...It seems that the times of Holocaust are already very far away from the point we are standing now, but everything is not as simple as it seems from the first sight. For many people this time will be something they will never forget, the time of struggle for an opportunity to survive. It was a time for fighting for the right to live, the time when Jews were killed just for “being Jews”, a time when a man with a “yellow star” was doomed. It took place in 1939-1945 and was introduced by Adolph Hitler, a man whose idea was to decontaminate the German race from all the minorities. Thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps, killed or vanished. It was the time of “monopoly on violence”(Torpey, 1997) towards the Jews. This World War II period made an enormous impact on the direction that was taken by the social relations between Jews and other nations. Holocaust divided the lives of Jews into three periods: before, during and after it, which showed how hard was its hit.”…Cats have nine lives, but we - we're less than cats, we got three. The life before, the life during, the life after…"(Joselit, 1995 p.1) Jew people lost loved ones; homes, lives and it took them quiet a time to renew the curative power of their belief. The other main thing resulting from the Holocaust was the influence it had on future terrorism and the appearance of pure racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination. Holocaust the terrorists showed that the “big” goals could be achieved through any possible ways...
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...The Holocaust The rise of the Nazi Party began in 1930 when Adolf Hitler’s National Social party gained 107 seats in the New German Reichstag (Rogasky 20). Over a period of a few years the Nazi Party received enough votes so the government had to take it seriously and offer it power. Many believed Hitler and the Nazi Party was like any other political party, so on January 30, 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany (Nelson, English.illinois.edu). Shortly after Hitler assumed the role as chancellor, the wheels began churning to begin a terrible tragedy. This tragedy, known as “The Holocaust”, targeted a variety of people. The Nazis persecuted anyone who dared to oppose them as well as the disabled, African Americans, Gypsies, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses; they reserved their strong hatred for the Jews. Many people cannot grasp how such a tragic phenomenon, like “The Holocaust”, could occur. In order for one to truly understand the Holocaust, one must understand how Hitler rose to power and killed so many people in such little time. Within a year and a half, Hitler and the Nazis Party had taken absolute power of Germany. It became possible to arrest opponents of the regime and lock them up with no charge filed, no warrant and no real evidence. The first concentration camp Dachau was opened in March 1933 to hold all the prisoners (Wood 42). In August 1933 Hitler declared himself both president and chancellor of the Third Reich and commander-in-chief of the military...
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...Cory Arentsen History 1000024 Professor Hackner 16 April 2015 The Holocaust The Holocaust is possibly the biggest monstrosity that has ever been committed by man. The one specific man, Adolf Hitler, was the main contributor to this horrid time. Hitler was a festooned veteran of World War I and also a German politician, a chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and the leader of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. By the end of World War II, which ended in 1945, the Nazis had thrashed millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, and communists. The primary targets of Hitler’s motives were the Jews. Of the nine millions of Jews who lived in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately 6 million were killed. For years, European Jews were prosecuted and seen as a problem by most of Europe. Anti-Semitism was extremely popular in Europe and during the rise of the Nazis, the new laws that were put in place to discriminate against the Jews were highly tolerated. All of this combined with Hitler’s radical nature set the stage for the slaughter of the Jewish people. Legal discrimination against the Jewish people began immediately after the Nazis took power in 1933. However, the mass slaughtering of all the European Jewish people were widely kept a secret until after the war. These highly topped secret death camps were first coordinated and discussed at the Wannsee Conference held in Berlin. This conference was between all of the highest ranking Nazi officials and its purpose was...
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...When the Holocaust started, no one believed it would be as horrid as it was. No one believed the rumors they were hearing until it was happening to them. Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and elderly people went through traumatic experiences and many were murdered in huge masses. The children of the Holocaust and the children of Holocaust survivors, however, suffered more physically and emotionally because they were given away, tortured, left alone, and put through many hardships. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Jews were targeted from the very beginning. Laws were implemented and they had a severe impact on the lives of children. The laws restricted the number of Jewish children that could attend school, it banned children from many public...
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...Holocaust Life during the Holocaust The Holocaust was a horrible event and had many tragedies and losses of family and friends. This event starts in 1933 where Hitler rises to power, and ends in 1945 where Hitler is defeated and the holocaust has ended. There are many topics about the holocaust that people would want to know, but this topic is a crucial and important one. The topic is Life during the Holocaust where we learn about how Jewish people live during the holocaust and what happened to them in the concentration camps. A very shocking moment in people’s life is when they are kids and they live during the holocaust. Children in the holocaust were beaten, tortured and killed in either a concentration camp or death camp. If they did survive they would have died of hard labor, starvation or diseases that were spread in camps. A total of one and a half million Jewish children were killed during the holocaust. During the holocaust children had to wear patches in the shape of a yellow star which is known as the Star of David. One comment from a Jewish child during the holocaust in Belgium named Beatrice Muchman defined it as when “…Having to wear the yellow star was a moment when deep fear and misery finally took hold” (www.ushmm.org). The holocaust striped children of all their memories and dreams in the future. The Jewish children couldn’t go to school because of the laws that were created for instance on law from the holocaust was Children with either mixed Jewish blood...
