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Being human is given,but keeping our humanity is a choice. Beat, damaged, and suffering the Germans were malevolent, rancorous, and acrimonious. ”Daisies, the wild ones that are found stuck into the cold white funeral wreaths” (Holczer). Death, that's what many children and their parents were facing. Confused and frightened these children not knowing what was going on. Provisional measure to control,that's what the Germans thought of the ghettos. Blanka Rothschild, lived a sad story,but lived to tell about it. Blanka was only a child when her father died in 1937, many years later in 1944 Blanka and her mother were deported to ravensbrueck camp in Germany. After ravensbrueck Blanka and her mother then went along to a subcamp. Her mother …show more content…
“I had a glove, somehow, somewhere, in the ghetto, and we were freezing. So the glove was being worn by everybody, and my friend, by my friends. We were sharing the one glove, so one hand for a few minutes was getting out of the numbness. I don't know who the glove really belonged to but I was given it, and we shared this glove. I remember this glove”(Rothschild).Many people today take the things they have for granted, Blanka had a glove not a cell phone or tv,but a glove and that helped her in one of the toughest parts of her life. That glove was hers, but she was willing to share it. When you can do something like that you can truly call yourself a good person. When the holocaust was going on,people wanted to escape,they want to get out of the country and come to America at the end of the holocaust most people did, if something like that happened today in another country and they wanted to come to America,they can't,they won't let most of them come to America,If it happened to us and we wanted to escape America why would other countries let us in if we wouldn't let them
I believe they are the very essence of what makes us human. However, in a place like the concentration camps, humanity is challenged by the urge to survive. When survival is of the utmost importance, we lose our capacity for empathy. I believe this was one of the Nazi’s most effective forms of dehumanization—when people are so preoccupied with their own survival that they must lose sight of the concerns of others, they cannot feel the kinds of empathy and compassion that are essential to a complete life. In addition, the guilt that the survivors must have felt, feeling that they had allowed themselves to become so self-centered, would have made it impossible for me to ever perceive myself as a good person again. The Nazi’s torture must have endured in the minds of survivors for the remainder of their
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 cruel 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 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). This simile develops the theme by comparing the Jewish prisoners to cattle in a slaughterhouse and emphasizes what little value their lives had to the Germans, implying they are not worthy of human qualities. The Germans are once again not able to emphasize with the Jews that are around them and being murdered, which over the course of the novel leads to them being
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...
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
The Germans arrived in Sighet seemingly peacefully, and even billeted with some Jews who lived there. They were polite and a German officer even bought a box of chocolates for the woman of the house he billeted in (Wiesel, 10). This made them even more skeptical of the stories of horror floating around, because no brutality was shown during those beginning days. When they were first put into the ghetto’s they were almost happy to be “entirely among ourselves”, as if it were a small Jewish republic (Wiesel, 11). When the deportations began they tried to convince themselves it was only because the war front was getting closer. They also assumed the situation would resolve itself – there was no point in actually fighting back. They were confused, overwhelmed, but
Picture this for a moment, a cattle drive to the slaughter house, thousands of cattle being pushed, crammed, and hit into cattle cars for a one way trip, but now, picture the even sadder reality, that this occurred to our own race, the human race, to millions with even harsher treatment than death itself… The Holocaust. During World War II, Adolf Hitler, the German leader, used his power and the Nazi party to convince and force his attempt at a genocide of the Jews in Europe, by using work and death camps. While every aspect of the Holocaust was equally sinful, when it comes to the worst of the worst of the concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau probably was the most brutal.
Life isn’t easy for anyone but you have to make sure that you’re okay before you can take care of anyone else. Sometimes we have to look out for ourselves even if it means another person’s suffering. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the Jewish people and other minorities are suffering from acts of prejudice achieved by the Nazis of Germany. During the Holocaust, the event in which the story takes place, these religious groups experience cruelty in persecution, starvation, concentration camps, and murder. While in the concentration camps several forced acts of self-preservation took place and this can be seen in characters such as Rabbi Eliahu’s son, the old man in the cattle car’s son, and Eliezer Wiesel.
Lilly Barels never thought she would be a writer. As a UCLA graduate who double majored in Neuroscience and Dance, her relationship with creative writing ended in High School. However, almost fifteen years later, in the midst of a broken marriage and lost in the fog of un-fulfillment, Barels discovered the creative channel that would transform her from a high school physics teacher to a soon-to-be published writer. After a passionate and healing love affair with poetry, she was accepted into the MFA program at Antioch Los Angeles. In 2012, Barels received her Masters in Creative Writing with a focus in fiction. Barels just finished her second novel, and she is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.
