2.4 WORLD WAR II AND THE FOUNDING OF THE UN

Before and during the World War II (WWII: 1939-45), the Nazis in Germany spread intense hate against Jews. Nazism was an ideology that claimed that Jews were “subhuman” and they were to blame for most of the wrongs in society. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws made discrimination against Jews mandatory. They were no longer allowed to participate in commerce, synagogues were burnt, and they had to live apart in separate ghettoes. But this was not the worst that happened. The Nazis built concentration camps where they planned the extermination of the entire Jewish population. Six million Jews were murdered together with prisoners from other countries, gypsies, homosexuals, and other citizens who disagreed with the Nazis. Anyone who did not fit into their concept of a pure Aryan race was in danger.

During the course of the war, the countries that took up the fight against Hitler’s Germany agreed that they should found a worldwide organisation for peace. The result was the UN (the United Nations) – an organisation which every country in the world could join. The UN was founded in June 1945 after a 6 week conference in San Francisco. The victors of WWII dominated discussions about the rules which should apply in the organisation, and were not too interested in human rights to begin with. Other countries such as Chile, Cuba, Mexico and Panama wanted them included. But then, in the middle of the conference, photos and reports were released to the world about what had really happened to the Jews and other victims of the Nazis during the war. The mass media published written materials, photos and films from the concentration camps and gas chambers. A shocked world lobbied the heads of state who agreed that the UN should not only produce rules for how states should treat each other, but also for how states should treat individuals. What had happened in Germany must never happen again!