How can we prevent the Holocaust from happening again?

There are lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. One of these lessons is to learn how to prevent an event like this from happening again. There are several ways to do this. One way is to prevent conditions from existing in countries where they feel they have to turn to a dictator to solve problems. Because of the heavy reparations imposed by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, Germany went into a severe depression in the 1920s. This gave Hitler the opportunity to rise to power. Since Germany had little experience in its history with a democratic government, Hitler was able to seize power relatively easily.

A second factor in preventing these events from reoccurring is to avoid severely punishing countries for their previous actions. The terms of the Versailles Treaty were very harsh for Germany. This allowed feelings of resentment and anger to build. Hitler used that anger to seize power and to get revenge for how the Germans were treated by the terms of this treaty.

It is also necessary for countries to stand up to a country like Germany when it began mistreating the Jewish people and violating the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Not much was done when Germany began violated the terms of the treaty. Not much was done when Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws denying basic rights to the Jewish people. Individuals and countries must act when actions like these occur. While it may appear to be easier to look the other way, it isn’t the right or the moral thing to do. Plus, it could lead to more serious and costly actions in the future. Imagine how things might have been different if countries responded to German aggression and the German mistreating of the Jewish people when it first began.

Finally, it is necessary for survivors to tell their stories and to videotape their stories so future generations will have primary source evidence of what happened in the Holocaust. Families of survivors must also do the same thing. There are people who want to deny the Holocaust ever occurred. If these stories aren’t told and preserved, they will be lost as fewer and fewer survivors remain alive. People must hear and see firsthand what happened during the Holocaust.

The sad thing is that since the Holocaust occurred, there have been other mass killings of people. The killing of the Tutsi in Rwanda and the Ethnic Cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and Croatians in the former Yugoslavia are examples of fairly recent mass killings of people.