In Babylon (Historical Context)

Historical Context

The Onset of World War II

The world experienced a decade of aggression in the 1930s that culminated in World War II. This second world war resulted from the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan. These militaristic regimes gained control, partly as a result of the Great Depression experienced by most of the world in the early 1930s and from the conditions created by the peace settlements following World War I. The dictatorships established in each of these three countries encouraged expansion into neighboring countries.

In Germany, Adolf Hitler strengthened the army during the 1930s. In 1936, Benito Mussolini's Italian troops took Ethiopia. From 1936 to 1939, Spain was engaged in civil war involving Francisco Franco's fascist army, aided by Germany and Italy. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and in March 1939, it occupied Czechoslovakia. Italy took Albania in April 1939.

One week after Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R. signed the Treaty of Nonaggression, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany after a German U-boat sank the British ship Athenia off the coast of Ireland. Another British ship, Courageous, was sunk on September 19. All the members of the British Commonwealth, except Ireland, soon joined Britain and France in their declaration of war.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust is the name given to the Nazi persecution and extermination of European Jews. By the end of World War II, six million Jews had died, along with millions of other so-called objectionable people, such as handicapped persons, Gypsies, intellectuals, and homosexuals. The impetus for this persecution came before the war, in the early 1930s when Adolf Hitler came into power in Germany. Hitler gained support for his persecution of the Jews by blaming them for Germany's economic and social problems and claiming that the country lost World War I because of a Jewish conspiracy. Wealthy Jews who recognized the impending danger fled Nazi Germany, but others who could not afford to relocate or who hesitated too long were destined to die.

In 1933, Germans classified the Jews as Untermenschen, meaning subhuman. A year later, more discrimination was legislated. The yellow Star of David was marked on the windows of Jewish shops, which were forbidden to Christian Germans. Jews were relegated to special areas on buses, trains, and park benches and were openly ridiculed and bullied. The Nuremberg Laws, passed in 1935, took away German citizenship from any person who had one Jewish grandparent, denying these people the right to marry non-Jews. It became increasingly difficult for Jews to find shops that would sell them food and medicine.

Violence against the Jews became an accepted practice beginning on November 10, 1938, after Krystalnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass. This was the first night of a week-long terror campaign, ordered by Hitler after a Jew killed a Nazi in Paris. Ten thousand Jewish shops in Germany and the occupied territories of Austria and Sudetenland were destroyed and looted while Jewish homes and synagogues were burned. Ninety-six Jews lost their lives while over one thousand were injured. Thirty thousand were arrested and sent to concentration camps. This night marked a crucial turning point in Germany's treatment of the Jews, the commencement of Hitler's Final Solution, the extermination of European Jewry in every occupied country.

Approximately 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands in 1939, including 25,000 German- Jewish refugees who had fled during the prewar years. The majority lived in Amsterdam. By the end of the war, 75 percent had died. While many citizens collaborated with the Nazis, the Dutch underground helped hide and eventually saved thousands. Because of the survival of her diary, Anne Frank is a well-known Dutch Jew who hid during the war years but was eventually discovered. She and her family were sent to Bergen-Belsen, where all of them but her father died.

The Development of the Atomic Bomb

In 1939, several prominent scientists, including Albert Einstein, informed President Franklin D. Roosevelt of German efforts to build an atomic bomb. Soon after, Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project, which began work on creating the bomb, in the hopes that it would be completed before the Germans developed theirs.

During the next six years, more than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project, which was supervised from start to finish by J. Robert Oppenheimer. The first bomb was tested near Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the morning of July 16, 1945. The incredible explosion that could be seen over one hundred miles away heralded the start of the Atomic Age. After the blast, most who worked on the bomb were shocked by its power and capacity for destruction. Several of them subsequently signed a petition against its use, which was ignored by the government.

The atomic bomb has been used twice: first, the United States detonated it over Hiroshima, and second, the United States dropped it over Nagasaki, both cities in Japan. The explosion in Hiroshima, which vaporized or burnt everything in an area of three miles, immediately killed an estimated 66,000 people and injured another 69,000. Nagasaki lost 39,000 in the initial blast and over 25,000 people were injured. Both cities were practically completely destroyed.