...To the leader(s) and representatives of the Islamic Center of Bergen County, Hello! Our names are Courtney Ford and Brenna Peterson. We are both currently freshmen at Mahwah High School, and are writing this letter on behalf of our 9th grade Honors English class, in the hopes that you may be able to contribute to our unit on the themes of prejudice and discrimination and its presence in our society, from the past to the present day. In class, we are in the midst of discussing the aforementioned themes as a prelude to reading Elie Wiesel’s Night, in an effort to understand the effects prejudice and discrimination against a minority can have in local communities and in society as a whole. As such, we and our fellow classmates have been contacting...
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...Brian Levin believes that the denial of the Holocaust pulls in people who are right-wing and anti-Semitic to conspiracy theories. People who are anti-Semitic are prejudice against Jews in every way. Do they truly believe the Holocaust did not happen because of insufficient evidence, or just because they do not like Jews? Elie Wiesel is not the only survivor to write a book about his experience. Anne Frank wrote a diary while in the Holocaust. Her diary was found later and then published. Extremists who deny the Holocaust believe Frank’s diary was a forgery, and they also believe the six million Jews who died was an exaggeration. Before the Holocaust began in 1933, there were approximately 9.5 million Jews living in Europe. If two-thirds of Jews were annihilated during the Holocaust, would not that equal out to nearly six million Jews that died? (USHMM). When the Holocaust ended in 1945, it caused a rapid growth of learning in fields such as history, philosophy, and literature. Holocaust...
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...I believe that the story “Night” shows us a multitude of angles on which people lived during the holocaust. Though I do not belive that in these times that human kindness prevailed, often prisoners would kill for food or drink, and many people turned a blind eye to the actions in Germany. The history of the world is plagued by mankind’s inability to settle for what they have and who they are. Wars have been fought over religion, tradition, territory, and in this case, the idea that one race is superior to another. World War II was a horrible time in the world. The First World War was “the war to end all wars” and yet chaos spread over Europe. Elie Wiesel’s story, Night, is no exception. Elie was a Jewish prisoner who escaped the Nazi death camps. Night redefines what a common theme of man’s inhumanity to man. This theme is shown through the murder of a young boy, Elie’s belief in God, and Elie’s self-worth. The first display of Nazi inhumanity is the murder of a young child. An man and the boy (his assistant) were accused of blowing up a power plant on the camp. The man and boy were tortured and questioned and refused to give any information about the incident to the Nazi soldiers. The boy was described as “having the face of a sad angel” and was sentenced to be hanged. Everyone at the camp liked him and the SS officer in charge of the hanging refused his job and was replaced. The child was so light he hung for half and hour before actually...
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...Elie Wiesel in his memoir recounts about one of the most horrendous and dreadful event in the world history. Anti-Semitism which is the discrimination or prejudice against Jewish people that has been present in world history since the crucifixion of Christ is shown well and clearly in Wiesel’s Night. The first organized campaign against Jewish people had occurred in 1096 during the First Crusade, also known as the First Holocaust. The Holocaust, which was the organized terror and genocide of Jewish people, took place between 1933 and 1945. Hitler's release of his autobiography, Mein Kampf, in the mid-1920s told about his intentions of ridding Germany of its Jewish population. In the beginning, it was proposed that they had to simply leave...
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...One’s sense of identity is vital to who they are. It helps them connect with their family and have a place in life. Traumatic events such as war can alter one’s sense of identity. In books such as “Night”, “The Book Thief”, and “Maus”, we can see the effects of war on individuals and how it has altered their lives. War can cause one to question themselves, present day stresses, and could build one’s sense of identity. To begin with, the effect of war can make question one’s sense of identity. This is shown throughout Elie Wiesel’s “Night”. When Elie and his father are first taken into the camps, they are determined to stick together and make it out. As the conditions worsen, Elie starts questioning his religious beliefs. Once Elie saw the...
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...that bullet. Yet still, the bird perishes. To Kill a Mockingbird is a magnificent tale regarding the ideas of racial prejudice. Harper Lee, the book’s author, uses a mockingbird to symbolize how the innocent are discriminated. Atticus Finch first establishes the idea of the mockingbird when giving Scout and Jem rifles; he explains that mockingbirds do nothing but make music which is why they are not to be shot. Shortly after, Atticus explains about the mockingbirds; Tom Robinson, one of the main mockingbirds, stands...
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...___________________________ LIVING HISTORY Hillary Rodham Clinton Simon & Schuster New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Singapore To my parents, my husband, my daughter and all the good souls around the world whose inspiration, prayers, support and love blessed my heart and sustained me in the years of living history. AUTHOR’S NOTE In 1959, I wrote my autobiography for an assignment in sixth grade. In twenty-nine pages, most half-filled with earnest scrawl, I described my parents, brothers, pets, house, hobbies, school, sports and plans for the future. Forty-two years later, I began writing another memoir, this one about the eight years I spent in the White House living history with Bill Clinton. I quickly realized that I couldn’t explain my life as First Lady without going back to the beginning―how I became the woman I was that first day I walked into the White House on January 20, 1993, to take on a new role and experiences that would test and transform me in unexpected ways. By the time I crossed the threshold of the White House, I had been shaped by my family upbringing, education, religious faith and all that I had learned before―as the daughter of a staunch conservative father and a more liberal mother, a student activist, an advocate for children, a lawyer, Bill’s wife and Chelsea’s mom. For each chapter, there were more ideas I wanted to discuss than space allowed; more people to include than could be named; more places visited than could be described...
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