All around the world, every moment of everyday someone encounters a moral dilemma whether it is minuscule or monumental. Going against ones religious or moral beliefs can be problematic; it may in fact be so moving that it causes one to reexamine their entire thought process. Regardless of ones age during the Holocaust, so many were faced with unbelievable ethical dilemmas. Many Jewish leaders faced moral dilemmas and made heroic decisions; many made life or death decisions to save themselves or others from the horrific plans of the Nazis, , denied Nazi orders in order to protect their loved ones, and several helped others survive.
Crisis situations and heavy consciences
Being placed in a crisis moment is difficult, it may in fact cause a person to challenge their own morals, allow a person to see how far they will go. Many people during the Holocaust had to choose between life or death in order to protect their loved ones. No matter the cost people made these decisions with heavy consciences. In September 1942, one particular Jewish med student gave deadly doses of morphine to many Jewish patients to spare them the inhumane death that the Nazis were going to deliver upon them (Nevins). This medical student took action against what the Nazi Party had in store for Jewish patients. He killed many people to protect them, regardless of the consequences that would later be in store. “…the major opened the door to find four Jews and his loyal Polish servant preparing food for the others.
Gut had no choice but to throw herself at the elderly major’s feet and beg for mercy. “They are my friends,” she pleaded with him. “I had to help them. I couldn’t let them die. (Fogelman).” Going against the Nazis was extremely risqué but many...
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Humans morals are challenged when forced to endure great suffering and torment. During the Holocaust, some inmates broke under great distress and their morals went wrong. Other inmates not only had to worry about the Germans, but also the people who lost all morality and turned into brutal savages. In the memoir Night by elie Wiesel, humans can’t maintain a moral mentality when under great suffering as portrayed through Elie and fellow inmates.
In conclusion, from local governments to large influential organizations, people around the world turned their back on the Jews during the Holocaust. Almost every day in our lives we have the opportunity to be more than a bystander. We should put aside our own individual fears in order to pursue fairness for others around us. Being a Boy Scouts has taught me to do for others “…to help other people at all times.” When I consider our oath, it reinforces how selfless we all must be to make the world a better place to live.
Elie Weisel once said this: “I know and I speak from experience, that even in the midst of darkness, it is possible to create light and share warmth with one another; that even on the edge of the abyss, it is possible to dream exalted dreams of compassion; that it is possible to be free and strengthen the ideals of freedom, even within prison walls; that even in exile, friendship becomes an anchor.” Compassion is not something that is easy to understand, or even easy to show sometimes. The Holocaust was a difficult time to comprehend: how could one man have so much power and hate towards a society of people that he started a genocide? There may never be the right emotional explanation to describe the disturbing events that happened during the Holocaust, but Elie Weisel was able to share his. His message was that compassion and friendship can refrain someone from sinking so deep into a dark sea like the Holocaust.
“Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe,” is the quote that is engraved on every heroic medal handed out by an organization called the Yad Vashem. But this is not just any ordinary medal; it is called The Medal of the Righteous. The Medal of the Righteous is a medal handed out by Yad Vashem in Israel to the courageous people who put their lives on the line to save a Jewish person or at least help them, during the Holocaust. There have been a total of 25,271 medals awarded. But why were these rescuers jeopardize their own safety? All of these Righteous helped the Jewish for a number of reasons: they became aware of the dangerous situation for the Jews, they loved and/or respected the Jews, or they were called by their profession
“99 subhuman Jews in the row, 99 subhuman Jews! Shoot one down, kick it around, 98 subhuman Jews in the row!” ~ Concentration camp worker during the holocaust. How could you begin to describe what’s always said to be such a horrible and tragic event? The Holocaust or Final Solution only seems as bad equal to the amount the person describing it values human life. To answer all of the topics presented to me I will be discussing the following; What is meant by “The Holocaust” or “Final Solution”, Why the Jewish were dehumanized, The choices made during the Holocaust, and My personal view on events that took place during the holocaust.
The Holocaust was a bloody, terrifying event that unfortunately happened during the world’s most bloody war, World War II. The end result of a portion of deaths of the Holocaust resulted in astounding number of about 6,000,000 Jewish people dead. However, there were about 13,684,900 other lives that were taken during this “cleansing period” that Adolf Hitler once said. Those lives included civilians in surrounding countries, resisters against the Nazi nation, opposing religious members, and many more. Although, over 6,000,000 Jewish people died, many others died who are just as memorable.
Self-preservation is defined as the protection of oneself from harm or death, especially regarded as a base instinct in human beings and animals. It drives us to do things we otherwise would not do, to accomplish things we didn’t know were possible. Self-preservation can often be found throughout history and literature, always in the most desperate of times. Nowhere is it more prominent than in the history and literature surrounding the Holocaust, during which over six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, were brutally murdered in what has become known as one of history’s most deadly and widely publicized genocides. For almost 80 years, historians and Jewish survivors have authored and published
"The Myth of Rescue" by William Rubinstein has no doubt been one of the most attacked books by reviewers on this matter of the Holocaust. Rubinstein disagrees with the idea that some scholars supported, that the allies could have done much more to help the Jews, and explains why it was so difficult to assist them. Rubinstein's construction of the situation faced by the Jews of Nazi occupied Europe demonstrates some coherent and thoughtful points about the period of the slaughter of the Jews.
If the individuals, governments, and countries would have stood up for what they knew was right, the Holocaust would have ended before it did. Just like society now, we don't care about something if it doesn't directly impact us.
soldiers during the Jewish Holocaust, knew that the Nazi’s actions were inhumane and cruel; hence, he commanded his soldiers to not confiscate property from the Jews. Although the Nazi soldiers did not take valuables away from the Jews, they still dehumanized and exterminated the Jews, rega...
Many historical events took place in the 20th century that will be remembered forever, but the one occurrence that everyone knows of and will forever be remembered was World War Two. World War Two, the greatest tragedy that has ever happened on the face of the earth, the genocide of Jewish people, a complete nightmare. When people think of WW2, many of the time the image of “those poor Jewish people” comes to mind. Many ask themselves how this could have happened. It just doesn’t make sense to them. Did people around the world at the time of WW2 have these kinds of deliberations? If they did have this kind of reflection then how did six million people perish? During the time leading up to the outbreak of World War II, the Western Press consistently carried numerous reports of the German's anti-Jewish policies and their purposeful victimization of the Jews living in Nazi Germany as well as the annexed territories. The general public cannot claim that they did not know what was going on, that they were uninformed. Whether or not they chose to believe it however, is a completely different story. The public were indeed outraged in many of the cases but the governments of the major European democracies felt that it was not for them to intervene for they felt that the Jewish problem classified as an internal affair within a sovereign state. The attempt to discover what exactly the people around the world did to save the Jewish race is not going to be an easy task but it is going to be a worthwhile one which should uncover a lot of unknown facts to many people.
In the Holocaust millions of Jews lost their lives because of simply who they were. Many however hid and survived this dark event in history. It was the year 1933 and WW11 roared on, some saw it as a war against countries but eventually everything dark and ugly came to the light. Adolf Hitler was the chancellor of Germany and had obtained great popularity with the German people. While beginning to attack nations he was also trying to destroy all Jews in a horrific mass genocide. Creating concentration camps and taking all that the Jews owned he began to round up these human beings as if they were cattle. The stories account for them as being kidnapped at midnight to being tricked into going to their death thinking they were going for a better life. Not all stories ended in despair, there were many who managed to outsmart the Nazis and their allies. Many hid from them, blended in or fled to safe countries. Even under all the pain and horror many prevailed and won the prize of life. People, no matter who will fight to live no matter what the circumstance. These are the stories of those fortunate survivors who hid, fled, lived to tell their perilous account of the holocaust.
...d decisions that were need to be met, most will lie to one another or to themselves. It becomes a time where everyone is on their own. It just will not work trying to help others and still help yourself. It has been shown that when in the heat of the moment, most will reveal sides of themselves that either oneself or others may not have even known to be there. Now, after realizing not only the physical, but emotional ties that came along with the Holocaust, do you think that it was right to come to an “every man for himself” type of survival or should have they stuck together. This leads to the other question of would there have been a different outcome if had done so? Lies and deceit has shown not only a change in people at this time, but how in the end decisions that were made because of the shift of the inmates had really instigated the situation versus helped.
The atrocities of the Belgian Congo and the Holocaust are two of the main events in history that have been responsible for the mass murdering of millions of people. Although these events significantly changed the course of humanity, and the story behind each one is very different, there are significant factors that make them alike as well as different. Many would agree that comparing two atrocities that affected the lives of so many people and gave a 180-degree turn to each of their countries would be something very difficult to achieve. However, by comparing the behavior of both the perpetrators and the victims of both cases, we might be able to further understand the lack of morality and the inspiration that led to these awful events. The perpetrators in both atrocities tended to have a similar pattern of behavior when it came to the way they saw their victims.
At what point does personal interest become more important than the safety of others? During the Holocaust, the Nazis were not the only group that advanced the Holocaust, and then the Final Solution. Bystanders, witnesses, passersby, and many other groups indirectly affected the victims of the Holocaust. The silence of these groups held the Jews in more jeopardy than their Nazi captors.