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...a great example of things that should not have happened or ever happen again. During the holocaust many people we able to witness many different things, such as hangings, burnings, beatings, and shootings. During a lifetime the average person doesn't get to witness these things, and never should have to. After reading this book about the holocaust I would recommend anyone who doesn't know a whole lot about the holocaust to go do research. The book talked about the child that got hung and talked about the burnings of Jews and the way they were treated. This is definitely something that I wish would have never happened, and hopes that it never has to happen again. I picked this scene mainly because I thought it was completely wrong. In the book there were three people that were going to be hung, two older men, and then a smaller child. That day they were called to do a roll call. When everyone was lined up for roll call they brought the three people up to be hung. Right then and there they hung the three people in front of everyone, they made everyone file by and look at all three of the people. Both if the men died instantly, but the young boy was to small to die instantly. He dangled for a half hour before dying. After reading that paragraph I hope you got the same feeling I did after we read it in class. This definitely had the biggest impact on me after reading about the holocaust. The way they separated families and treated people without really even caring one bit about...
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...Final Paper The Holocaust September 1st, 1939 marks the day in which the Holocaust began, a day we should never forget. Hitler had dreams to purify Germany and deem the Aryan race supreme however, he did not succeed. The strength and will power of the Jewish people to survive these unbearable times must be remembered for many generations to come. We must remember and teach about the incredible people who survived and give tribute to those who perished through documentation of the Holocaust, the community aspects, representation and religion of the Holocaust. Documentation of the Holocaust is very critical in teaching the future generations. Soon, all the survivors will be gone and it will be in the hands of our generation to tell the stories of the Holocaust. Several books and movies have been produced in memory of the Holocaust such as the Yizkor books. About “1,300 books have been published since the end of WWII”(Dr. Neil Jacobs) and they are great outlets of telling the stories of specific towns. For example, my Yizkor book project was on the city Dzialoszyce which was a thriving community in Poland. This book explains aspects of the town in the form of four main sections; “The Town and Its Residents Before World War I, Between Two World Wars, Customs and Traditions and The Holocaust” (Moshe Rozneck). In Dzialoszyce, societies were an integral part of everyday life in order to form a more communal lifestyle among the citizens. Another outlet of documentation was...
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...memory. I am duty bound to serve as their emissary, transmitting the history of their disappearance, even if it disturbs, even if it brings me pain (p.74).” Ellie finds that he needs to tell the story of the dead. The millions of people who died in the holocaust need their stories told. There memory’s need to be publicized so that something as horrible as the holocaust will never happen again If the stories of the dead are not shared te loss of their lives would be worth nothing. The terrifying story’s that are told by Ellie and other writers bring the pain to the reads. It sends chills deep into our minds that make us sympathize for these people. The readers of the Twenty-First Century need to understand how something as evil and maniacal as the holocaust can never happen again. The people of Germany were falsely eluded to join forces with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime who promised them everything they ever wanted. We need to know that genocide is horrible and never right in any instance. These people suffered horrible deaths and with the persuasion of one psychotic man over a million Jewish people were killed relentlessly. I think that after hearing the stories of the dead people will never allow something like the holocaust to ever happen again. It is meant to stick deep into our minds and discourage any thought to such racial inferiority. Ellie Wiesel felt an emotional and personal connection with the dead. He feels he is haunted by their memories. He does not only...
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...Holocaust Midterm Dana Bob Mercy College 1. Explain the origins and development of modern anti-Semitism Throughout history the Jewish community has been subject to a violent history which can be traced as far back as their expulsion from Carthage in 250 C.E. For centuries, Jews have endured slavery, land confiscations, massacres, pogroms, blood baths, mass arrests, public torture, banishments, inquisition, slaughter, mass murders and finally, the Holocaust in the 20th century (Grossman, 2014). The Holocaust by far has been the most odious experience that the Jewish community has endured and yet there are many who deny it even took place. The rise of anti-Semitism in early 20th century Germany surely did not begin with Adolf Hitler; however, he was the fulcrum on which it intensified. This hatred for the Jews was not always the case as prior to World War I Jews in Eastern Europe “enjoyed a period of comparative peace, tranquility and the flowering of Jewish religious life” (Jones, 2011). It was after the defeat and subsequent peace settlement at Versailles in 1919, which was followed by a period of depression and burdensome reparations, that nation began to look for a scapegoat. The Jews were seen as the leaders of the parties which had surrendered and ‘stabbed’ Germany in the back by agreeing to the peace accord. Germany slipped into a great depression in the early 1920’s with widespread unemployment and rampant inflation. Hitler and the Nazi party began...
