Growing Up During the Holocaust: A Look at the Other Side of World War II

From 1933 to 1945, millions of lives were thrown into chaos because of the Holocaust. Families were ripped apart and values were washed away as citizens were forcefully placed in concentration camps to either be immediately killed or to work until they died. Every person within the camps faced unthinkable trauma. Once everyone was released, the prisoners began to search for lost loved ones and a sense of normality. However, the anguish did not end with the end of the Holocaust. Following the Holocaust, first generation survivors developed abnormal values, societal dependence, and a need to avoid the topic of the Holocaust as an effect of their trauma; these side effects were then passed down to future generations

What would your account of the Holocaust be? The Holocaust was a unique event in twentieth century history which, evolved between 1933 and 1945. Beginning with discrimination; then the Jews were separated from their communities and persecuted; they were treated as less than human beings and murdered. While the Jews of Europe were the Nazis’ primary target, many millions of other people were also imprisoned, enslaved and murdered. These people included Roma, those with mental or physical disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, trade unionists, political opponents, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. The Nazis did not act alone. They were supported and assisted by people from within the countries they occupied across Europe. Most countries stood by while the Nazis and their accomplices carried out the mass murder of the Jewish people. Thus, in 1941 there were about 11 million Jews living in Europe; by May 1945 the Nazis had murdered six million of them. One-and-a-half million of these were children.

The Holocaust was a very traumatic event in history. Every year in school from about middle school onward students learn specifically about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party’s cruel treatment of the Jewish culture and people during World War II. The same general knowledge is given to us from middle school up until the ending our high school history careers. We are taught to believe that Adolf Hitler was a corrupt man, who sought control of Germany in the 1930’s. Even though we are given background information on this event, and there are things being told to us, no one knows what actually occurred during this time, except those who lived through it. In the book Night published by Elie Wiesel, he explains the things that happened to his family and the people in his community named Sighet before, during, and after the Holocaust. There is more than what meets the eye to this occurrence. No one sees the bigger picture when it comes to this event because of the fact that such a tragedy occurred in the first place. Although the Holocaust was a very unfortunate event, the Holocaust did benefit the United States in a plethora of different ways. Without the Holocaust, World War II would have never happened, and World War II brought countless positives attributes to America. A myriad of things came out of World War II. For example, women earned the right to attain jobs because of the war. Also, America became a global power due to the fact that the Allies (United States, Britain,

Children were especially vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust. The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children both for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.

Another book I read that taught me about life and facts about how Jews were treated during the holocaust was Night by Eliezer Wiesel. Night was about Eliezer who liked to be called Elsie and his memory as a teenager going through stages of his life where he thought he was going to die and how he overcame those obstacles. Before reading I had to get in a mindset that this book will be different from others and probably more graphic. While reading this book I imagined myself back in the 1940s and imagine what was going on, like being on the train and smelling the different things there. It was also hard imagining myself getting separated from his family and hearing them screaming trying to get to me. Throughout the whole story it was hard to

On December 2nd, 1938, 200 children were transported from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin. They arrived, without their parents, in Harwich, Great Britain. This was the very first Kindertransport that took place. The persistent efforts of refugee aid committees and the British public helped found this act of help. The Kindertransport was an efficient act to help hide and save Jewish children during the Holocaust. It saved many kids from the despairing situations their parents went through and even death. The evacuation to Great Britain allowed the kids to grow up safely and to be able to live without fear.

Imagine surviving the Holocaust while millions of other people have perished. Would you feel the guilt that you were alive while the person next to you did not? Would you even have saved them? While many consider the Holocaust in the past, for survivors the horror will never be completely over.

Budapest in January of 1945. Lantos went around trying to locate his family that he had

Out of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, over a million and a half of these were children. Only six to eleven percent of Europe’s prewar Jewish population of children survived, as compared with thirty-three percent of the adults. During World War II, Jewish children were a target for being deported to death or concentration camps because of their reputation as unfit to work. Nazi’s took Jewish children from their families because they did not represent the Aryan child. Children, usually under the age of 12, were thought of as unable to work and Jewish people were viewed as enemies. Children did not often survive the concentration camps. One of these camps was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where only 180 children survived. Children who survived were normally male teenagers who faked their ages and claimed to have skills for work. The non-Jewish children were put into Hitler Youth programs to learn how to be a true Nazi and live in a certain way. The Jewish children were sent to death camps or work camps until they starved or were put into gas chambers, where they perished. Over a million and a half children were murdered during the Holocaust because of their inability to work and because the Nazis wanted to cut off the bloodline of all Jewish people, in order to carry out their final solution. Jewish children in World War II were targeted, hidden, and murdered and some took on different skills and identities in order to have a chance of survival.

As children of the Holocaust survivor, Jacob in Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michael 's novel haunted from his past from his memories of his parents and his beloved sister Bella. Growing up with Athos care, Jacob struggles to adapt to a new environment as a child with his memories of his parents still preserve into his mind and battling to make what might have happened to his sister Bella. As Jacob ponders on his past, his memories become stronger and save him that will eventually free him from pain and suffering. Trying to forget his past, Jacob becomes a poet and translator as a way to free himself from his traumatic experience of losing his family from the Holocaust.

The point of where this all began was when Adolf Hitler came to became known as a war hero after World War I, and soon after gaining enough power to become chancellor of Europe in January of 1933. In March of 1933 one of the world 's greatest and worst tragedies in history began. This tragedy was the holocaust where the Jews were persecuted, and killed all because of the man named Adolf Hitler. He used his power and influence on others to make it seem like the Jewish people were behind everything that had happened to them. There were many things that they did to the Jews that were inhuman and evil to the very core. One thing they

“The exact number murdered by the Nazis is unknown but it is estimated that 1.5 million Jewish children were killed, victims of genocide.” ("The Holocaust."). Many children, especially Jewish children, were involved in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a time period during WWII were a German group called the Nazis, targeted different racial groups such as Gypies, Homosextuals, the disabled and sick, Jews, and many other racial groups. The Nazis would kill these people, hurt them or capture them and take them to concentration camps. Many Jewish children were involved in the Holocaust. Some of the children would hide in people’s homes. Others would also hide by living a normal life by hiding their identity. But most Jewish children would go to

In Germany, Jews were forced into deadly and inhumane concentration camps by the Germans. They’ve been dehumanized through the torture of hard labor and medical experiments, which is very cruel since no one’s right to life should’ve been taken from them. It’s interesting how the Germans got away with forcing the Jews and other racial groups to work long hours in factories with no breaks for food or water, leading to starvation and lack of dehydration. People shouldn’t be treated as non-humans because they had the right not to before it was taken away from them, and the effort that the Germans put to torture the Jews is really horrific but fascinating at the same time. As far as forced labor, people didn’t have a choice about how they lived

"The unutterable violence of the Holocaust shook our confidence in possibility of telling any story of faith at all" - Timothy Radcliffe states this to show that the world lives in denial of the Holocaust and how much it truly affected the nation and the ability to express belief and opinions. The reason for a horrendous occasion can be investigated by Hitler 's rise to power and through what occurred during the Holocaust itself. Evaluating the aftermath of the Holocaust can show the event 's effects on the whole nation.

“Never shall I forget the faces of the little children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath the blue sky” Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor. In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood 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 their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe.