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Journal 11

Decent Essays

Leah Schwartz
November 5, 2012
En101- Professor Blumberg
Journal #11 As a Jewish person, who has been largely exposed to Holocaust material, it is hard simply to focus upon one piece to write about. I attended Hebrew school from the time I entered pre-school, until the day of my bat mitzvah. The middle and high schools that I attended devoted much of their curriculums to teachings about the Holocaust. My family also felt it very valuable for me to know and understand. Thus, I have read Night and attended a speech given by Elie Wiesel. I have read the Diary of Anne Frank, other memoirs and accounts, as well as fictional and rigid non-fictional books. I have watched Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice, Life is Beautiful, and a host of …show more content…

Though I was young, I was an avid reader and researcher, and went to Hebrew school, so I had a very strong grasp on the Holocaust and the meaning of it all, even at such a young age. We turned back to the display. There they were. Shoes upon shoes; tattered, worn, sad, tired shoes. Some were smaller than my own, some much larger, with every size in between. That is when it began to hit me. I could see the babies, children my age, and even younger, being torn away from their mothers, from their fathers, from their brothers and sisters. I could hear them crying, hear them screaming. I could feel their desperation. I couldn’t comprehend all of it. The laces snaked around each other into an intricate maze. Some were tied closely to each other, some far, and yet they were all somehow connected, just as families and victims alike had all been tied. They had fought together, struggled, lived, died, and survived together. I began to see that the laces were not creating a maze, but a web- an intricate web connecting each and every shoe. It is difficult to look at images like these. It is difficult to grasp, understand and to accept that all of these people lived lives of horror and fear. It is difficult to accept that so very many lives were lost. But for me, what is always the hardest for me to try to understand and to accept is why. Why were these people treated this way? Why were they persecuted for their religion? Why was

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