A Wonderful Essay Of Christian Heroism

Heroes aren't all in comic books and movies they can be ordinary people too. To live an ordinary life a person has to be brave to get through the day and they have to be kind to people so they make friends. Being inspirational is something that not everyone can be but it helps so people can look up to the people that can inspire. Being kind is more than just saying nice things; people every day hold doors and say thank you when they are giving things. Some people inspire others to be courageous like making people get over their fears. Courage helps people get over fears as well. Knowing that they can overcome anything that comes at them is courage, and it will always help them. Because heroism involves courage, it causes inspiration and kindness without recognition.

When many think of the Holocaust as a solely negative experience, and while it may seem easy to write the event off as a dark time in history that seems remote and unlikely to affect us today, there are some positive results, including the lessons that it brings for current and future humanity. The lessons that the Holocaust brings are applicable to every person in the world. While many of these lessons do focus on the negative aspects of the Holocaust, like what circumstances permit such a vast genocide and how many people can die because of widespread racial hatred, there are also those that focus on how some people, in all parts of Europe and throughout the world, retained their good human nature during the Holocaust. For example, what made some gentiles in Europe during that time willing and able to help Jews. Currently, Yad Vashem has recognized 26,513 rescuers throughout the world (Names), and the actual number of rescuers could likely be close to twice that amount (Baron,1). It is important that we analyze the reasons behind these rescuers’ choices to be upstanders instead of bystanders because we can learn about our own motivations when we face decisions between helping others and protecting ourselves, and possibly those we love, from harm. Fulfilling one’s self-interest was a potential motivation for helping Jews that will only be briefly addressed. This type of rescue potentially benefitted both the Jews and the Gentile rescuers; these Gentiles only helped Jews survive because they found personal gain, likely social or economic, in the action (Baron). However, in the situation that existed while rescuing the Jews, most efforts included the high possibility that both the rescuer and the rescued would end up worse off than they had begun with no potential for personal gain on either side. So those rescuers’ motivations are less easily explainable.

• Writes about James, brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ. Stoned to death in A.D. 62. Pg.78

Heroes have achieved many feats that support the belief of a greater good and expressing valor and selflessness through the ages. There are fictional or real life accounts that have recognized these men and women for their vigor and marked them as heroes due to their events of success and motives of committing the heroic deeds. Yet there are copious amounts of people who have sacrifice themselves for a greater good but they have been lost through time even if their actions were prosperous or doomed in the end with a valiant purpose. They are unsung heroes who committed the actions based on their inner fire of what is right or honorable or rather than the fame they hope to achieve from those acts. The world or a populous may not know of their actions, but the actions and beliefs of an individual or group can entitle them of being hero-like without the necessity of recognition and success. They have lost their lives or a part of themselves to a cause based on righteousness rather than self-gain. They presented selfless heroism rather than the the intention to receive praise from the victories. Sacrifice contributes more to Heroism because the individual invested his or her own determination, valor and accepting the opportunity to risk their self-health (physical or psychological) based on great intentions rather than reaping the accolades of committing good deeds.

The infamous Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said, “Being a neutral bystander helps those who are evil; that remaining silent encourages even more evil to happen.” Wiesel was part of the millions of Jews and protesters who Nazis shipped off to numerous concentration camps during the Holocaust. The apprehended and inaccurately claimed convicts had to go through many terrors to survive. Wiesel was one of the few Jews who survived the time Hitler ruled. I agree with Wiesel’s significant quote for many various reasons. To begin, I agree with Wiesel’s statement because victims that could have helped others during the Holocaust ignored that there were evil actions occurring around them during the time Hitler ruled. The victims also ignored

“The risk of the Holocaust is not that it will be forgotten, but that it will be blamed and surrounded by monuments and used to absolve all future sin,” Zygmunt Bauman. Even if the whole world was told about the violence the Jewish people faced, the world that hasn’t experienced this would not believe anyone. There are many who know about this derogatory action and just don't do anything about it. These kind of people are called “bystanders,” this is a term that has often been given to people who had a mutual feeling to the escalating persecution in the Holocaust. After the war, many ordinary Germans and Europeans claimed that they were “not involved,” that they were “bystanders” to the events of the Holocaust. Use of the term “bystander” to avoid the responsibility for what happened, however, concealed the many different levels of individual involvement at all levels of society.

