Conformity And Mentality In Todd Strasser's The Wave

"Hitler Youth:Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow." 2005. Studysync: Reading & Writing Companion. Sonoma, CA: BookheadEd Learning, LLC, 2015. 397-99. Print.

Recalling his devoted years to the Hitler Youth program, author Alfons Heck states “I have never once during the Hitler years thought of myself as anything but a decent, honorable young German, blessed with a glorious future” (206). This honesty conveyed by Heck elucidates the selfish ideals of those in the Hitler Youth, a theme apparent in the novel A Child of Hitler. Although Heck’s thoughts are self-conceited, they convey the opinions of those decieved by the Hitler Youth principles. As politically incorrect as these principles were, A Child of Hitler portrays them differently than other literature reporting on the subject. Through his descriptions of daily activities, Heck describes the pressure that children faced as Hitler Youth.

In Alan Bennett’s, The History Boys, the Holocaust Scene is vital to the development of drama in the play. Bennett uses the conflict in this scene to develop the significance of inter-character relationships. It is a significant moment because it forms a climax to the antagonism between Hector and Irwin, influencing the boys to take sides, and it is dramatic because of the uncomfortable and impermissible topic chosen.

Gruwell taught her class about the Holocaust, the genocide of Jews. While learning about this major event in class the students were able to see how another person’s hatred affected someone’s life. They saw that many of the victims did not survive and were killed simply because of their race. This drew a parallel for the students to see how their hatred and violence against each other was senseless. In the same way Hitler killed Jews because of their race, they were killing each other. From learning about the Holocaust the students were able to step outside from their own personal norms, and examine a situation from a new or different

Have you ever been hurt by words or inspired by a saying? It’s staggering that they can change people's life for good or end it altogether. The Wave, a short novel based on a true story by Morton Rhue, demonstrates the power of words in good and bad ways. The novel is about a teacher who dictates his students into a Nazi-like student group as a lesson for his history class. However, the simple, seemingly harmless experiment soon goes out of hand and no one can stop the students organization, The Wave. An important idea in the text is ‘words can be used for harm or for good. One author method that is used by Rhue to convey this idea is the power of repetition of harmful words. And a second author method that is used by Rhue to reveal this idea is persuasive, emotive language by Mr Ross to get students on board with the experiment.

In “Hungry” and “On Becoming Educated” by Joy Castro as well as “Our Secret” by Susan Griffin, personal and political history work in similar ways to uncover the magnitude of similarities everyone contains. Castro uses her personal stories to emphasize societal norms, in relation to feminism, and how they affect and have affected learning similarly in history and modern times. Griffin takes on a similar task, but she relates her childhood interactions with family to those affected by the Holocaust, particularly Heinrich Himmler. Both writers identify sections in which they utilize elements of autobiography to connect individual life to the larger cultural and political implications by placing similar stories in order and broadening their choice of words and phrases. Castro and Griffin portray exactly how similar actions and occurrences can be due to the way society influences people and their ignorance, deception, and hidden intentions.

World War II was a grave event in the twentieth century that affected millions. Two main concepts World War II is remembered for are the concentration camps and the marches. These marches and camps were deadly to many yet powerful to others. However, to most citizens near camps or marches, they were insignificant and often ignored. In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak introduces marches and camps similar to Dachau to demonstrate how citizens of nearby communities were oblivious to the suffering in those camps during the Holocaust.

These examples show the ignorance and lack of action by the people of Germany and surrounding countries, as well as the helplessness of the Jews during the Holocaust. While in the ghetto of Sighet, Elie witnesses the brutality the Hungarian police use to control the Jewish people. “The Hungarian police struck out with truncheons and rifle butts, to right and left, without reason… their blows falling upon old men and women….” (25) Later on, German people do nothing to help the concentration camp victims when they pass through towns between camps. Finally, when riding the cattle car from Gleiwitz to Buchanan, citizens throw bread in the cars in order to watch the Jews fight for amusement. The quotes “They stopped and stared after us, but otherwise showed no surprise” (105) and “Dozens of starving men fought each other to death for a few crumbs. The German workmen took a lively interest in this spectacle” (105) display that the common public were cruel because they ignored Jewish persecution and even mocked it in a sense. They were bystanders. This relates to the theme because it shows how inaction can be worse than beating; because Jews received no help from the people around them, they were forced to endure the Holocaust. This is truly

"Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow." Studysync: Reading & Writing Companion. Sonoma, CA: BookheadEd Learning, LLC, 2015. 398-400. Print.

The story’s striking details and thought provoking ideas made it unpopular among the Port Washington school board. It should be read in high schools, not be challenged for its one description of a time bomb. The book is memorable and mature students can see past the image to reflect on the book's true message of

This distinctness is not unexpected, for as one’s strengths and beliefs are personal, as is the effect of events effecting those strengths and beliefs. Wiesel and Ten Boom state the purpose of their self-exposed stories clearly, and their purposes differ just as clearly. Wiesel stresses the importance of applying lessons of the past to the present for the sake of the world’s future. He writes to create a feeling of such horror and catharsis within the reader to prevent the evil of the Holocaust or any type of unjust persecution to ever occur again. He opens the reader’s eyes with vividly horrible images of human suffering and creates no barrier

World War Two, a time of gore, the type of war, humanity can’t stand or bear to imagine! This was a time where six million Jews were sent to their deaths. The war, known as the Holocaust, lasted from 1939-1945. Yet, the question asked by all, how does the spirit triumph? Our spirit’s triumph by these “big things”, known as love, laughter, and nature.

Dehumanization usually involves members of one group asserting the inferiority of another group through acts or words. But during the Holocaust, the Nazis did not stop at simply asserting their own superiority over the Jews; they stripped them of their sense of self and individuality and reduced them to the numbers they had tattooed on their arms. The theme of inhumanity is omnipresent in every story and every memory recounted in the memoir. Night makes you question the power of humanity. It makes you wonder how ordinary human beings could bring themselves to commit the kind of atrocities that we now deem unthinkable. But then again, people say that the most human thing of all is

This criticism of writing about the Holocaust emerges in the concept of truth and whose accounts of the Holocaust are fact, and if the reader chooses to believe what is written. Often times in the classroom especially, historically encompassing documents of the Holocaust are viewed as more valid resources than a creative piece. Kenneth Mischel argues,

The average person’s understanding of the Holocaust is the persecution and mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s, most are unaware that the people behind the atrocities of the Holocaust came from all over Europe and a wide variety of backgrounds. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution, and Jan Gross’s Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedbwabne, Poland, all provides a different perspective on how ordinary people felt about their experiences in the Holocaust both perpetrators and victims.