000 kid's 4-year college tuition. It's unbelievable what people do to make money. I would like to think it would be far easier to get a good job like as a bank teller or a doctor or a window guy at McDonald's than a Trafficker. What goes wrong in their head to posses them to do should horrible things to other humans.

It's even more messed up that out of the 14,500 to 17,500 people, in the U.S., who get abducted and enslaved a year, about 46% of the people know each other. I can't even tell you how freaked out i would be to learn that one of my family members or close friend's parents or a coworker was trafficking other humans as slaves. I would probably run and never come back.

Now that i have discussed what i think if wrong with slavery and why it's so messed up i think it's time to learn what the actual definition of slavery is. The definition CNN uses is:

“Slavery occurs when one person completely controls another person, using violence or the threat of violence to maintain that control, exploits them economically, pays them nothing and they cannot walk away.”

But, what about human trafficking? Human trafficking can be defined by U.N. Trafficking Protocol as

"The recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, or fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation."

You like chocolate right? I mean who doesn't! But have you ever stopped to think how much work goes into harvesting the ingredients for this delicous treat? That's right slaves, human trafficking victims, children. Some are too young to even know what the word chocolate means! It's not fair, they are just children.

I personally think the 3 most important facts about slavery are:

1. Slavery is not legal anywhere but happens everywhere.
2. 27 million slaves are in the world today.
3. We can end slavery in our lifetime. Everyone has a role to play: government, business, international
organizations, consumers, and YOU.

I think these facts are important because it brings a whole new true to the subject of human trafficking.

Nothing people say can ever justify slavery, but still people try and every day more and more men, women, and children are abducted, abused and exploited. When will they ever learn....

Sources:
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/
http://www.freetheslaves.net/