Entry 1: The Holocaust
As Hitler’s armies had breached Eastern Europe in 1941, he started what we know today as the Holocaust. The “Madagascar Plan” was considered before the Nazis decided to murder the “undesirable” people. The Nazis initially considered the island of Madagascar as a potential new home for the millions of Jews and even encouraged Jewish emigration. This solution did not last long and Hitler decided to embark on the “final solution,” which basically means he wanted to kill the entire population of Jewish and other “undesirable” people. Hitler’s special task forces, known as Einsatzgruppen, were mobile killing units that were driven to kill any Jewish person they found. These German special killing forces killed more than a …show more content…
United States was a court case that arose in 1944. In the early stages of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066, which granted the power to the United States military to remove Americans of Japanese descent from their homes and forced them into internment camps. Fred Korematsu, an American-born citizen with a Japanese lineage, refused to leave his home in California, resulting in his arrest. He appealed his conviction and his case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. A 6-3 majority of the Court upheld the conviction placed on Fred Korematsu. Civil liberties were a huge subject for Justice Hugo Black, the speaker for the 6-3 majority, yet he agreed with the policy of internment. Like most people of the time, Justice Hugo Black believed that setting the Japanese American free would be like giving the enemy an easy way to infiltrate the United States. I believe that the internment of the Japanese Americans was a precautionary necessity in order for peace of mind and …show more content…
This conflict was the closest the world had gotten to a nuclear war. Castro and his revolutionary forces overthrew the Batista’s autocratic rule in 1959, resulting in a new leader for Cuba. Castro exploited United State properties and killed or exiled thousands of his political opponents. The United States decided to cut off Cuban sugar imports. As a result, Castro accepted the Soviet Union’s massive economic aid and arms shipments. To protect Castro’s regime, the Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, assembled nuclear missiles on Cuba in 1962. American spy planes discovered the Soviet Union’s actions and President Kennedy decided to authorize an attack on Cuba, which was known as the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Kennedy’s plan to attack Cuba failed, and his public ultimatum called on the Soviet Union to withdraw all missiles from Cuba. The USSR yielded to the United States demand. Kennedy pledged not to overthrow Castro and remove the American Jupiter missiles from