WW2 FACTS

#1 World War II was the most destructive conflict in history. It cost more money, damaged more property, killed more people, and caused more far-reaching changes than any other war in history.

#2 It is estimated that 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust. Approximately 1.2 million of them were Jewish and tens of thousands were Gypsies.

#3The Battle of the Bulge is the largest and deadliest battle for U.S. troops to date, with more than 80,000 American deaths

#4The Enola Gay became well known for dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but few people know the name of the B-29 that bombed Nagasaki. It was Bock’s Car, named after the plane’s usual commander, Frederick Bock.

#5 Dr. Josef Mengele (the “Angel of Death”) used about 3,000 twins, mostly Romany and Jewish children, for his painful genetic experiments. Only about 200 survived. His experiments included taking one twin’s eyeball and attaching it on the back of the other twin’s head or changing the eye color of children by injecting dye. In one instance, two Romany twins were sewn together in an attempt to create conjoined twins.

#6Hitler designed the Nazi flag. Red stood for the social idea of Nazism, white for nationalism, and the black swastika for the struggle of the Aryan man.

#7Even before WW2 had started Hitler predicted in his book “Mein Kampf” a European War that would exterminate all of the Jews from Germany.

#8The word Holocaust is from the Greek words “”holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burned)”

#9Hitler viewed the Jewish race as a menial race of people that where below the pure bread German Aryan, this hatred eventually caused Hitler to try to exterminate the Jewish Race in what became known as the Holocaust

#10 The Nazis used “concentration camps” to hold millions of Jewish people where they would work and starve until they where “exterminated” in gas showers using a pesticide called Zyklon-B

#11 As many as 12,000 Jews were killed everyday inside these concentration camps

#12 Most of the concentration camps where located in Poland, with the biggest ones being Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the biggest and most notorious of all concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau.

#13 Auschwitz Concentration Camp is responsible for the killing of over 2 million Jews.

#14 Many books and diaries have been published about Jews in Germany during WW2 and how they struggled. The most famous of these was the Diary of Anne Frank. Her diary has been translated into over 60 languages and is taught in schools worldwide

#15 The First Atomic Bomb ever made was created during WW2 by the Americans and was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb in a matter of seconds wiped out 90% of the city and killed 80,000 people. Three days later, another Atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki killing another 40,000.