...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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...Jonathan Zarate Ms. Davis World Literature 15 December 2016 Is the Holocaust Considered Genocide? In 1944, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, used the Greek word ‘genos’ (race, tribe) and the Latin word ‘cide’ (killing) to make up the word we know today as genocide. The Holocaust was a genocidal occurring during the 1940’s. During this time about six million Jews were killed. Jews were forced to work in harsh conditions and were given very little food to eat. This resulted in a tragic event that will be remembered throughout history. Some believe the Holocaust is not considered genocide, however they are incorrect. The Holocaust should be considered an example of genocide based on the United Nation’s definition, the stages of genocide, and specific evidence provided in the memoir “Night”....
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...along with its own problem on how to remember the Holocaust. Without the willing compliance of the other party, reexamining and reevaluating a country’s own false narrative becomes an arduous task filled with challenges. Verhoeven demonstrates this through the different obstacles Sonja must overcome in reexamining her own village’s narrative. Even after suing the city for access to the documents she needs, Sonja still has difficulty attaining the files. Excuses for the delay in the documents arrival ran from “you want the Zumtobel documents… they are still checked out” to “the documents are so old. Too brittle. They mustn’t be touched anymore” to finally “the problem is the documents are too new. Personal rights. You understand, right?...
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...of funny, right? Sure.” This is how it starts: small. Bullying. A form of abuse: involving repeated acts over time attempting to create or enforce one person's (or group's) power over another person (or group). Recently, I have learned the going-on of one of the most tragic events ever, The Shoah. Through this learning I have derived some profound insights into not only myself, but others. My World Geography class researched acts of the Holocaust and discussed them at length. These exercises changed me, forever. They provided an experience that was incredibly valuable in changing my view on a variety of things: the role of bystanders, empathy, the power of little things, and how to react. Therefore, studying the Holocaust has changed my view and reaction to bullying, which is now focused on both recognizing and stopping bullying. The first thing we discussed about the Holocaust was the string of continuous discriminatory acts against the Jews. It was a changing moment for me. Before then, I had supposed the Holocaust as a random act of sorts - an event without roots before it. I was wrong. I learned that bigotry against Jews had been happening for centuries. It started in 70 A.D. and continued building and building and building. This genealogy of Jewish hatred made me rethink how I viewed small acts of bullying within my own life. Now, instead of seeing a small act of bullying and ignoring it, I see that small act as a piece, a piece of a chain that was...
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...During the Holocaust, millions of Jews, gypsies, and members of other groups were persecuted and murdered by Nazi occupied Europe. However, many forget to acknowledge that among these were children. It may never be known exactly how many children were murdered but it is said that as many as some 1.5 million children may have fell victim to the Nazi party. Although children were not a main target of the Nazi's violence, they did fall subject to persecution along with their parents. Jewish children were first exposed to persecution in school. Many of their friends who were not Jewish began not socializing with them and even began to treat them in prejudice ways. This was soon followed with the announcement that, "German Jewish children were prohibited from attending German schools (www.mtsu.edu/.baustin/children.html). The life of children had quickly become as torn apart as their parents. However, there were more efforts to help the children escape the grips of the Nazi rule. Before 1939, several thousand children were able to escape in "Kindertransports to the Netherlands, Great Britain, Palestine, and the United States (www.mtsu.edu/.baustin/children.html). Those who were not able to escape were placed in ghettos and transit camps. These ghettos and transit camps served as the foreground to the death and slave labor camps that would soon follow. It was written in a Jewish diary, A Jewish ghetto in the traditional sense is impossible; certainly a closed ghetto is...
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...Moshe Katsav once said, “The Holocaust is not only a tragedy of the Jewish people, it is a failure of humanity.” In the years 1939 through 1945, a horrendous event took place that affected Germany and the world. Those were the years of the Holocaust, the genocide of Jewish people during the reign of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. The atrocity is still remembered today and a film was made to ensure that no one forgets what happened and how it impacted people. Schindler's List is a film that takes place throughout Germany and focuses on a man named Oskar Schindler, a businessman who befriends the Nazi party for his own personal benefits. He owns a factory and employs Jewish workers and a Jewish accountant in order to take care of his business for him. As World War II progresses, Schindler does his best to keep his workers, unintentionally saving them. He soon faces the dilemma to stand-by and watch Jewish people die, or to save them at the cost of risking himself. Oskar Schindler reshaped himself from a materialistic and selfish person, to a man of indifference towards anti-Semitism, into finally becoming an ethical, selfless person....
