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Amanda Ursini
Mr. Hawkins
Modern World History-P, Period 6
8 April 2016
Additional Victims of Nazi Persecution
While the Holocaust is traditionally remembered for the attempted genocide of Jewish
people, many other groups were persecuted against and murdered also. Out of the eleven million
people whose lives were taken during the Holocaust, between five to six million of those were
Jewish. The remaining five to six million people were various groups that the Nazis saw as
inferior and got into the way of creating the pure Aryan race. There are lesser known groups that
were persecuted through laws and discriminated against by Germans and other European nations.
These groups were sought out to be destroyed because of race, religion, political beliefs, and
sexualities. Some additional victims of Nazi persecution were Gypsies, Jehovahs Witnesses, and
people of Polish descent.
The persecution of the Roma Gypsies was relentless and horrendous. It started with racial
bias and hatred, and then slowly developed and spurred into the genocide of their race. Most of
the racist and discriminatory laws that applied to the Jewish residents in Germany also applied to
the Gypsies. For example, The 1935 Nuremberg laws (which defined Jews by blood) were
later applied to the Roma (Evidence #1). The Gypsies faced the same discrimination that the
Jewish people had to persevere through. The persecution of the Gypsies also took the same path
as the maltreatment of the Jewish citizens. It started with seemingly small things, and eventually

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constructed into genocide. In June of 1936, a central office to combat the Gypsy Nuisance
opened in Munich. By 1938, Roma were being deported to concentration camps (Evidence
#3). The treatment of Gypsies was beyond atrocious. The Nazis viewed them as an inferior race
that needed to be completely annihilated. The tragedy is that they nearly succeeded. The
Gypsies were also moved into special areas set up by the Nazis, and a half of a million of
them- representing almost the entire Eastern European Gypsy population- were wiped out
(Evidence #2). This tragedy is rarely discussed or mentioned when talking about the Holocaust.
The Gypsies are one group out of the many forgotten victims. While the Gypsies were a
prominent victim of the holocaust, religious groups, such as Jehovahs Witnesses, were also
target of discrimination.
Many religious groups were the target of Hitlers rage, but the most prominent of all were
Jehovahs Witnesses. The Nazis targeted this religious group particularly because they refused to
swear an oath of loyalty to the Nazi regime. Hitler felt particularly threatened by this strong
group of Christians because they, from the very beginning, refused to recognize any God
other than Jehovah (Evidence #2). This group made little effort to hide their dislike of Hitler
and the Nazi regime. Because of this, they were seen as untrustworthy. Much like how the Jews
were forced to wear a Star of David, Jehovahs Witnesses were forced to wear purple armbands.
They were also sent to concentration camps. All in all, about 10,000 Jehovahs Witnesses
were imprisoned in concentration camps (Evidence #3). While they were a smaller
population in the camps, their presence was still known. They were offered to be released if they
signed their loyalty to the Nazi party, however, not many signed the document. thousands
were imprisoned as dangerous traitors because they refused to take a pledge of loyalty to
the Third Reich (Evidence #2). Jehovahs Witnesses were seen as a viable threat to Germany,

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even though they tried to convince the country of their neutrality. About one third of the
Jehovahs Witnesses that were imprisoned in concentration camps died. Some were shot after
being convicted by a military tribunal. While Jehovahs Witnesses were discriminated against
and imprisoned unfairly, the Nazis sought to do the same to the Polish.
The Nazis had a biased and atrocious view of the Polish. Poland was Hitlers first target,
as they had very little military power at the time. To demonstrate the hate felt towards the Polish:
All Poles will disappear from the worldit is essential that the great German people
should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles Heinrich Himmler (Evidence
#2). The animosity between the German and the Polish was almost tangible. The Germans
viewed them as vastly inferior, and had no problem proving just that. Shortly after the invasion
of Poland, many of the elite class of Poland were murdered. The Nazis viewed Poles and the
Slavic and so-called Asiatic peoples of the Soviet Union as racially inferior, and slated them
for subjugation and forced labor (Evidence #1). The Polish that remained were taken as
slaves for German farmers or put into concentration camps. They also used some Polish for
scientific experiments. The German took over everything in Poland, from the stores to the farms.
The Jews that lived in Poland were forced to live in ghettos. The combination of a Nazi
genocidal policy and the Nazis thirst for more living space resulted in disaster from Polish,
Ukrainian, and Byelorussian populations (Evidence #3). Millions of people were deported to
Germany for forced labor. Thousands of people were put to death by killing squads. They were
seen as subhuman, and an obstacle in the mission for the perfect Aryan race. The Nazis severely
mistreated the Polish and several other groups during the Holocaust.
In conclusion, some prominent victims of the Holocaust were the Gypsies, the Jehovahs
Witnesses, and the Polish. The Nazis stopped at nothing and let no one get in their way of

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achieving the pure Aryan race. For some groups, their attempted genocide was nearly successful.
The Jewish are the most remembered as the victims of this travesty, however, many other groups
were persecuted against and were forced to nearly become extinct. All of those who were
oppressed during this time period deserve to be commemorated and recognized. It is important to
remember all of the victims of the Holocaust, as to never repeat this catastrophe again.