The documentary Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary offers the unique perspective of someone who was not necessarily a victim or a perpetrator of the Nazi regime during World War II, but more so a first-person witness. Traudl Junge was more involved than a bystander, and can be seen more as a participant, but not quite considered an evildoer. Throughout the film, Junge recounts a plethora of private and personal memories she had experienced whilst working for Hitler during the Nazi regime. It is important to take notice to not just what Traudl is saying when she is narrating these tales, but also how she is describing them. This leads one to question how does the film portray Traudl Junge’s ability to think? Discussion It is incorrect to assume …show more content…
Towards the film’s conclusion, there is a scene in which Junge is conveying how she felt in the moment in which she learned that Hitler took his own life. This scene of the documentary slightly differs from the others, and it is because of these differences that I consider this segment of the film to be the most significant, in terms of thinking depictions. Traudl is shown thinking through her emotions of the moment; she speaks more slowly and solemnly, and even breaks down to the point where she has to step away from the camera. This is also the only moment in the film where Traudl admits to having a gap in memory, referring to the moment as a “black hole”. Now, one might question why the directors would leave this scene in the movie, or inquire as to why they did not simply reshoot the scene without the long pauses and tears. I would argue that the filmmakers intentionally left this scene as is in attempts to portray Junge’s thinking ability and processes during her toughest …show more content…
This subtheme was brought up in class discussion and we, as a class inquired about what Junge is leaving out in her storytelling. The class could not come up with a definitive answer as far as what Traudl does not talk about, because after all, she does not talk about it. The discussion led to speculation as to why Junge is seemingly remitting information, and we came to the conclusion that she may be taking these brief pauses in the midst of her thinking processes in efforts to avoid implicating herself, or perhaps she is unintentionally repressing certain memories completely because of the extreme psychological damage these memories may have otherwise caused had she let them fester in her
The tragedies of the holocaust forever altered history. One of the most detailed accounts of the horrific events from the Nazi regime comes from Elie Wiesel’s Night. He describes his traumatic experiences in German concentration camps, mainly Buchenwald, and engages his readers from a victim’s point of view. He bravely shares the grotesque visions that are permanently ingrained in his mind. His autobiography gives readers vivid, unforgettable, and shocking images of the past. It is beneficial that Wiesel published this, if he had not the world might not have known the extent of the Nazis reign. He exposes the cruelty of man, and the misuse of power. Through a lifetime of tragedy, Elie Wiesel struggled internally to resurrect his religious beliefs as well as his hatred for the human race. He shares these emotions to the world through Night.
On Hitler’s Mountain is a memoir of a child named Irmgard Hunt and her experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. She herself has had many experiences of living during that dark time, she actually met Hitler, had a grandfather who hated Hitler's rule, and had no thoughts or feelings about the Nazi rule until the end of WWII. Her memoir is a reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought. What has happened to the German people since then, what are they doing about it today and how do they feel about their past? Several decades later, with most Nazis now dead or in hiding, and despite how much Germany has done to prevent another Nazi rule, everyone is still ashamed of their ancestors’ pasts.
In 1932 the political situation in Germany was intensifying. The Republic was crumbling and the great depression was taking its toll on the German people. Leni was not greatly affected by the depression and saw little of the violence that was occurring. In Berlin she was persuaded by friends to attend a political rally at Sportsplatz where Hitler would give an address. Instantly Leni had become spellbound by Hitler as he did upon thousands-‘He radiated something very powerful,’ she later observed, ‘something which had a kind of hypotonic effect.’ Inspired by Hitler, Leni ...
Since the publication of, Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the holocaust has been deemed one of the darkest times in humanity, from the eradication of Jewish people to killing of innocents. Wiesel was one of the Jewish people to be in the holocaust and from his experience he gave us a memoir that manages to capture the dark side of human nature in the holocaust. He demonstrates the dark side of human nature through the cruelty the guards treat the Jews and how the Jews became cold hearted to each other. Wiesel uses foreshadowing and imagery, and metaphors to describe these events.
Throughout the Nobel Peace Prize award winner Night, a common theme is established around dehumanization. Elie Wiesel, the author, writes of his self-account within the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. Being notoriously famed for its unethical methods of punishment, and the concept of laboring Jews in order to follow a regime, was disgusting for the wide public due to the psychotic ideology behind the concept. In the Autobiography we are introduced to Wiesel who is a twelve year old child who formerly lived in the small village of Sighet, Romania. Wiesel and his family are taken by the Nazi aggressors to the Concentration camp Auschwitz were they are treated like dogs by the guards. Throughout the Autobiography the guards use their authoritative
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.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
The Reich was a dominant regime under the control of the infamous Hitler. Its rampant delinquencies of subjugating an entire race took nearly the entire world to impede. Hitler’s Secret is a novel by William Osborne that derives its setting from the World War II era in Bavaria. It encompasses two teenagers assigned to kidnap a girl who has proven influential to the Nazis. The teenage agents, Leni and Otto, confront numerous obstacles in their efforts to securely transfer the girl to Britain’s possession. Hitler’s Secret is an A grade book because it utilizes authentic historical content, ensures a balance of suspense and relief, and contains emotional characters.
“’Is my mother a communist?’ Staring. Straight ahead. ‘They were always asking her things, before I came here.’ … ‘Did the Fuhrer take her away?’ … ‘I knew it.’ The words were thrown at the steps and Liesel could feel the slush of anger stirring hotly in her stomach. ‘I hate the Fuhrer’ she said. ‘I hate him.’” (115)
Hitler and the Road to War At this time Germany was becoming too populated for her own stability. Her population had come to a level that Germany could not longer feed and support them without huge imports. She a lack of resources anyway and with the further deduction of land after Versailles this became even more of a problem. When Hitler laid out his plans, in his book; Mein Kampf, he showed that he understood the problems Germany faced. He wrote what he believed was to be their solution; "Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.
Director Mark Herman presents a narrative film that attests to the brutal, thought-provoking Nazi regime, in war-torn Europe. It is obvious that with Herman’s relatively clean representation of this era, he felt it was most important to resonate with the audience in a profound and philosophical manner rather than in a ruthlessness infuriating way. Despite scenes that are more graphic than others, the films objective was not to recap on the awful brutality that took place in camps such as the one in the movie. The audience’s focus was meant to be on the experience and life of a fun-loving German boy named Bruno. Surrounding this eight-year-old boy was conspicuous Nazi influences. Bruno is just an example of a young child among many others oblivious of buildings draped in flags, and Jewis...
The brutality the Germans displayed in the 1930s through the 1940s was utterly horrifying. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author’s harrowing experience is shared. The Holocaust is worldly known as being one of the largest genocides in history, but not many truly understand what it was like to live through and witness. A lot of people had their life taken away whether figuratively or literally and many discovered so much loss that they became unphased by it after a while. Many who encountered the cruelty and merciless of the Germans have passed but a few remain that live to tell their story to the world and try to explain the feelings that coursed through them during the genocide and even now. Wiesel, who lived in Auschwitz for
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during World War Two, including Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. Many who were sent to the concentration camps did not survive but those who did tried to either forgot the horrific events that took place or went on to tell their personal experiences to the rest of the world. Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi wrote memoirs on their time spent in the camps of Auschwitz; these memoirs are called ‘Night’ and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. These memoirs contain similarities of what it was like for a Jew to be in a concentration camp but also portray differences in how each endured the daily atrocities of that around them. Similarities between Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi’s memoirs can be seen in the proceedings that