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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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...The Holocaust: Suggested Reading There is a wealth of information about the Holocaust. So much has been written, in fact, that it can be difficult to determine where to start. This reading list is collected from recommendations from other members of The Holocaust History Project. It is not a complete bibliography but represents our opinion as to what are the most useful starting places for research. Since this list concentrates on works that are easily available and useful to a person unacquainted with the history of the Holocaust, many excellent books which are rare or out of print are not listed. Another class of books that are not included is works that are controversial because of their contents or the unusual theories they propose. Some of these are excellent works, others are not. But we feel that the reader for whom this list was compiled would not have the knowledge needed to evaluate these discussions of the legitimate controversies about the Holocaust. Just as a medical student must learn anatomy before he or she is taught surgery, someone studying the Holocaust must know the factual background before some of the more technical studies can be understood. As well as general works we have included books of specialized interest concerning the matters about which we at The Holocaust History Project are most frequently asked. Many of these books deal with more than one subject, but in the interest of brevity we have not cited a book more than once. General history of the...
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...TEACHERS AND PARENTS HANA’S SUITCASE is the true story of Jewish girl who died at Auschwitz at the age of thirteen and how, although her life was taken at such a young age, her memory and spirit continue to live on today. Adapted from the book of the same title by Karen Levine, HANA’S SUITCASE explores the journey of teacher and children at the Tokyo Holocaust Education Center take to find out who Hana Brady is—all from a suitcase the Center received with Hana’s name, birth date, and the word waisenkind (orphan) written on it. The children at the Center are captivated by this suitcase, and the girl who once owned it, and they begin flooding Fumiko Ishioka, the Center’s Director, with question after question about Hana. Fumiko recognizes the importance of uncovering Hana’s story for her students. This tragic event cannot be summed up in numbers or facts— it affected individuals, young and old, who each had a story, families, and hopes and dreams. As Fumiko slowly but determinedly reveals Hana’s story, she discovers that Hana was sent to live in Theresienstadt, a Jewish ghetto, and eventually died at Auschwitz. However, as devastating as this is for Fumiko and the children at the Center to find out, they also learn that Hana had an older brother who survived the Holocaust and was now living with his family in Canada. Fumiko and the children write to George Brady, asking him to share...
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...Many people have died or suffered throughout history due to the abuses of human rights. Some of those events have happened years ago, but things like this are still happening today. There are many different examples of human rights abuse, and there are several reasons for why these horrid events have happened. However, when people think of events like this, they usually think of the Holocaust, but there are thousands and thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of other examples. Conflicts can easily be formed, and those conflicts can easily cause issues, and many genocides that have happened in the past have occurred because of conflicts that were formed…or… and many genocides have occurred because of conflicts that were formed… One situation...
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...the Hindenburg Line. On September 26th, armies attacked. Fighting with heavy artillery and new, modern tanks, the Allied army tore open the heart of the Hindenburg Line. British troops advanced, overwhelming the Germans as they retreated, fighting their pursuers every step of the way. After four long years of war, Germany’s proud military commanders finally accepted that the war was lost. With rebellious soldiers and civilians marching through the streets, demanding a new government, even the Kaiser agreed that it was time to negotiate for peace with the Allies without the disgrace of having to surrender. In October, he sent officials to propose a cease-fire, or armistice. But, even with his empire crumbling around him, the Kaiser still thought Germany could end the war without losing too much power or territory. He wouldn’t listen to any suggestions that he might be forced to give up his position as supreme ruler. But he was unaware of the disaster that was overtaking his country. Germany was facing nothing less than total ruin. November 13th, 1918; Shocked, discontent, all struck and trying to recollect his memories of the war. He had just heard...