The imagination and the ability to empathize with others is the key to living a wider life, a key to escaping the prison of a limited self. But, imagination and identification are also menacing. As we read and listen to the words of survivors, as we study the Holocaust from all points of view, our imaginations threaten us. As I pick up Elie Wiesel's novel Night, I take the Holocaust in my hands, and I hear children's' voices in the dark. I am afraid for them and for myself. First, I am afraid my imagination will fail me, and I will be overwhelmed. The terror and humiliation of the Holocaust may so numb me that I will go into "shock." I will isolate myself, deny everything -- suffering, empathy, mercy, family, God. I will experience what Wiesel experienced when his father was struck and he did nothing (36-37), or, in the end, I will abandon my father. Wiesel says to me, "I awoke on January 29 at dawn. In my father's place lay another invalid. They must have taken him away before dawn an...
”We are the children of the holocaust. We are both Germans and Jews. We are the children of the victims. We are the children of the oppressors. We started out on opposite sides but the memory of the holocaust will join us forever. We shall never let the victims be forgotten, for if we do, we will forget that the perpetrator can be in all of us.” This poem expresses quite well the sensation that most individuals feel when they hear the word “Holocaust.” Although they may not have been there, or known someone who was, they may still feel an underlying sadness or anger due to the events that took place during World War II. I myself am neither a Jew nor have German decent, and I too become emotional at just the thought of such a devastating occurrence. It is in this sense that I will discuss how the Holocaust has affected not only the Jewish world, but other peoples as well.
Albert Beder was born in Konvo, Lithuania in June 13, 1928, into a wealthy, Jewish family. He had two brothers, three sisters, and both his parents (Eliat). He attended public school, went to church, participated in games, and lived the life of a normal Jewish child. At least that’s what he thought. However, shortly after turning thirteen, Albert and his family were taken from their home and sent to their first ghetto camp (Eliat). He and his family spent nearly 6 months here, before being shipped off to the Konvo ghetto camp in January, 1941 (Folarn). Here, Albert’s life completely changed. He was separated from his family, never seeing his mother or two of his sisters again. He was given a minimal amount of food, and forced to live in very overcrowded buildings, with almost no space for a pillow, or even place to sleep, due to the number of people crammed in the tight rooms and spaces (Eliat). Unfortunately, this wasn’t the most tragic event Albert had to face.
I grew up on the waterfront of the Columbia River. The quaint, picturesque town of Kalama Washington was my hometown from before I can remember. The damp small town emulated a coastal environment, complete with heavy rainfall and dim daytimes. Tired, worn down buildings clad in paint chipped walls and climbing ivy dot the streets and hills. Scenic post-card worthy views of the river stretch out before wide front windows. Tourists stampede through musty antique shops and 50’s themed diners, breathing in the retro town in all its vintage glory; only to discard its significance once entering the freeway. Umbrella carrying locals paint their aging homes pastel shades to combat the grey, gloomy veil blanketing the town. Everyone living in Kalama
The Creature That Opened My Eyes Sympathy, anger, hate, and empathy, these are just a few of the emotions that came over me while getting to know and trying to understand the creature created by victor frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. For the first time I became completely enthralled in a novel and learned to appreciate literature not only for the great stories they tell but also for the affect it could have on someones life as cliché as that might sound, if that weren’t enough it also gave me a greater appreciation and understanding of the idiom “never judge a book by its cover.” As a pimply faced, insecure, loner, and at most times self absorbed sophomore in high school I was never one to put anytime or focus when it came time
As the sun slowly settled, darkness began to overcome the Earth. Sickness—had come. The sickness slowly but readily crept into each home. It was the Midnight Theft. The destructive plague stole during midnight—it stole lives. Deep in the heart of Tukenasville, people were dying, and the whole country was beginning to perish. The flowers withered as they bloomed. The mountain peaks crumbled under steer weight. Animals fled to holes to live out the final moments of their life. People were distraught, and chaos was invading every planet in the macrocosm. People called me Nikolaou Gonfalon. I was the last of the Warriors of Phos. Long ago, the Sisters of Moiré ordained my doomed fate. I tried to bargain with them to change it, but in the end, I captured them and locked them up in a repository on a cliff. I was to lead the expedition to find the cure for the Midnight Theft. That, however, was not the reason why I would go on this journey. My best friend, Tolem, was dying of a rare illness called Takigifeay. It was causing the slow built up of lactic acid on his bones. I knew that death would come to him soon. Legend spoke about a necklace that can bring life to anyone or thing. It was said to have been belonged to an Oceanian, one of the water people. The Lost Jade Necklace of Serenity was what it was called, and it could bring healing to the Earth. Nonetheless, it could be the obliteration of mankind, also. I began to pack since my journey was to start at that moment.