Imagine living a content life with your family in a comfortable environment, as most children in the world live today. Then, all of a sudden, you were forced to depart from your birth parents and move to an unknown place, where you had to start a new life with new parents. That's a very terrifying thought that thousands of Jewish children did not envision. With no clear explanation of the reason behind this act, some children viewed it as if their parents just didn't love them or care for them. However, this was not the case at all. The idea of their children going away to another country and being under the care of complete strangers worried them tremendously. However, they knew that this was best for their child's safety and they would just have to overcome their uneasy feelings in order to protect them. This was a very traumatic, horrifying thing for Jewish children to endure and for some, the outcome was not what they had hoped.
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, directed by Mark Harris, is a documentary that features the stories of twelve survivors of the Kindertransport in England. In the film, they are now adults and they vividly tell their childhood stories with emotion and honesty about what they were feeling at the time. They begin by talking about how great their life was before everything took a turn for the worst. They enjoyed their life and could live freely. Also, they were spoiled and got things that they wanted whenever they asked. In the words of survivor Kurt Fechel, “It was a very idealistic life.” However, the enactment of anti-Jewish laws changed their lifestyles forever.
These anti-Jewish laws heavily oppressed the Jews, young and old. They became victims of hate and mistreatment. ...
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...sh children and how they were able to persevere through devastation, heartbreak, and tragedies. "I can assure you, I always grit my teeth and smile," reads the narrator from one of the children's letters to their parents. These children didn't show any signs of weakness and didn’t let their obstacles take over their life. It is very admirable how they were able to endure what they did, yet still make a life for themselves. Now that they are adults, it is clear to see how their experiences shaped them and greatly influenced their lives. The strangers who took these children in are very admirable as well. Their willingness to take in children they didn’t know saved thousands of lives. The greatest outcome of the Kindertransport was that they survived; however, they were robbed of their childhood and were forced to live a life that they had not imagined for themselves.
...sures such as missing limbs, rape, and deportation as they travel on top of trains to the United States. They persevere through these struggles simply to provide for their family. I believe that the risks the migrants are willing to take to keep their family happy and healthy are courageous and beyond reproach. The mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters who travel to the United States leave behind their country, language, and people in hopes that they will be able to build a life for their family and leave the crime, danger, and joblessness of their home country forever. In my opinion, the main idea of the story is one that should be shared with people from every nationality and ethnic background. This story’s main idea and theme exhibit the importance of family and just how hard people are willing to work in order to maintain happiness and peace within their home.
It is in a child's nature to be dependant of its parents and family members. They rely on them to protect and take care of them, so when they are suddenly ripped out of that comfort and protection, imagine the impact it would have on them. During the Holocaust, there was nothing the parents could do to protect their children; it was inevitable if they were Jewish they were always at risk. But on top of their vulnerability, children were frequently separated from their family and loved ones. Whether it be going into a concentration camp or going into hiding, the Holocaust has many examples of families being torn apart. One example would be with twins. Twins we often used for scientific experimentation, and when they were brought into concentration camps they were immediately identified and separated. The children that were used for these experiments very rarely survived them, and if they did they never saw their twin again. In just a short amount of time they were ripped away from their families and comfort and thrown into this chaos and unbearable setting (Nancy Sega...
After the Great Depression and World War I, Germany was left in a fragile state. The economy was ruined, many people were unemployed and all hope was lost. The Nazis believed it wasn’t their own fault for the mess, but those who were inferior to the German people. These Nazi beliefs lead to and result in cruelty and suffering for the Jewish people. The Nazis wanted to purify Germany and put an end to all the inferior races, including Jews, because they considered them a race.
Annemarie is a normal young girl, ten years old, she has normal difficulties and duties like any other girl. but these difficulties aren’t normal ones, she’s faced with the difficulties of war. this war has made Annemarie into a very smart girl, she spends most of her time thinking about how to be safe at all times “Annemarie admitted to herself,snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage.
