...In reference to his experience during the Holocaust and why he wrote night, author Elie Wiesel says without the experience he would have not become "… A witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory" (Wiesel ). The Holocaust is a memorable event that occurred in Germany and Eastern Europe in 1933 threw 1945. This tragedy was runned by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, killing a massive amount of Jews, homosexuals, Catholics, poles, and gypsies. Hitler strongly believed that the Jews were responsible for economic struggles also known as the great depression. Many people also believed they were to blame for the loss of war. In the...
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... The Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. The Jews were the victims of Hitler’s plan to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe. After the holocaust one of few survivors Elie Wiesel wrote a book called “Night” which was basically about the suffering all Jews had to go through. In this book Elie uses motifs to reveal the theme that the worst suffering comes from man’s own inhumanity to man. One of the motifs Elie uses to reveal the theme was how badly the Nazi soldiers treated their fellow human. First example was when the Nazi’s arrived at first they treated the Jews politely while living in their homes and acted quite civil then the Jews started to believe they were in no danger but Little by little, the soldiers took away their freedom—the leaders of the Jewish community were arrested; the Jewish people were put under house arrest; all their valuables were confiscated; the Jews were forced to wear a yellow star; the Jewish people were forced into ghettos; the ghettos were emptied and the people deported to concentration camps. This shows how the Nazi went from being human to dehumanizing their fellow human. Another example...
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...as well as questioning your view on human nature. Hochschild opens up with the early life of Henry Morton Stanely and how that name came about. King Leopold II brings in Stanley to help claim his kingdom and build a stronger kingdom such as England’s. Immediately into the story the author makes Stanley’s story clear and the reader could tell Stanley had a troubled background but respected those who helped him, enough to change his name to his boss’ name and “experimented with the middle names, using Morley, Morelake, and Moreland before finally settling on Morton.” Between the 1880 and 1920, there were many...
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...Throughout the movie, "The Holocaust", the phrase, "I just do my job," was usually the only excuse most people who committed crimes against the Jews could come up with. For example, when Helena and Rudy Weiss were staying in Kiev, the city was bombed. During the bombing, one of the Nazi soldiers, who happened to be Heinz Muller, a friend of Inga's family, was hit by falling debris. Hesitant, Rudy helped Muller escape from the collapsing building, gave him some water, and asked him why he was taking part in the mistreatment of the Jews. "I obey orders," Muller replied, unrepentant about what he did. Also, when Bertha Weiss was sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, Dr. Joseph Weiss asked the Kapo what happened to her. The lady bluntly retorted, "Don't blame me, I just take orders." Whether to keep a job, remain loyal to their cause, or just because they had no other excuse, everyone used that phrase to justify what they did wrong against the Jews. Anti-Semitism and unfair grudges are two factors that can cause Genocide. During the movie, Eric Dorf claimed he did not feel bad about Kristallnacht or what happened to the Jews, because he said the Jews provoked it. Even though Kristallnacht was the first major pogrom, a government sponsored attack on the Jews, and was terribly destructive, Eric said that they killed Christ and they deserved what they got (The Holocaust). In addition, Heydrich believed that Germans and the Aryan race was superior to the Jewish race and they had to...
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...1) ‘The teachings of Rubenstein on post-Holocaust theology are more convincing than of Fackenheim.’ The Holocaust can be considered the greatest tragedy of human history, it included the cold blooded extermination of 6million Jews, and millions of others who were disabled, homosexuals or whom didn’t agree with the Nazi regime. The Nazi’s came to power because they were depressed from the German defeat in WW1 and humiliated with the reparation payments. Consequently, the National Socialist Party, (Nazi’s) rose to power in the weak environment using propaganda to blame the Jews for the war. The Nazi’s never started anti-Semitism, they just bought a political dimension to anti-Semitism- there was still the suspicion that Jews were blood libels. The Nazi’s rose to power from 1933-1945 and within that time, millions of people were humiliated, beaten, starved, gassed to death, cremated and burnt in mass graves. Over 6million Jews were killed during the Holocaust in evil ways, and those that survived were left with the mental scars and images of what they lived through miraculously. The cruelty that they witnessed, along with the personal and communal sufferings that they endured left the Jews that were able to survive with a shaken faith and the ability to question G-d’s existence. Four theologians; Eliezer Berkowitz, Emile Fackenheim, Ignaz Maybaum and Richard Rubenstein provide the main sources and viewpoints that Jews after the Holocaust base their beliefs on. Eliezer Berkowitz...
