Jews During WWII

Here is a paper I wrote about the Jews and Hitler last semester. Not one of my best, but thought I'd post it anyways. ;)

The Jews During WWII
World War II affected people all over the world, but harmed no one more than the Jews. They received horrible treatment at the hands of Adolf Hitler– the dictator of Germany– whose Nazis attempted to take over Europe. My question is,"Why did Hitler treat the Jews this way?" The Jews never caused harm to anyone and certainly had no reason to be treated like animals. I simply do not understand how someone could be so evil to this peaceful group known as God’s chosen people.
No one bothered the German Jews until Hitler came to power in the 1930's. For some strange reason, Hitler hated Jews and always tried to make their lives miserable. As his reign progressed, he made up ridiculous laws to suppress Jewish freedoms. Jews couldn’t participate in political elections, couldn’t raise the German flag, and couldn’t marry other Germans. I don’t see Hitler’s reasoning here. I can see how he might not want Jews to vote, since they would almost certainly vote against him. However, they might not have voted against him if he hadn’t treated them so badly in the first place, which brings us back to the original question of Hitler’s horrible treatment of the Jews. Maybe Hitler knew that the Jews would be the only Germans who could see his true evil self, so he wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. After all, when Hitler first came to power many Germans viewed him as their liberator and as a great man. I doubt the Jews ever did. They looked to God as their leader; not Hitler.
Hitler soon began ordering the sterilization of those "imperfect people" in society, and most of the people Hitler sterilized turned out to be Jews. Hitler seemed intent on wiping out the Jewish population and establishing a perfect Aryan race in Germany. Why did Hitler consider the Jews as less perfect than everyone else? Just because the Jews believed differently from everyone else in Germany doesn’t make them any less human. If we’re "ranking" humans here, the Jews seem to be better quality than Hitler and his "perfect race". After all, at least they have morals. Perhaps this reason encouraged Hitler to get rid of them in the first place. Maybe he felt guilty for not having morals, (though that’s really hard to believe).
When war broke out in 1939, the Jewish plight worsened. Hitler threatened not only German Jews, but Jews all over Europe. After Hitler invaded Poland, he killed many of the Jews there and sent others to concentration camps. Reporters uncovered the atrocities of one of Hitler’s worst Polish camps in 1944. Many of the people there (many of whom were Jews) were herded into small rooms and gassed. The Nazis recycled their ashes into fertilizers for German farmers. How could anyone be so base as to do something like that? How could any human have the heart to act this way against an entire group of people? Perhaps some Nazis didn’t actually want to participate in these activities, but simply followed orders as a means to survive Hitler’s reign. Maybe the ones who actually enjoyed torturing Jews had had the idea of the Jewish race being evil drummed into their heads much of their lives, and thus acted on these beliefs. Perhaps Hitler had deceived still more into believing that exterminating the Jewish race would help "purify" the German race.
Besides being treated badly by the Germans, the Jews found themselves treated badly by other countries as well. Boatloads of Jewish refugees that turned up at the United States found themselves turned away. No one wanted to accept the Jews or find a place for them. It seemed as if everyone had a little bit of anti-Semitism about them. Of course they didn’t treat the Jews like Hitler did, but the prejudice seems to be there. Why? Maybe some people thought of Jews as nuisances who couldn’t do any good in the world. Maybe Hitler’s anti-Semitism rubbed off on a few people. Though most people claimed they abhorred Hitler’s practices, maybe hearing so much about Hitler’s attitude toward the Jews planted the same kind of idea of Jewish inferiority in their heads as well.
After thinking back over all the reasons I previously mentioned, I believe Hitler abused the Jews because of his pursuit of power. Once he got the Jews out of the way, he could have earned almost unlimited power since the rest of the country would probably back him up. I’m sure other minor reasons probably played a part in Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, but I believe Hitler’s thirst for power mainly caused his base actions.