Germany 's Postwar Silence : The Horrible Atrocities Of The Holocaust

War and genocide: two tragic and devastating events that people often think of as vastly different. Where war usually reveals political difference, genocide demonstrates the idea of a certain party that desires to use mass destruction on another group. However, war and genocide have similarities which create uncertainty on how to define the event. “The Silent Holocaust”, more specifically known as the Guatemalan genocide of the Mayans, is a model example of confusion between war and genocide; many Mayans were killed, but the government claims the killings were justified. The Mayans’ fight for equality led the Guatemalan government to commit genocide against these people, by using the factors of the ongoing war as an excuse for the Mayan

Paul Bäumer is a German, young boy, who, together with his classmates, enlists for the army to fight in the Great War. Full of enthusiasm and adventurous thoughts, they arrive at the front, but then are faced with the horrific and soul-destroying war. One by one the classmates are fall in action…

In the world during the time of the Holocaust, there was indifference towards the suffering of millions of Jews. When individuals reflect about the Holocaust, the majority of the time the responsibility of the terrible events is placed upon the perpetrators. However, bystanders and witnesses indirectly affected the victims of the Holocaust as well. The silence of these people played one of the largest roles in the Holocaust, they influenced it by avoiding any type of involvement and by becoming blinded towards the suffering of others. In his Academy Award acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel says, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. This exert from his speech reveals the importance of the role that bystanders played in the

During the reign of the Third Reich, the symbolization of the pink triangle was used to identify the thousands of gay prisoners who were sent to extermination camps under Paragraph 175, the law that criminalized homosexuality between men. Researchers say that an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 gay men died in these camps, however this figure does not include those who were interned and later released, let alone those who died undocumented and forever forgotten to history.¹ These thousands of men were forced through excruciating cruelties with little to no reprieve or recognition of the atrocities perpetrated against them. It is because of this that while they are not a distinct racial, ethnic, or religious group, the treatment of those who bore the pink triangle during the Holocaust follows the genocidal process and as such gay Holocaust victims should be considered sufferers of genocide.

Deborah Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, recently gave a TED Talk entitled “Behind the Lies of Holocaust Denial” about her experience with being chosen to write the book, conducting the research for it, and enduring the libel lawsuit against her that resulted. The book addressed Holocaust deniers, those who insist the Holocaust didn’t occur, and her speech mainly addressed how truth and facts are, as she put it, “under assault” (Lipstadt 11:58). The fifteen-minute impassioned speech employed the three persuasive strategies: Logos, by using straightforward facts; Ethos, by being established a well-respected author and college professor; and Pathos, by appealing to emotion through

Paul Baumer is an eighteen year old young man who has a desire to help his country in World War I. He gains motivation when listening to his schoolmaster, Kantorek, give inspirational speeches. Paul develops a deep sense of patriotism and pride in his country of Germany. He was known to be a compassionate and kind individual, so this newfound sense of pride in his country is not surprising, since Paul realized fighting in World War I could be of great benefit. The personality of Paul is said to be polite and caring for

There are so many remarkable people who have gone before us and shaped the world into what it is today. With the passing of yet another Veterans Day, people were reminded of the extraordinary sacrifices made by ordinary men and women who were unfortunate enough to have lived during times when their nations were at war. Many ordinary citizens lost their lives as a result of the war, just as soldiers did. While some survivors simply lived out their post war lives, others survived and influenced the world. One person who survived the atrocities of the Holocaust during World War II and used his experiences to improve social, political, and religious conditions throughout the world, is Elie Wiesel. Through the words of Elie Wiesel, the public can witness the evils of war, keep these memories alive in the collective recall of future generations, and take action upon witnessing injustices of its kind.

