A Writer’s Response to Conflict

Throughout human history, conflicts between groups of people never end well, most resulting in battles and human cruelty. Some even go as far as enslavement, imprisonment, and mass slaughterings of human beings. One infamous example of this would be the Holocaust. During the 1900s, Germany had recently lost World War One and like many Germans who fought during this war, Adolf Hitler blamed the Jews for the defeat. So, after taking power over Germany, Hitler and his political group, the Nazis, found many ways to persecute the inferior Jews. But eventually, they decided on a more “permanent” solution; gassing the Jews. During this time, Germany had also declared another war, World War Two. After six long …show more content…
But it was too late, during the course of Hitler’s reign, over six million Jews were murdered. Because of this, many of us reflect back on history to learn from mistakes made in the past to prevent such things from happening again. And writers are the key to carrying on the legacies of conflicts throughout human history. Through their works, those who are unwary learn and gain knowledge of the past. An example of this would be the work of Anne Frank, in Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl providing a firsthand account of life in hiding as a Jewish girl while inspiring future generations through her writing. Another example would be Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer, offering a new perspective of the persecution of Jews through the eyes of two Germans – Alfons, a participant in the Hitler Youth, and Helen, a Jewish girl who flees to Holland to avoid persecution by the Nazis. This excerpt, along with Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl models the paths writers take to educate about conflicts. As these works show, writers respond best to conflict because they leave lasting impacts, convey new perspectives, conceive …show more content…
Through writing, thoughts and ideas become immortalized, making it a foundation for future generations to base off of, reflect, or revise to perfect. In Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne inspires millions with her firsthand accounts of life with her Jewish family as they hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Because of this, it proves that Anne’s writing has a lasting impact throughout the decades, being published in 1947. An example of Anne’s inspiring words would be in her diary entry of July 11, 1942, where she states, “The Annex is an ideal place to hide in. It may be lopsided, but there’s probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland” (Frank 18). A similar example comes from Parallel Journeys, whereas Helen and many others fled from Germany from the first signs of persecution from the Nazis, many still remained like Helen’s father. She explains that, “Although he had lost his business, he was still stubbornly optimistic about the future of the Jews in Germany” (Ayer 17). Both Anne Frank and Helen’s father are optimistic despite their current situations. This inspires others to do the same because their lives may be easier than those living in the times of conflict or harder, depending on one’s perspective of life. And since inspiration has been needed since the