RR to Stackelberg

In response to Stackelberg, the thing that took me by surprise was how much I really did not know about the Holocaust. From what I knew, people had always emphasized Hitler and the mass-killings of innocent people. I never realized that there were so many laws issued that, in the beginning, had given many people hope that they would end the random, fitful, extra-legal violence, and provide safety and order. There was a point in the history of these acts and laws, that condemned Jews to a type of "social death."
This reminded me, in a way, to the segregation of white and colored in our country some years ago. Obviously it was to a much much smaller extent, but in ways of signs saying, "Jews are not wanted here," it is the same. The Aryan race and decent became everything, and before the final solution (the killing of all European Jews), the aim was to just immigrate Jews out of Germany into other countries. Something I also had not known was that the mass persecution of people went a lot further that only Jews. It affected Gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, pacifists, and political opponents.
One thing that really bothered me was how much the German public did know about what was going on and being done to these people. Secrecy and falsehood were some of the main goals of the whole operation, even though the killings were mere miles from their own homes. The camps, torturing, and liquidation were impossible to conceal from the public eye. The fact that events were written in newspapers, and publicized in speeches, and "free" citizens still did nothing about it, makes me disappointed. It makes me disappointed in that, these events could have been stopped from even making it into our history books today.