During the Holocaust in the mid-20th century, millions of Jews lost their lives for the simple reason; they were Jewish. These Jews were forced into concentration camps and ghettos, where they were persecuted by the Germans. Many Jews were also made to transport to these places in tightly packed trains, employed by everyday Germans. The employees of the German railway network were perpetrators because they knew that they were taking the Jews to their deaths, and even though some may have felt bad about it, they still did not speak up or try to save the Jews.
The Germans employees in the railway system definitely knew that they were taking the Jews to their deaths, even if they had not been specifically told so. One man who was a German railway
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One of the Reichsbahn Railyard workers in the Auschwitz Railyards explains a terrible incident when cleaning out the rail cars and says, “A blackened corpse fell out. The car was still filled with the deportees who had died on the train” (Barthelmass). The fact that people died on these trains show that the employees did not treat them well. This shows how badly these Jewish deportees were treated on the trains, whether the workers knew that they died or not. Another instance that shows how badly the German workers treated the Jews is shown by a locomotive engineer from the Treblinka Death Camp, Henrik Gawkowski. This man states, “Since the locomotive was next to the cars, I could hear their screams, asking for water. The screams from the cars closest to the locomotive could be heard very well” (Gawkowski). He then goes on to say that he drank liquor to drown out these screams. This classifies the German workers as perpetrators because they did nothing to help the Jews. They knew that the Jews were dying, and they know how to help them, by giving them water, yet they still did nothing to help them. The Jews died in the trains on these workers’ watches. The fact is that the German railway workers knew that the Jews on the trains were in pain and dying, yet they did nothing to help them, so these workers can clearly be classified as perpetrators and not just
" The journey to the camps began with a train ride, with Jews packed into pitch-black rail cars, with no room to sit down, no bathrooms, no hope." (Lombardi). This is a quote from a book a man wrote about his time in Auschwitz when he was young. Up to 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, an awful event led by Adolf Hitler and his army based in Germany, the Nazis. One of the horrible things about the Holocaust was the boxcars taking the victims to the camps. Some things that made the boxcars in the Holocaust so bad are; the size of the boxcars, the conditions in the cars, and the deaths that occurred on the journey to the concentration camps.
During World War II, six million Jews were brutally massacred by Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime. Several authors have written about the actions of bystanders in the Holocaust. In a poem, "The Hangman," and an allegory, The Terrible Things, Maurice Odgen and Eve Bunting described how bystanders could cause problems through their inactions.
The violent actions of the Germans during this event force an image upon them that conveys the message that the Germans had little respect for the life of a person, specifically that of a follower of Judaism, and their capability to act viciously. If the Germans are acting so cruelly and begin to act this way as an instinct towards the Jews, they are losing the ability to sympathize with other people. This would be losing the one thing that distinguishes a human from any other species, and this quote is an example of the dehumanization of the victim, as well as the perpetrator. Later on in the night, all the Jewish prisoners discover their fate at the camps and what will happen to people at the crematorium. They respond by saying to the people around them that they “.can’t let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse” (Wiesel 31).
Activities in the concentration camp struck fear within the hearts of the people who witnessed them, which led to one conclusion, people denied the Holocaust. Nazis showed no mercy to anybody, including helpless babies. “The Nazis were considered men of steel, which means they show no emotion” (Langer 9). S.S. threw babies and small children into a furnace (Wiesel 28). These activities show the heartless personality of the Nazis. The people had two options, either to do what the S.S. told them to do or to die with everyone related to them. A golden rule that the Nazis followed stated if an individual lagged, the people who surrounded him would get in trouble (Langer 5). “Are you crazy? We were told to stand. Do you want us all in trouble?”(Wiesel 38). S.S guards struck fear in their hostages, which means they will obey without questioning what the Nazis told them to do due to their fear of death. Sometimes, S.S. would punish the Jews for their own sin, but would not explain their sin to the other Jews. For example, Idek punished Wiesel f...
Murders inflicted upon the Jewish population during the Holocaust are often considered the largest mass murders of innocent people, that some have yet to accept as true. The mentality of the Jewish prisoners as well as the officers during the early 1940’s transformed from an ordinary way of thinking to an abnormal twisted headache. In the books Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Ordinary men by Christopher R. Browning we will examine the alterations that the Jewish prisoners as well as the police officers behaviors and qualities changed.