The Holocaust began in 1933 when the Nazis instigated their first action against the Jews by announcing a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses. The Nuremberg Laws went into place on September 15, 1935 which began to exclude the Jews from public life. These laws went to the extent of stripping German Jews of the citizenship and then implemented a prohibition of marriage between the Jewish and the Germans. These laws set the legal precedent for further anti-Jewish legislation. Over the next several years, even more laws would be introduced. Jews would be excluded from parks, fired from civil service jobs, required to register all property and restricted Jewish doctors from practicing medicine on any person other than Jewish patients.
With the amount of anti-Semitic activity in Germany, no Jew was safe and Helen realized this quickly. In order to protect her child he had to give her to family to keep her safe. “There we said goodbye as casually as possible and gave these strangers our child.” After this moment, Helen’s fight for survival to see her child once again. Finding a place to hide became very difficult as no one wanted to host a Jewish family due to the fear of the Nazis finding out. “People were understandably nervous and frightened, so the only solution was to find another hiding place.”
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
Through selection at the extermination camps, the Nazis forced children to be separated from their relatives which destroyed the basic unit of society, the family. Because children were taken to different barracks or camps, they had to fend for themselves. In the book A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, the author describes the relief he felt when reunited with his mother after the War.
“While imprisoned, Hitler wrote, “My Struggle,” where he foretold the war that would lead to the death of many Jews.” (The Holocaust) 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, therefore having better chances of hiding.
... child no matter what. I feel like this story has helped me to be open-minded to the various situations that people may face and to not make assumptions. I also feel somewhat prepared for the situations that I may face in the field of social work as I continue to unpack my baggage.
Regine Donner, a famous Holocaust survivor, once said, “I had to keep my Jewishness hidden, secret, and never to be revealed on the penalty of death. I missed out on my childhood and the best of my adolescent years. I was robbed of my name, my religion, and my Zionist idealism” (“Hidden Children”). Jewish children went through a lot throughout the Holocaust- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Life was frightening and difficult for children who were in hiding during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
HItler created laws, named the "Nuremburg Race Laws," which set barriers on Jewish people. The laws would give all Jewish people a curfew and restricted them from using public transportation. Over time the Nuremburg Race Laws grew, they eventually restricted Jews form owning a business and seperated them from the rest of the country. They were forced to attend Jewish schools. These actions are very similar to the Jim Crow Laws in the United States during the period of segregation. The race laws Hitler created expanded to include more people including mentally handicapped, physically disabled, and colored people.
The article, “Toddler’s image stops us in our tracks,” written on September 2015 by Beth-Giat reported a horrible tragedy to hit a family. Ben-Ghiat wrote, “Images of migrants’ suffering, and of humanitarian rescue, have filled our news for more than a year now. They have become such a common sight in the media that we hardly see them. Then, one image comes along that stops us in our tracks: a toddler, lying dead on beach in Turkey.” Ben-Ghiat says that people have grown used to the tragedies, but those images of the child lying on the beach, touches even the toughest person at the core. The image is painful to watch. Imagine if that was someone familiar. The child’s mother and and brother died as well. The only surviving member of the family, the child’s father, brought their bodies from Turkey back to the the city the family fled from for burial. The journey doesn 't always have a happy
...f their family (Jackson 867). In everyday life, we posses the same selfish attitude portrayed in the story. What is one of a child’s favorite words? It’s "mine!" We constantly say well "it’s better you than me" and "it’s every man for himself." It’s pretty scary _when you actually think about it, because you realize we really are that selfish.
We meet strangers everywhere we go. They come from all walks of life. We can choose to ignore them or to talk to them. I have judged people based on the way they walk, talk, dress or the way they approached me. These judgments tend to stick with me even if I find out who they really are. I don 't think it is right to get judgmental when I first approach a person. I feel so bad when I find out who they really are isn 't who I thought they were. It just seems to happen so naturally. I guess it is just human nature. I can relate this to my senior high school days. Most of the judgments I made about people never helped me because it got me into bad company. In a short story ‘Strangers’, a stranger hurt and lied to Toni Morrison about who she was. She was really hurt by the stranger because she had misjudged her about who she was. She did not expect a woman, who looked so humble, would do such a thing. I can relate to her story because I also misjudged someone and ended up getting hurt.