The Holocaust was a tragic event that ended many Jewish lives.
The Nazis murdered over 6 million innocent Jews. They tortured so many of them leaving the few Holocaust survivors with horrid memories. Propaganda played a huge role and affected many people’s thinking during this time period. The propaganda was designed to influence the targeted people’s opinions, beliefs, and emotions. Joseph Paul Goebbel’s was the German national socialist propagandist. He had complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater.
What the propagandist preached may have been either true or false. They did whatever it took to sway the people to believe their ideas. They wanted people to think that their way was right. The Nazi’s were known for using terms that had literal and actual meaning in their propagandized language.
Their thoughts were hammered into people’s brains so they soon became unconsciously thinking the way the Nazi’s did. The propagandist had rules like our 10 Commandments. The first three were to divide and conquer, tell the people what they want, and the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. (www. primenet. com/popgnda/goebbels.
htm) Like I stated earlier, propaganda was used to sway the ideas and minds of Jews, just like the hoax that took place at Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was a ghetto concentration camp. It was located in today’s Czech Republic. It was suppose to be the “model ghetto” for the Red Cross.
There were rumors about this killing center so the Nazis arranged a hoax. A lot was done to this ghetto; a cafe was created, a children’s opera was performed, a monument was built to honor the dead. When the visitors showed up to inspect the camp they had music playing in the background and a beauty garden was planted at the entrance. All of these things and more were done so that the Red Cross would be persuaded that Theresienstadt was not a killing center. This event did persuade the Red Cross, just like how the Nazi propaganda persuaded many of the Jews.