In his novel, Night, Elie Wiesel recounts the horrific experiences that he faced as a survivor of the Holocaust during World War II. The following passage presents the impossible struggle to maintain a decent quality of life in the face of war:

The Holocaust is well known around the world, and many people do not realize the devastation and the technology that was used in that time. What we knew before was that the Holocaust resulted in the death of six million jews, and was controlled by the Nazi Regime. Adolf Hitler was the dictator of Germany and came up with the Final Solution, a plan to exterminate all the people of Jewish faith or race during World War II. This then brought in the concept of concentration camps. Concentration camps did not just hold Jews captive, they also targeted other groups such as Gypsies, African-Germans, Homosexuals, Atheists, and the physically and the mentally disabled. Now, it is common knowledge that that many people were killed in gas chambers or

As we grow up our parents teach us how to be respectful and very well-mannered. They enforce the importance of saying, “Please, thank you, and excuse me,” when needed. Parents also insist we listen and respect our elders, because they have authority over the world since they have been here the longest. We were raised to comply with the demand of someone who had authority over us. According to Patricia Werhane (1), “In the early1960’s Stanley Milgram undertook his noteworthy study of human obedience to authority. Puzzled by the question of how otherwise decent people could knowingly contribute to the massive genocide of the Holocaust during World War II, Milgram designed an experiment that sought to cause a conflict between one’s willingness to obey authority and one’s personal conscience.”

From 1933-1945, it was a period of time when the Jews were targeted as an enemy. This period of time is called the “Holocaust.” This is when the Germans killed over 6 million Jews and it was a genocide. They also killed any Jew that they could recognize. The Germans during this time were called Nazis. Nazis were the people that controlled the concentration camps and liberated people. Concentration camps were the places where the Nazis took the Jews to be killed. In the concentration camps there were gas chambers. They were the places where they took the children and their moms for a “shower”. They thought it was a shower, but it was actually a place where they would end their lives. When all the jews went in the Nazis threw a chemical that burnt everything. The people who did that were the Holocaust war criminals. They were the Nazis that killed 1,000s of jews and didn’t care. The most dangerous war criminals were Alois Brunner,Beate Kunzel Klarsfeld, John Demjanjuk, Hans Lipschis, Hans Frank, Alfred Rosenberg, and Gerhard Sommer.

Eleven million innocent people died and many did not know what they did or why it was happening to them (Rice 11). The Holocaust happened because of the Germans after World War 2 thought that the reason that their economy was falling down was because of Jewish people. The Holocaust followed the Ladder of Prejudice is a started with speech and moved its way up to “The Final Solution” also known as extermination. Hitler did not start with killing Jews. He killed Jews,Gypsies,homosexuals and many more religions or cultural people and Hitler also sent people to concentration camps if they spoke against the Government, then he moved to the Ladder of Prejudice, he used discrimination, physical attack and, extermination.

A group of German soldiers rest behind the front lines of World War I. While enjoying their first good meal in weeks, Paul Bäumer[narrator], and his comrades Kropp, Tjaden, Leer, Katczinsky (Kat), and Müllerbitterly talk about how their old teacher Kantorek got them to enlist with his unrealistic ideas about war and glory. Now they’ve become so on survival that when they visit their dying friend Kemmerich in the hospital, Muller asks him if he can have his boots since he wouldn’t be needing them. Paul and the squad talk a lot about their old bootp-camp commander Himmelstoss and how little they liked him. They talk about why people like Himmelstoss, who was a mail man in the real world, become something so different in the war. Kat says that the army gives people an opportunity to act out.

When Dana returns from living as a slave in the Antebellum South, she identifies with accounts of survivors from the Holocaust during World War II. She compares the horrible acts of the Nazis to the behavior of slave holders who worked at every turn to demean enslaved people and lessen their humanity. While the monstrosities of the Holocaust may have been more intense over a shorter period of time, Butler points out that those who lived through slavery endured conditions just as horrible over a much longer duration. Yet while Americans are largely comfortable acknowledging the events of the Holocaust as the worst impulses of mankind, there is often more hesitancy to take responsibility for the degradations of enslaved people that took place

The Holocaust was an event that took place from 1933 to 1945 in Germany. During this time, Adolf Hitler was in charge, resulting in the prejudice actions that are well written in history. Facing economic, social, and political oppression, thousands of German Jews wanted to flee, but found few countries wanting to take them in. Eventually, under Hitler’s leadership, some 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II. In this time period the Nazi’s waged a war against the Jews and other races that they considered to be unequal in race and superiority to the German race. The actions that took place during the Holocaust were seen as the “Final Solution”. The Holocaust was one of the darkest times in history, and can be traced to the rising of Hitler, “An egomaniac with delusions of grandeur, and power” (Steinberg 240). The Holocaust resulted in the deaths of many Jews and other non- Germans, until they were liberated by America.