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The story of world war ii
The events of World War 2
The events of World War 2
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Simon Wiesenthal was a child during World War I, he witnessed the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and he committed himself to finding and persecuting Nazi war criminals. The Holocaust (1933-1945) began several years before the second world war (1939-
1945), started by Nazi controlled Germany and their leader, fanatic anti-semitist Adolf Hitler, they attempted to systematically exterminate the Jews and any that the Nazi party deemed as
‘lesser’ or those they viewed as enemies to the Nazi government. Simon Wiesenthal survived the
Holocaust, he was moved between thirteen different concentration camps, he was nearly
executed
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Simon would manage to escape but would be recaptured after several months (“Wiesenthal2”). He would make two suicide attempts, both failing, but leaving scars on both wrists (“Simon2”). Wiesenthal would be rescued by a American Army Division that headed through the camp he was in, Mauthausen, “The Mountain of Death”, it is said he touched the star of one the American vehicles before collapsing in a nearby soldier’s arms. After semi recovering from the effects of disease and starvation, Simon volunteered in a war crimes unit. Wiesenthal would immediately begin collecting case files, evidence, and the names of Nazi war criminals (“Simon1”). Wiesenthal would hunt for Adolf Eichmann, the planner for
Hitler’s “Final Solution”, for many years before finding him Buenos Aires where he was arrested by Israeli agents and sent to Israel, where he was tried and executed.
Starting in 1939 during the Holocaust, many Jews were deported to concentration camps by the Nazis where they will meet their end, but how did some of them survive? Even though most of them died, some lives were saved by the very few people with moral courage. One of the people with moral courage was Carl Lutz. Moral courage is the actions a person takes because of his/her belief of what is right or wrong, even though it may risk his/her life. Lutz was born in Switzerland in 1895 and he emigrated to the United States at the age of 18. During more than 20 years of temporarily staying in the United States, he worked at the Swiss Legislation in Washington and became chancellor of Swiss Consulates in Philadelphia. These events lead him to be appointed as Swiss vice-consul in Budapest, Hungary. During his life as a Swiss vice-consul, he decided to save the Jews because of his belief. By the time of his death in Bern, Switzerland in 1975, Lutz earned the title of Righteous Among the Nations
There are many heroic individuals in history that have shown greatness during a time of suffering ,as well as remorse when greatness is needed, but one individual stood out to me above them all. He served as a hero among all he knew and all who knew him. This individual, Simon Wiesenthal, deserves praise for his dedication to his heroic work tracking and prosecuting Nazi war criminals that caused thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other victims of the Holocaust to suffer and perish.
Throughout the holocaust, many Jews survived by going into hiding to escape the harsh fates and realities that would otherwise await the opressed. The Diary of a Young Girl allows readers to witness and experience a small idea of what Jews in hiding during the holocaust suffered. Some may have lost one's life, but Otto Frank, Anne's Frank's father, survived the holocaust through hiding. The secret annex became the shelter for Otto Frank, his family, and several others Jews starting July sixth, 1942(www.annefrank.org). The annex provided a barrier from the Nazis and death camps for two years before the Gestapo discovered the Franks and others and sent the Jews to concentration camps for the remainder of the holocaust(www.ushmm.org). The others in hiding with Frank lost their lives, leaving Otto Frank the sole survivor from the secret annex. His time in hiding happened to save his life, making him a survivor of the holocaust(www.ushmm.org).
After witnessing the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, Schindler simply could not sit by and watch people be sent to death. After seeing the little girl in the red coat Schindler’s view on the whole Nazi operation changed. Here was this innocent girl running through utter chaos, as he sat on his high horse and watched the destruction. Schindler decided to help by bringing as many Jews out of the camps for work purpose, however no labor was carried out. Regina Perlman, a Jewish worker talked to Schindler and begged him to bring her parents to the factory, as they are old and would die if they did not get out of the concentration camps. He diminished the idea immediately claiming that he is running a business and harboring Jews are illegal, however, Schindler gave both her parents a job. When his workers were boarding the cattle cars to the factory a guard came along taking the children away from their parents and bringing them back into the camp. Schindler saved them, claiming he needs their small fingers to clean the insides of tiny machinery, however he was merely protecting the innocent children from being tortured. At the end of the war when the Jews are finally set free he even begins to cry, believing he did not do enough, questioning as to why he kept his car when he could of saved ten Jews with the money instead. Asking why he continued to parade with a gold pin when another Jew could of been saved. Convinced he did not do enough, yet he saved the lives of 1100 Jewish people, feeding and providing them with the essentials, using his own money. A hero is someone who has courage and is admired for their achievements, Schindler went against protocol and his own nation to save people who were deemed unfit for society and not any better than
During Hitler's rule over Germany many Jews were blamed and were either put to work or going to die. This also affected the Gypsies, mentally sick, physically sick, etc.. In 1942, The Resistance Effort is a group or individual who are against the inhuman action of the deeds that were done to them or an individual race or religion. Oskar Schindler, a German officer, who risked his life by saving Jews and was secretly against the Nazi, he highlighted what it meant to be a human being. He made many sacrifices to make an action against the Nazi secretly, and became a German hero who enlighten the youths to not bystand.
