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creative writing about the holocaust
Why study of Holocaust literature is necessary
essay on how literature can help us remember victims of holocaust.
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Ursula Hegi's novel, Stones From The River, exposes the reader of the persecutions of religious beliefs, a gossiping dwarf, and the people of Burgdorf, a small German town in the time of the Nazi Holocaust. The novel is set in World War I and continues through World War II. The Second World War is brought on by the hunger of power it is known as the otherness war. 'In the Third Reich otherness is a crime.';(Chadwick 2) Hitler, a Nazi leader, wants to gain control of Germany and surrounding countries. Hitler is a feared name even in our society today. We see things through the narrator's eyes. The novel has many flat characters in it. However, some characters are more developed than others are. Each character has a connection to the narrator whether he/she is a friend, a neighbor, or a bully at school. This novel is unique to Hegi because of her background. She lives in a 'suburb of 'Dusseldorf'; before she immigrates to the United States in 1965'; (Simon 1). It was unusual for her to write about this because the people who survive the holocaust never will talk about the past, they all believe in the 'tight lip' philosophy.
In the novel Jews, Catholics, and Protestants become victims of the Nazis. Religious prejudices are common throughout the novel. However, Hegi portrays Catholicism as the primary faith. The author scatters many fairy tales and stories inscripted about the different types of religion throughout the text. 'Catholic water rusted Jewish cars.';(Hegi 88) However, the priest says, 'Protestant babies [are] pagan babies…and the Jewish babies [are] like Protestant babies,'; because they are not christened. (Hegi 58) In both the Jewish and Catholic religion different beliefs and celebrations bring commeraderie to the inhabitants of Burgdorf. While the Jews believe that Jesus is an exemplary man, but not God incarnate, the Catholics believe that Jesus lived and has died for our sins at the hands of the Romans. Catholics celebrate the Christ's Last Supper by receiving communion, a major sacrament in Catholicism because; communion in the Catholic Church is believed to be the body and blood of Jesus. It is believed that when one receives communion that all of one's sins will be wiped away. During the month of December the Jewish celebrate Hanukkah, while the Catholics celebrate St. Nikolaus and Christ's birth in Christmas. We celebrate his ...
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...fferent than the rest provided a peaked interest to Max. He cares for her uniqueness not because she is different. Couples in today's society are always trying to change people and make them someone they are not. If one thinks they are going to change a person's personality and actions. Then they need to step back and take a good look at them maybe they are the ones who need to change.
Stones From the River, is a wonderful novel. Hegi takes us through the World Wars and explains to us the affects they have on our society. Trudi in the novel takes in and helps shelter those who are hiding from the law. She believes that god put her here to help others and she does, with her gift of storytelling. If we all took the time to help one another than we should all get along. Jews, blacks, gays, and cripples are looked down upon. We are programmed to see people's flaws and to discriminate against those who have these differences. Many colleges have a diversification program that it sends all students through, but this is not solving our ignorance of race or gender. If we as a society become well educated on the horrific affects of our actions we could all live as one race, the human race.
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).
The story is a 3rd person view of a young boy called Georg who lived in Germany with his dad who was born in England and his mother born Germany. At the time all he wanted was to be a perfect boy in Hitler’s eyes which now wouldn’t be a good thing these days but at his time it would be all anyone ever
On Hitler’s Mountain is a memoir of a child named Irmgard Hunt and her experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. She herself has had many experiences of living during that dark time, she actually met Hitler, had a grandfather who hated Hitler's rule, and had no thoughts or feelings about the Nazi rule until the end of WWII. Her memoir is a reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought. What has happened to the German people since then, what are they doing about it today and how do they feel about their past? Several decades later, with most Nazis now dead or in hiding, and despite how much Germany has done to prevent another Nazi rule, everyone is still ashamed of their ancestors’ pasts.
The essay begins with Griffin across the room from a woman called Laura. Griffin recalls the lady taking on an identity from long ago: “As she speaks the space between us grows larger. She has entered her past. She is speaking of her childhood.” (Griffin 233) Griffin then begins to document memories told from the lady about her family, and specifically her father. Her father was a German soldier from around the same time as Himmler. Griffin carefully weaves the story of Laura with her own comments and metaphors from her unique writing style.