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...Good and evil are moral concepts that coexist in modern society, categorizing actions and feelings based on a philosophical concept. Both are linked together, like the concept of ying and yang; one cannot exist without the other, they form a balance. According to team member Erika Alati, when using the word values, you must think of the subjects that a person views as important to his or her life. For example, a person with strong familial values may put family before other facets of life. A person’s morals refer to what is internally viewed as right or wrong. Morals are almost like personal traits; they are inborn into an individual’s character. As a person is growing older, they are exposed to many different ideas. Using this input of information, a person forms different beliefs. One of the most common examples refers to religious beliefs, for example Christianity. Team member Kelly O’Brien believes that a moral, a value and a belief are all uniquely correlated. There are some distinct differences, but all combine to determine the good or evil nature of an individual. A moral is an internal sense of what we believe to be right and wrong. Values are the principles by which we construct decisions about right and wrong; while prioritizing the importance of the value(s). Morals encompass more about good and bad leading to a stronger contradictory judgment, such as being immoral. A belief, however, is a more incendiary device. Satre (1956/2003) stated “we are always...
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...atrocities of the Holocaust. ‘Night’ is set during the Holocaust time period in 1944–45, toward the end of the World War Two. It mainly takes place in Auschwitz and Buchenwald which are both Nazi Germany concentration camps. The memoir depicts his experiences with his father in those concentration camps. ‘Night’ takes the reader on a journey where Eliezer, who was only 15 and his family, along with many other Jews, were forcibly removed from their hometown and transported to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He wrote about their battle for survival, and of his battle with God for a way to understand the spiteful cruelty he witnesses each day as well as his increasing disgust with humanity due to the inhumane treatment of the Jews and how they were...
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...Why do the survivors of such a tragic event such as the Holocaust want to remember those horrifying times by writing about memories that most people would only want to forget? I will show, Weisel has talked about, and as others have written, that the victims of the holocaust wrote about their experiences not only to preserve the history of the event, but so that those who were not involved and those who did survive can understand what really happened. They wanted the people of the world to realize how viciously they were treated. On top of wanting us to understand, they also want to understand why this happened. Why did the Lord let this happen? Why did the people of the world stand by and let such a thing happen to so many people? Today in the 90's we cannot think of letting so many people suffer, as those seven million people did in the mid-40s. Perhaps the most recognized writer of the holocaust is Elie Wiesel. He was taken from his home and put into the concentration camps when he was still a young boy. Wiesel once said, "I write in order to understand as much as to be understood." He was liberated in 1945 and, once he was liberated "he imposed a ten-year vow of silence upon himself before trying to describe what had happened to him and over six million other Jews." In a lecture on the dimensions of the holocaust Wiesel said, ""The Holocaust as Literary Inspiration" is a contradiction in terms. As in everything else, Auschwitz negates all systems, destroys all doctrines...
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...Clarens I. Desir Professor Matthew Lau EN 101 6 February 2014 Regine, Beyer. “Life after the Holocaust” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Revised Edition. N.p., 10 June 2013. Web. 8 May 2014 Regine, Beyer’s article. “Life after the Holocaust” (2010), asserts that he learned that human being cannot be reduced to one period of their lives, even though it might have been the determining one, and About the strength of mind and spirit in sometimes frail bodies. About forgiveness, and not being able to forgive. About mutual sympathy and respect despite age and cultural differences. He made it he’s purpose to look for people who tell their story well (without sounding "professional” in any way) people whose stories can provide a different view on aspect of the overall story we have taken for granted. Base on the article Beyer is writing to Holocaust survivors, and anyone who’ve had their lives affected in any way cause of the Holocaust. He’s purpose was to get their stories out there, because those stories made a big impression on he’s life. Children during the Holocaust. “United States Holocaust Memorial Museum”. Web. May 8 2014. “Children during the holocaust” (2013), prove that children were especially vulnerable doing the holocaust because the Nazis advocate killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators...
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...eing a human entails being kind to all living creatures whether that means humans or animals. Being a part of humanity means to be a part of the tragedies that come along with it. Every day there is some sort of catastrophic event that occurs such as, school shootings, bombings, murders, rapes, and so many other dreadful things. These calamitous occurrences are becoming a part of our daily routine. We may stop to read the newspaper or watch that news segment for a few moments to learn what happened, but we do not take the time to empathize what happened to that person or an entire country. As Bloom had stated, “But empathy will have to yield to reasons if humanity is to have a future” (Bloom), this statement has to muster up some sort of emotion...