• On Rosh Hashanah, Eliezer says, “My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now.…” (page 68) Eliezer isdescribing himself at a religious service attended by ten thousand men, including his own father. What do you think he means when he says that he is alone? In what sense is he alone?
Simon wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, in a small town in buczacz. He had one sibling named hillel wiesenthal. As a child he had a very difficult time growing up, his father died in world war II and when Simon was just ten “a Cossack gashed his leg open with a saber” (Wiesenthal Simon). He was also limited on where he could go to college because of these Jewish enrolment issues he went to school for architectural engineering at the technical university in Prague (Wiesenthal Simon). After Simon graduated in 1932 he opended up his business in the city of lvov. He then decided to marry Cyla Muller who’d been his girlfriend from high school (Biography). Shortly after opening his shop the red army overran the city, “Wiesenthal’s stepfather was arrested and his stepbrother was shot” (Wiesenthal Simon). This caused Wiesenthal to close his business, and work in a factory.
The idea of forgiveness resonates differently with every individual. Where do we draw the line in terms of offering up a sincere acceptance of someone’s apology? Are there any acts that we as individuals will absolutely not be able to ever excuse? In the case of Simon Wiesenthal, those questions were brought directly into his life in a way more powerful than many of us will ever experience in our lifetimes. After living through the Holocaust, Wiesenthal was confronted by one of the former SS members and asked to forgive his atrocious acts of violence against innocent Jewish people. His decision is one that Wiesenthal has been seeking validation for ever since it was made.
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).
Thomas Jefferson once said, “One man with courage is a majority.” What Jefferson meant by this was that a person with courage operates at the same level as a group of more than one person. Jefferson’s quote ties in with the life of Oskar Schindler, a German factory owner who saved the lives of many Jews during the Holocaust. Schindler did this by keeping his Jewish workers in the safety of his factories, away from the concentration camps and execution. The lives saved were unintentional at first, as Jewish workforces were cheaper than hiring Poles, but as the Holocaust continued, Schindler found himself actively protecting his workforce as well as bringing in more Jews to his safe factories. As a result of his actions, Schindler saved over
During World War II Simon Wiesenthal was a Jewish teenager that was imprisoned in Lemberg concentration camp. This camp contained mostly Jewish people and was run by the German SS soldiers. Simon is in the SS camp with his friends Arthur and Josek. One day Wiesenthal was assigned to work in front of his old high school, which became a hospital for the injured SS soldiers. A nurse took him into the hospital and he was escorted into a room where a dying SS soldier was laying in bed. This soldier was close to death and he had asked the nurse to get a Jew so he could confess his
A hero is a person who risks their lives to do something to save or help a person, multiple people, or animals from any type of harm. Jerzy Bielecki, Irena Sendler, and Albert Goering were all Holocaust heroes. They saved Jews lives in multiple ways. They risked their lives helping these people, but if they were caught, they would suffer the exact same fate as the jews they were helping. They were not forced to help these people, it was a choice, they would rather help these innocent people than stand by and do nothing as people were getting dragged from the homes and families and getting tortured and killed.
The Holocaust refers to the genocide that took place during the World War II, where around six million Jews were killed by the Nazi, a National Socialist German Workers’ Party led by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi’s put Jews in the ghettos, and from here some were selected for transportation to extermination camps by use of a freight train. Majority of the Jews were killed in the gas chambers, in addition to this some were placed in concentration camps where they were used as slave labor till they died of exhaustion or disease (Spiegelman 62). In the comic book The Complete Maus by the Art Spiegelman, he has been able to portray his father Vladek’s life experiences during World War II as a survivor. I will be discussing both the short and long term consequences of the experiences of the Holocaust for Vladek Spiegelman.
Where a holocaust survivor stands as far as the Arab-Israeli conflict goes is not an easy thing to define. As there are two sides to the argument (supporting Palestine becoming its own country, or supporting Israel enveloping Palestine, ) a holocaust survivor could swing both ways.
The treatment of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi’s can be described as actions that could only be done by a totalitarian state. Hitler believed in eugenics, the idea of improving a race by selective breeding. Nazi ideology of the Jewish race was severe anti-Semitism and pure hatred. The Nazi policy towards the Jews has been said to be the most brutal and horrific example of anti-Semitism in history.