Most historical events, whether beneficial or detrimental to society, bear witnesses. Regardless of how many total were affected by the event, each person owns a personal account of what they endured during the event. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, expresses the personal account of Elizer, a Jewish teenager, who fought to stay alive during the holocaust, and shows the importance of witness accounts, the will to survive, and the remembrance of past historical events. Night encompasses the idea of “Literature of Witness” by simultaneously showing how millions of people were affected by the holocaust and how each person, principally Elizer, has their own personal story to tell to understand and remember that horrendous time.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
Don Aker makes the novel The First Stone very interesting and intriguing without question because of his effective writing style. He uses simple, understandable, yet powerful vocabulary to draw the reader into each moment of the plot. The sentence structure was not very complex, but I think it was quite appropriate for a teenager to read. The use of the third- person omniscient point of view in the novel really helps the reader experience the story on a more personal level. The author’s narrative voice takes the front seat, and one is able to get inside the mind of the protagonist – Reef, a teenager who is piecing together the puzzle that is his life, gradually delving into deeper emotions and relationships with important characters and figures in the novel. The characters in the text Reef and Leeza are teenagers who have gone through some difficult events in their young lives. The reader is able to relive their memories and experiences, with flashbacks that Don Aker incorporates in the novel. The climax of the story develops quite naturally, with a sense of cohesiveness that is clearly present. As each chapter passes the reader has been give some insight about Leeza as the author throughout the novel, has moved back and forth between the perspectives of the two principal characters. Little by little, as time progresses, a turn of events causes the two main characters to be in the same place, in which Reef would change both their lives forever. By making two teenagers as the main focal points of the novel, the author really wants the target audience to feel a connection, and relate the novel to their lives or someone they...
Harry Mulisch, through his novel The Assault, conveys the Nazi Occupation in the Netherlands in 1945 giving full emphasis on the impact to people’s lives. Anton Steinwijk, the protagonist of the novel, experiences traumatic experience when the military assaulted and killed his whole family. His wish to leave what has happened to him in the past is influenced largely by his devastation and undesirable perception of the war from what he has experienced. Additionally, people around Anton also encourage him to expect a peaceful future, away from the war. Light and darkness symbolizes Anton's perception of the war and volcano ashes representing trails of his past, which influences how Anton reacts at times of trouble and when approached with information of the past.
I learned a lot from this book. I learned a lot about why some stores are structured the way they are and how race, class, and gender are deeply imbedded in everything in the world and in everything we do. There is nothing we do that does not involve at least one of these aspects.
Griffin explores Heinrich Himmler and the secrets that are hidden within him. Throughout his childhood Himmler’s secrets and thoughts were hidden, overshadowed by a mask or barrier formed by his upbringing and culture.
Schwartz, Leslie. Surviving the hell of Auschwitz and Dachau: a teenage struggle toward freedom from hatred.. S.l.: Lit Verlag, 2013. Print.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.
Although our past is a part of who we are nowadays, we will never be happy if we can never let go of the painful feeling attached to our suffering. In addition, “suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us” (Wiesel 96). We should not be afraid to let go of our haunting past and grow closer to others because “man carries his fiercest enemy within himself. Hell isn’t others. It’s ourselves” (Wiesel 15). The wise advice this book gives its audience is one reason it won a Nobel Peace Prize. The books are also part of a very famous Holocaust trilogy, which is one reason it has been so widely read. In addition, it blends everyday stories with Holocaust stories.Therefore, readers are very compassionate towards the narrator and readers create a bond with this character due to his hardships and the similarities he shares with us. Lastly, Day speaks to the needs of the human spirit by intertwining a love story. Readers wonder if his girlfriend will change his attitude towards life because he tells the doctor, “I love Kathleen. I love her with all my heart. And how can one love if at the same time one doesn’t care about life” (Wiesel
Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth [growing up in Hitler's Shadow]. New York: Random House/Listening Library, 2006. Print.
the book the author discusses her main views toward the actions of the Nazis and