A quote from Albert Einstein states “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything”. As difficult as it is to describe the terrible deeds of those who were part of the Holocaust, it is true that those who did nothing are at fault just as much as those who carried out the actions. When one thinks of the Holocaust today it is difficult to picture that such events were done by human beings. Societies have advanced but it is important to acknowledge the reason as to why many bystanders refused to help or why they were so indifferent to the pain felt by the Jews. “The psychological mechanisms used to come to terms with the suffering of another appear to be very similar, whether the person is standing right before us or is 2,000 miles away. (Barnet:118) Barnett explains that ideological and moral principles also come into play, as do self-interest and the weighing of the possible consequences of our actions. We try to establish what is or is not possible. In the end, our decision will be determined not so much by whether we actually have the power to change a situation, but whether we have the will to do so. (Barnett, 118). In the case of many of the individuals who chose to become bystanders rather than change the situation they were not willing to get involved. Although not every German was a bystander, those who

Heroism is dead. Many people in the world are still heroic, but society’s definition of what a hero should be has almost become twisted beyond repair. If heroism is going to be an admirable trait in the future, then people must change the way they perceive its definition. Rather than living an average life and accomplishing one great feat, heroism is instead taking every opportunity to positively impact people and the infinitely improvable world in which they live. Society continuously defines heroism by the minimalistic definition of someone who has done one great thing or someone whose job is to improve the world around them.

What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word Holocaust? Some of the words you generally hear are genocide, devastating, sad, and evil, just to name a few. How often do you hear people describe or talk about the acts of compassion and good that came from the Holocaust? Not very often. It is a crazy concept to think that something good could come from the Holocaust where “five to six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime, its allies, and its surrogates” (Jones 223). However, there were still people that stood up for what they believed in and did whatever they could to make a difference, even if it meant death for them. There are many different people who are heroes of the Holocaust such as Oskar Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg, and Giovanni Palatucci. This paper will focus on a hero that was not as well known. Her name is Irena Sendler. Sendler’s constant courage every single day changed the fate of at least 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust. Throughout this paper you will learn a little bit more about Sendler, her background, what she did during the Holocaust, the four girls that first brought attention to Sendler here in the United States, and how she is remembered today.

The Holocaust was a very tragic event in all of history. Some Germans tried to put the chaos to a halt. Most Germans didn’t care at all; they thought Hitler knew what he was doing and that he was a good leader. Most Germans were clueless of what was happening in the concentration camps; they didn't know the pain and suffering Jews went through. They chose to not care. They could’ve saved lives’ but they chose to believe that Jews are bad. But some Germans chose to fight for what is right and tried to help Jews survive the Holocaust.Some of these people saved thousands’ of lives.

Holocaust Genocide Studies (1993) 7 (3) 372-401. http:/hgs.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/3/372 This source written by a Professor of Christian Ethical Studies examines why more non-Jews did not help their Jewish neighbours and then focuses on why some Christian Gentiles did risk their lives to save their Jewish neighbours. The text is written from a religious point of view and examines the social, biblical influences that may have been a common trait among righteous gentiles.

In situations of crises, people can have different reactions; some people might be destroyed by the hardships associated with being forcefully imprisoned in concentration camps, others may transcend above these crises through their strengths. In fact, many people in the Holocaust reacted differently; some by rising above with strength and determination while others exiled their faith to the shadows forever. Throughout history, several different reactions have been accounted for but some do not take the time to think of why survivors reacted in the manner that they did. By doing this, many people will gain greater insight on just how devastating the Holocaust was, even though some chose to make light out of darkness. Therefore, though the Holocaust is a despicable time in history, many chose to write memoirs about it in order to share their tales of both devastation and conquer to all who were unaware of the Holocaust’s significant affect on people (since many chose to turn their heads the other way while this was happening.) Overall, there were mixed reactions regarding the Holocaust, some using it to make themselves stronger, while others were severely affected; suffering from blows that would never heal.

The memoirs and stories that we have read and discussed in class have described The Holocaust as a life changing event that made both the conquered and conquerors question if there was any faith left in humanity and what were their true motives. Arguably the most horrific event of the twentieth century and even in Earth’s history, The Holocaust devastated most of Central and Eastern Europe. It separated loved ones, most of the time forever. These stories display the courage and hope of ordinary people who just wanted to make it to the next day, by any means necessary.

The world of today has been a witness to countless menacing wars, violence, and tragedies, but the amount of sympathy and compassion the people feel towards it has significantly decreased. In fact, it is believed by many that capacity of compassion is limited and so the lack of consideration for other’s suffering is part of human nature. Psychologists such as C. Daryl Cameron and Keith Payne have developed the collapse of compassion theory, described in the article, “How to Increase Your Compassion Bandwidth,” that suggests that people are growing to become indifferent and less empathetic towards major moments in history of inhumane behavior. The apathetic attitude individuals have towards tragedies is not a phenomenon only seen in the recent years, but in fact can be traced to about seventy years ago, in the midst of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was carried out by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi reign, between 1933 and 1945, which brought upon the world a massive genocide that almost killed the entire Jewish population of Europe. For nearly twelve years, Jewish people were isolated from society with discriminative laws, thrown into crowded and unsanitary ghettos, and then shipped into concentration camps where they met their deaths. The Jews were endlessly slaughtered in a cruel manner, but yet hardly any people cried out for its injustice. The behavior of the Nazis was condoned by most of the German people who supported its reign and even the prisoners of the death camps began

the extra meaning of being "an act of god". In the Bible, one can find