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...Shannon Trubatch Imaginary Worlds Assignment 2 ENG201 Behind the Lens: Photographs of the Holocaust Religion has been found to be, time and time again, a factor that influences the actions taken by many, both kind and cruel, across the globe and throughout history. My mother is a Christian, and I grew up in a household celebrating Christian holidays and attending church on Sundays. My father, however, was raised in Long Island in a Jewish home, where he celebrated Hanukah, had a bar mitzvah, and went to temple. As I grew up, I would learn of the history of the world, but nothing would strike me more than the events of the Holocaust. As I continued to learn and grow older, I would begin to understand the atrocities that took place during this time, half a world a way, and the images and films that I saw in regards to the Holocaust would haunt me most of all. A photo essay, compiled by the English department at the University of Illinois, contains a number of photographs from the Holocaust that demonstrates the atrocities that occurred during this time. These photographs support the argument developed by Susan Sontag that photographers must make the decision between a photograph and a life, and that the viewers of these images also have a responsibility to actions of atrocity and human suffering. In Susan Sontag’s book On Photography, she develops the argument that photography is an act of nonintervention; that the photographer is faced with the choice between capturing...
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...ANNE FRANK “CHILD OF THE HOLOCAUST” Through the eyes of one adolescent girl, this book depicts the feelings of many Jewish people whose lives were forever changed by the Nazi Invasion in the 1940’s during World War II. The Holocaust was an atrocious time in Europe when approximately 6 million Jews were tortured, beaten and murdered as a result of their religion. During this era, the Jewish people were taken to concentration camps and were gassed or burnt to death. For many people, Anne Frank became a symbol of those six million Jewish men, women and especially the children who were murdered by the Nazis as these tragic events unfolded. It is almost impossible to comprehend this number, but the story of Anne Frank makes it possible to understand what the war meant for one of these victims. For my book report, I chose to focus on a life of a young girl named Anne Frank. Anne was a German Jewish girl whose family fled the Nazi Persecution of Jews in Germany in the 1930's, settling in what they hoped was the safety of Amsterdam, Holland. When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, the terror returned and the Franks went into hiding in a Secret Annex, hidden rooms at the back of Otto Frank's (father) business premises in Amsterdam. Most books about famous people only tell the reader about what the person was like as a child, to help explain what they were like as a grown up. But Anne’s diary is all about her childhood because she never had a chance to grow up. Very few...
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...Wave of Human Spirit The memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, revealed how those who doubt or question God, as does the author, and those who have not doubted, never did lose their belief in God. As long as they keep the faith within oneself, an individual like Elie Wiesel who had experienced such adversities in life may become stronger to be able to get through the situation. A Wave of Human Spirit The Holocaust presented a call to people everywhere to reevaluate the role of God in their lives. The pain and suffering that we know took place is in dark contrast to what we would have thought possible in the presence of our God, and anyone who comes in contact with these horrors will be forever shaken in his present faith. Some have reacted with anger toward God, others with denial. Still others reacted with mistrust of all that God had meant before. But by asking questions, some have grown to learn that God never did things the way people expect Him to, and that fact becomes the cornerstone of the new start to their theology. God does not answer questions unless they suit His purposes. This is what we have learned from Auschwitz and from the writings of Elie Wiesel. We must continue to ask questions, continue to challenge God, until, one day, He Himself will give us the answers. And until then we should never feel so secure in faith as to think that Auschwitz could never happen again. We must make certain, through our actions, which it will never happen again. A Wave of Human Spirit ...
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...“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it” (Wiesel). In other words, experiencing something bad or even good and to not share it with someone is as if it never happened. This is an appropriate statement for Elie Wiesel to use because it was his experience through the holocaust that caused him to become a successful writer with such works as Night. Eliezer Wiesel, known as Elie, was named after his grandfather who was killed while working as a stretcher-bearer during World War I. He was born on September 30, 1928 in the countryside of Seigh, Romania. Wiesel was a middle child and the only son to Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel, a shopkeeper and a leader in his community. He had two older sisters, Hilda and Bea, and a younger one named Judith. Elie was a shy, thin thoughtful boy who never learned how to swim, preferred books to sports, and enjoyed playing chess. At an early age he was intimidated by classmates, so often he faked being sick so he could stay home. “Being an insecure youngster, Elie tried to bribe his classmates with...
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