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children" (Nelson Mandela). If this statement is considered true, then it's fair to say that during times of the Holocaust, the German society was at an all time low. Children during the Holocaust did not have a carefree childhood, like they should have, but instead were placed under strenuous conditions. They had to go through being separated from all family and friends, being chosen the first to go to, and in most cases a permanent loss of family members. The Holocaust was undoubtedly a horrific experience for everyone involved but for children it must have been traumatizing.
...e job consists of looking at old files and records to find enough information to find someone guilty, even though now all you had to do was work at a camp to be guilty (Johnston). “Whoever worked in a concentration camp knew that he was part of the machinery of death,” Mr. Sander told the German news agency DPA. “No one could close their eyes on that.” (Eddy). People will say that just because they were following orders doesn’t mean they should be put on trial, but I will disagree. First off, they were probably beating the prisoners, and laughing at them, and innocently watching. Guilty? I think so.
The Third Reich sought the removal of the Jews from Germany and eventually from the world. This removal came in two forms, first through emigration, then through extermination. In David Engel’s The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews, he rationalizes that the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was a result of how Jews were viewed by the leaders of the Third Reich-- as pathogens that threatened to destroy all humanity. By eliminating the existence of the Jews, the Third Reich believed that it would save the entire world from mortal danger. Through documents such as Franzi Epsteins’s, “Inside Auschwitz-A Memoir,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, one is able to see the struggle of the Jews from a first-hand account. Also, through Rudolf Hoess’s “Commandant of Auschwitz,” one is able to see the perspective of a commandant in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz: A History, Sybille Steinbacher effectively describes the concentration camp of Auschwitz, while Hermann Langbein’s People in Auschwitz reflects on Rudolf Hoess’s power and control in Auschwitz as commandant. Through these four texts, one is able to see the effects that the Third Reich’s Final Solution had on the Jews and the commandants.
Genocide is the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group (Merriam-Webster). This is what Hitler did to the six million Jews during the Holocaust, which led to many Jews fighting back. This paper will talk about how the Holocaust victims fought back against Hitler and his army. The Holocaust was a mass killing of Jews and non-Jews who were viewed as unneeded within the world by Adolf Hitler. Hitler became leader of Germany and tortured and killed many people. With Nazi Germany killing and torturing millions of Jews and non-Jews, victims decided to fight back with armed and spiritual resistance.
The Holocaust was a bloody, terrifying event that unfortunately happened during the world’s most bloody war, World War II. The end result of a portion of deaths of the Holocaust resulted in astounding number of about 6,000,000 Jewish people dead. However, there were about 13,684,900 other lives that were taken during this “cleansing period” that Adolf Hitler once said. Those lives included civilians in surrounding countries, resisters against the Nazi nation, opposing religious members, and many more. Although, over 6,000,000 Jewish people died, many others died who are just as memorable.
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
“Jews, listen to me! I see fire! There are huge flames! It is a furnace,” Madame Schachter imagined fire, the fire that would burn millions of Jews, gays, and disabled people. Many people died in crematory ovens during the Holocaust. The people who are responsible for the Holocaust are the minor Nazi soldiers because they didn’t question decisions, they ultimately pulled the trigger, and they separated families.
The Jews were used as scapegoats by the Germans. They were treated terribly and lived in very poor conditions. Many of the Jewish children were put into homes,ther...
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, it talks about the holocaust and what it was like being in it. The Germans were trying to make the German race the supreme race. To do this they were going to kill off everyone that wasn’t a German. If you were Jewish or something other than German, you would have been sent to a concentration camp and segregated by men and women. If you weren’t strong enough you were sent to the crematory to be cremated. If you were strong enough you were sent to work at a labor camp. With all the warnings the Jewish people had numerous chances to run from the Germans, but most ignored the warnings.
Who survived the holocaust? What are their lives like today? What has been the government's response towards those who survived after World War II? Have the survivors kept their faith? How has the survivors next generation been affected? The survivors of the holocaust were deeply effected by the trauma they encountered. This unforgettable experience influenced their lives, those around them, and even their descendants.