In Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller, Sage Singer found herself having to make a difficult decision after she meets the town’s favorite elderly, seemingly innocent citizen, Josef Weber. Much to her dismay, Josef reveals to Sage that he was a member of the German S.S. during World War Two and worked at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz where he oversaw the murders of countless Jews. To make matters worse, Sage’s family is Jewish, and her Grandmother Minka was a Jew that survived the Holocaust and was also at Auschwitz during the war. Josef’s request to Sage was that she help kill him because “It’s what [he] deserves” (Picoult, 47). Sage is torn because she wants to see him dead, but she knows that if she follows through with his request, she will have stooped down to his level. She receives help from Leo Stein, a federal agent from the Department of Justice’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Division (Picoult, 75). The ups and downs of Sage’s personal life also pose as a challenge to the situation that …show more content…
Forgiveness can only be given by the person who was directly affected by the crime (Picoult, 366). Leo’s way of dealing with life’s wrongs is to find the people responsible for criminal actions, and put them behind bars to pay for what they did. Even though the Hauptscharfuhrer had helped Minka and was one of the less evil Nazis, Minka could not find it in herself to forgive him (Picoult, 366). Minka did not talk about her experiences with anyone over her years because she did not want to give in to the enemy by having what they did to her have an impact on how she lived the rest of her life. Forgiveness is saying “You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me. It’s saying you don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future” (Picoult, 451). Although everyone has their own way of overcoming adversity in their life, forgiveness is being able to move on, and we all deserve
Must one forget before one can forgive? Forgiveness involves not holding a sin against a person any longer, but forgiveness is a decision of the will. Since we cannot selectively remove events from our memory, it is impossible to truly forget sins that have been committed against us. Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, in his book The Sunflower, writes of an experience that occurred when he was a prisoner in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. He recounts a day when he was taken from work and lead to the bedside of a dying man. The dying man Karl, a member of the SS, confessed to Simon about his dreadful act for he sought absolution from a Jew. As Karl begs for Wiesenthal to forgive him, Wiesenthal remained silent and walked away. Wiesenthal’s purpose is to argue whether the inhumane acts of the SS should be forgiven. Because
He should not have forgiven him because, “One soldier got up from the bench and looked at us as if we were animals in a zoo” (Wiesenthal 20). “Rectifying a misdeed is a matter to be settled between the perpetrator and this victim” (Wiesenthal 54). This shows only a small portion of what the Jewish people were treated as during this time. They were treated like animals, yet they are completely human. Also, an approximate eleven million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million were Polish citizens, three million were Polish Jews, and another three million were Polish Christians. A single person who was not affected by the soldiers decisions cannot represent the eleven million people who were affected. In order to achieve actual “forgiveness” he would need to speak to every single person who was
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
Elie Wiesel was a young Jew in 1928, which lived a “normal” life, until the Nazi Holocaust changed his life for the worst. Elie grew up in a remote area of Transylvania called Sighet. His life would be described as ordinary. “His father, Shlomo, was a shoe keeper who was always helping people, and his mother Sarah, was a descendent of Hasidic rabbis and scholars.” (Wiesel’s Night Recalls the Holocaust, 1956) His life continues normally until Sighet is invaded by Nazi Germany, “The Nazi and their allies sought to finish the job of murdering every Jew in Europe” (Wiesel’s Night Recalls the Holocaust, 1956). Elie, his parents and three sisters were put into a cattle car filled with other Jews, and taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. When they arrived, Elie immediately had to face the beginning of his reality by witnessing his mother and younger sister taken to the gas chambers, “his mother and youngest sister were immediately murdered in a gas chamber” (Entering the Night of the Holocaust...)
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 events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness,” Desmond Tutu once said (“Desmond Tutu Quotes”). During the Holocaust, the Jews were treated very badly but some managed to stay hopeful through this horrible time. The book Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer shows how Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck who had two very different stories but managed to stay hopeful. Helen was a Jew who went into hiding for awhile before being taken away from her family and being sent to a concentration camp. Alfons was a member of the Hitler Youth where he became the youngest member of the German air force. To him, Hitler was everything and he would die any day for him and his country. As for Helen, Hitler was the man ruining her life. The Holocaust was horrible to live through but some managed to survive because of the hope they contained.
The Silber Medal winning biography, “Surviving Hitler," written by Andrea Warren paints picture of life for teenagers during the Holocaust, mainly by telling the story of Jack Mandelbaum. Avoiding the use of historical analysis, Warren, along with Mandelbaum’s experiences, explains how Jack, along with a few other Jewish and non-Jewish people survived.
The essay "Forgiveness," written by June Callwood, explores the concept of forgiving and how it influences people's lives for the better. Her work describes many components of forgiveness, such as how difficult it can be to come to terms with, why it is such a crucial part of humanity, and how it affects all people. Her essay aims to prove that forgiveness is the key to living peacefully and explains specific examples of people who have encountered extremely difficult situations in their lives- all of whom found it within themselves to forgive. To clearly portray this message in her writing, Callwood uses several strategies. She includes fear inducing statistics, makes many references to famous events and leaders, and uses a serious convincing tone, all of which are very effective.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
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
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.
A film bursting with visual and emotional stimuli, the in-depth character transformation of Oscar Schindler in Schindler’s List is a beautiful focal point of the film. Riddled with internal conflict and ethical despair, Schindler challenges his Nazi Party laws when he is faced with continuing his ambitious business ideas or throwing it all away for the lives of those he once saw as solely cheap labor. Confronted with leading a double life and hiding his motivations from those allegiant to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Schindler undergoes numerous ethical dilemmas that ultimately shape his identity and challenge his humanity. As a descendent of a Jewish-American, Yiddish speaking World War II soldier who helped liberate concentration camps in Poland, this film allowed for an enhanced personal
Forgiveness is the act of releasing an offender of any wrong or hurt they may have caused you whether they deserve it or not. It is a decision to let go of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group of people. When we choose to forgive, we’re wiping the slate clean, cancelling a debt, or as I love to say, “Letting it go.” In the Bible, the Greek word for forgiveness literally means to “let it go.” This concept, “forgiveness,” is easier said than done. Majority of people find it very difficult to let go of offenses and hurts caused by others. I really do believe that most people desire to let it go, but we lack the knowledge of how to do it. As believers, we are instructed by God maintain an attitude of forgiveness.