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...INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLOCAUST * Related Articles * Related Links * Comments * How to cite this article Two German Jewish families at a gathering before the war. Only two people in this group survived the Holocaust. Germany, 1928. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum * VIEW PHOTOGRAPHS * VIEW PERSONAL HISTORIES * VIEW ARTIFACTS * VIEW MAPS * VIEW HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every...
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...RELIGION AND SOCIETY UNIT ONE * The Holocaust By Chelsea Nguyen 11 Silver QUESTION NUMBER 3: Discuss the relationship Wiesel has with God throughout Night. Eliezer Wiesel presents the Jewish faith in a moment of extreme darkness however, what gives him the courage and strength to continue to live is his connection with religion and his relationship with God. Initially Elie shows strong devotion, then becomes disillusioned with God’s power, and ultimately redefines the position God holds in his life. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel’s relationship with God in Night shows strong devotion. Wiesel made spirituality inherent to all activities, wished to spend his life focused around Judaism, and devoted all his free time and energy on religious studies. Wiesel believed that religion was a basic survival need, showing that he followed his religion instinctively. When asked why he prayed, Wiesel couldn’t think of a proper answer and thought, “…strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?”. Wiesel maintained confidence in religion as the situation deteriorated. Wiesel and his people gave thanks to God for survival, keeping hope that God was putting them through a test of hardships what would keep them alive if they kept their faith. When they had arrived at Auschwitz, they thanked God and were able to regain their confidence because, “Here was a sudden release from the terrors of the previous nights”. Wiesel thanked God for the little things that helped him because...
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...“What is the first thing that comes to mind when the phrase ‘World War II’ is mentioned?” The typical response to this question will almost always be “Hitler and his cruelty toward Jews.” What is strange about this answer, is the fact that the majority of people do not realize what actually occurred in Europe during this time. To most people, the Holocaust was an “event” where many Jews were killed by Nazis. In fact, the Holocaust was a tragic point in history which many believe never occurred, or do not realize the suffering behind the widespread destruction. The pain and conditions exper- ienced by the victims is unimaginable by any standards. In the early 1930’s, the United States was reveling in turmoil. Eastern Europe was on the verge of power, and in a small western European country called Germany, trouble was brewing. In 1933, Europeans had no worries beyond their daily struggle to earn money, put food on their family's table, and clothes on their children's backs. This would all change in a matter of months. Whatever type of life a person had built or molded for themselves, it was all to come to a crashing halt if they did not conform to Hitler’s specifications. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. In March 1933, with the building of the Dachau concentration camp, “Adolf Hitler's rising became one of the swiftest, most destructive leaderships in recorded human existence” (Bauer 12). After his inception as ruler of Germany, Adolf Hitler...
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...“Night” Essay. 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...
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...Life during the Holocaust The Holocaust was a horrible event and had many tragedies and losses of family and friends. This event starts in 1933 where Hitler rises to power, and ends in 1945 where Hitler is defeated and the holocaust has ended. There are many topics about the holocaust that people would want to know, but this topic is a crucial and important one. The topic is Life during the Holocaust where we learn about how Jewish people live during the holocaust and what happened to them in the concentration camps. A very shocking moment in people’s life is when they are kids and they live during the holocaust. Children in the holocaust were beaten, tortured and killed in either a concentration camp or death camp. If they did survive they would have died of hard labor, starvation or diseases that were spread in camps. A total of one and a half million Jewish children were killed during the holocaust. During the holocaust children had to wear patches in the shape of a yellow star which is known as the Star of David. One comment from a Jewish child during the holocaust in Belgium named Beatrice Muchman defined it as when “…Having to wear the yellow star was a moment when deep fear and misery finally took hold” (www.ushmm.org). The holocaust striped children of all their memories and dreams in the future. The Jewish children couldn’t go to school because of the laws that were created for instance on law from the holocaust was Children with either mixed Jewish blood, Half Jewish...
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...Jewish memory, then it is our duty to remember the Jewish lives that perished and to keep Jewish memory alive. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, explains in his preface his reasons for writing the latest edition of his memoir Night: “[I] believe that [I] have a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.” The number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling. It is imperative that we remember their stories in order to give meaning to their survival. As Wiesel writes, “[The survivor] has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory.” Wiesel has painstakingly endowed us, the next generation, with the knowledge of the moral depravity during the Holocaust as well as the importance of remembrance. Now it is up to us to apply this knowledge and to fight against future genocides. As a Jewish teenager growing up in the United States, I believe that it is essential for our generation to remember not only the Holocaust, but also the debacle of our country’s lack of support for the Jewish community in its most crucial time of need. In his book, Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman asserts that: “The United States was willing to attempt almost nothing to save the Jews” (5). Indeed, the United States government had been cognizant of the Holocaust since 1939, but took no action. Quite to the contrary, it set strict Jewish immigration quotas, accepting only 21,000 refugees...
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