Writing Assignment #1 In the book, Parallel Journeys, the author, Eleanor Ayer, shows how two individuals as well as their loved ones are affected by life-changing events that take place in their lives during the Holocaust. In this part of the book, World War II has just recently taken a turn towards the start of the eradication of non-Aryans. Although Helen, a jew living in Amsterdam Holland, and Alfons, a member of the Hitler Youth, both go through transformative experience, their lives are much different.
During Kristallnacht, not only Nazis, but also anyone who wanted to attack Jews and their possessions. Jewish people living in Germany were at great danger; business were destroyed, homes were searched, synagogues were taken over, and much more. Helen is affected when, “A ‘helpful’ neighbor had shown (the SA) where in the
…show more content…
In order to solve his dilemma, he asks one of his teachers for advice. “‘Do you think I should except?’ I ask one of my teachers. ‘Why not?’ he replied in some astonishment. ‘Doesn't it be slugging around in the general Hitler Youth?’ ‘Maybe so,’ I said, ‘ but I'm not crazy about heights.’ ‘Don’t be dumb, Heck,’ he advised. ‘Aim for the Luftwaffe”’ (72). Even though it may seem like the teacher is trying to give Alfons honest advice, the reader can infer that the teacher is simply trying to persuade Heck accomplish ‘his dreams’. The teacher, also, creates a goal for Heck to one day accomplish, and also makes his predicament on whether to fly or not seem like a ‘no-brainer’. Hitler persuaded people so well that his brainwashed victims would then do the same for younger Germans, and then so on. Heck, by joining the Nazi Youth, has lost his freedom to think for himself, even though when he believes he still can, others have/will influence him into making the choice that others believe
It is interesting to read the connections of Night, by Elie Wiesel because they include the experiences of the Holocaust from other people's’ points of views. In A Spring Morning, by Ida Fink, it is shocking that the innocence has been stripped away from the child as the speaker reveals, “Fire years old! The age for teddy bears and blocks” (Wiesel 129). This child is born innocent, she has not harmed anyone, yet she has to suffer. Reading about the Holocaust is difficult, I wonder how others had the motivation to live during it. The description of a little girl getting shot is heartbreaking as the speaker explains, “At the edge of the sidewalk lay a small, bloody rag…. He [Aron] had to keep on walking, carrying his dead child” (Wiesel 133).
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
Elizer’s personal account of the holocaust does not merely highlight the facts of the holocaust: millions suffered and the event was politically and religiously motivated, but provides an in depth investigation to what a person endured mentally, physically, and emotionally. Beginning as a teenager, Elizer thought highly of God and of his own beliefs, however, that quickly diminished when he was put into a system of sorting and killing people. During the holocaust, Elizer was not the only person to change; almost everyone suffered and changed differently. The stressful and harsh times affected Elizer just as they affected the person working next to him in the factory. Elizer quickly began to question everything “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Although Elizer forms this mentality, he also finds the will to survive, to protect his father, and to not turn into the people that were aro...
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.
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.
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
During the Holocaust six million Jews lost their lives, while others lost their friends, family and dignity. Helen Waterford discusses her survival in the novel Parallel Journeys . Through Helen Waterford’s journey to hide, survive, and rejoin society, she realizes that she cannot dwell on what has happened to her but learn and become wise from what she has endured.
Six million perished in the flames, mass shootings and gas chambers of concentration camps during the Holocaust. This started when the Nazi party established a “Final Solution” that sought out to eradicate the inferior Jewish race from Germany and the world (“Holocaust”). A person cannot look at this event and see nothing except for the dark, evil side of human nature. However, if a person looks at the Holocaust from a survivor’s point of view, they can see the good side of human nature, especially if someone looks at it from Elie Wiesel’s perspective. Elie Wiesel and his family were Romanian Jews who were, unfortunately, swept into the Holocaust’s horrors. Elie managed to escape the Holocaust using tools of survival, including love for family and impassivity. He did not let being a victim of the Holocaust define him, so Elie moved on to become an inspirational figure that represented and spoke out for all of those who constantly suffer due to the oppressive aspects of society. No one could have predicted such an outcome that is Elie Wiesel’s life story in the face of catastrophe like the Holocaust.
No one understands such a dreadful experience as the Holocaust without shifting in the way you were before. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, the author defines his suffering at the hands of Nazis. Taken with his family in 1944, they were directed to Auschwitz to come before the dishonorable selection. There, Elie parted from his mom and sister leaving him with his father who was too busy to spend any time with his son before the camp. Being under the Nazis' control, Elie and his father moved to several camps. The Nazi command “deprived Elie...of the desire to live..., which murdered his God and soul and turned my dreams to dust” (32).
“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.
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed…“(Wiesel 32) Livia-Bitton Jackson wrote a novel based on her personal experience, I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Elli was a Holocaust victim and her only companion was her mother. Together they fought for hunger, mistreatment and more. By examining the themes carefully, the audience could comprehend how the author had a purpose when she wrote this novel. In addition, by seeing each theme, the audience could see what the author was attacking, and why. By illustrating a sense of the plight of millions of Holocaust victims, Livia-Bitton Jackson explores the powerful themes of one’s will to survive, faith, and racism.
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
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
At this time many Jews were being persecuted just because they were jewish by the German Nazi. The Nazis blamed all of Germany's problems on the jews. One jewish girl named Anne Frank had to hid in a secret annex for two years. Anne was caught, along with the rest of her friends and family, and killed. She is just one out of the six million jews who were killed by the German Nazis during World War ll.
The poem “The action in the ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942” by Alexander Kimel is an amazing literary work which makes the reader understand the time period of the Holocaust providing vivid details. Kimel lived in an “unclean” area called the ghetto, where people were kept away from German civilians. The poet describes and questions himself using repetition and rhetorical questions. He uses literary devices such as repetition, comparisons, similes and metaphors to illustrate the traumatizing atmosphere he was living in March 1942.