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...MODULE C – History and Memory Sample 1 How has your understanding of events, personalities or situations been shaped by their representations in the texts you have studied. Refer to your prescribed text and at least TWO other related texts of your own choosing. History can be defined as “the methodical record of public events” where memory is defined as “the faculty by which events are recalled or kept in mind”. Thus history and memory interrelate as history can be seen as the contextual justification for memory. “The Fiftieth Gate” is a poignant interweaving of history and memory. The text follows protagonist, Mark Baker an historian, son of Holocaust survivors Genia and Yossl (Joe), on an historical journey through memory, to uncover the origins of his past and act as a catalyst for future generations to also connect with their history. Mark Baker’s journey through history and memory is also executed through his conventional ideas that memory is biased and less valid than history. There are numerous references to the discrepancies between the personal memories of his parents and the documented history Mark as an historian believes. In this way it is apparent that Mark is on a quest for verification, “my facts from the past are different”. This displays the flaw Mark traditionally notes in memory and his need for historical evidence. As responders accompany Mark on his journey, they also encounter the complexity of simultaneously being a son and an historian. This...
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...its relevance to the society. For instance, Isaiah Berlin argues that Romanticism towards heroes led to start of fascism (Thompson, 113). Thus, he suggests that due to the conflagration of the Holocaust it is dangerous for any individual to heroize another and a childish refusal to enlightenment and resistance of “essential destiny” of the human nature. Furthermore, Thompson inquires if have we reached a point in our pursuit of autonomy that we need to do away with childish things like heroes (113). Alternatively, should the intense cynicism of the current times protect an inextinguishable need for something better perhaps some hope of a future worth pursuing and heroes to lead us there? For instance, consider a society without a history, or take away the history of the United States, could there be a meaningful thing without histories and histories. According to Lindberg, if a person conducted a study to ascertain the importance of history, to study, clarify, and analyze the components of the past, present, and future in the historical characters, he/she can discover the debt a hero owes to the past, the influence such a hero either male or female may have in the future, and what he symbolizes of the present (309). Ideally, the abundance and overwhelming images created by the media today creating public figures make history a valuable component in achieving a balanced judgment. In our current, the images of individuals who are perceived as heroes are created and torn down a few...
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...(re)building new archives that motivates Maus. Its defining feature is that it shows the materiality of Spiegelman’s archive; it is about the embodiment of archives. The subject of Maus is the retrieval of memory and ultimately, the creation of memory…. It’s about choices being made, of finding what one can tell, and what one can reveal, and what one can reveal beyond what one knows one is revealing. Those are the things that give real tensile strength to the work—putting the dead into little boxes. – Art Spiegelman (MetaMaus 73) Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is a book about archives. And the book about making Maus, MetaMaus, is both a process of taking stock of the Maus archive and an active process of creating a new archive.1 Maus is about the Holocaust, featuring two intertwined stories: that of Auschwitz survivor Vladek Spiegelman’s struggle in the 1930s and 40s in Poland during WWII, and that of his son Art...
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...| The Lie of The Century | Analysis of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Scheme | | ' Introduction As long as the investment financial market existed, only one man was able to etched his name to the investment history as the greatest fraudster, and his name is Bernard Madoff. A brilliant fraudster that able to swindled over $50 billion from thousands of people using a type of investment fraud called "Ponzi Scheme." Using this type of investment frauds and his charming personality, Madoff stolen money from politicians, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg, famous celebrities, such as Kelvin Bacon, hedge fund directors, such as R. Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, universities, such as Yeshiva University, banking institutions, such as Union Bancaire Privee, and charitable organizations, such as Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. (Deborah & Strober, 2009) In that one day in the 11th of December in 2008, thousands people wake up to know the money that they entrusted to Madoff is nothing more than just a "lie." In other words, numbers that exist without any meaning. Madoff's Biography Born in Queens, New York, Madoff established himself from a humble blue collar workers, who earned his money from lifeguarding and installing sprinkle systems, to a genius international million dollar investor, who stolen billions of dollars from his clients. His investment firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Security (BMIS), based in New York, but its clients are as far as from European, South...
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