In the graphic novel The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman, the Polish people were conveyed as “selfish” and “ cruel” for the actions they chose to carry out, protecting themselves before the Jews. I do not necessarily believe the Polish people were as evil as the Germans during the Holocaust, but I believe that in this world no one is perfect. Everyone has done things that they are not proud of as human beings. I am convinced that the Poles are better than the Nazis because the Poles actually tried to assist some Jews by hiding them in their homes. As humans, we cannot really know what we would do in circumstances like the Holocaust unless we are faced with them. People may still judge the Poles for their actions however, they were humans beings making a human decision. During the Holocaust, there was a select few Polish people that were willing to risk their lives and provide refuge for Jews that were in need of harboring. In the article One million Polish rescuers of hunted Jews? by Hans G Furth, Furth discusses the number of rescuers that were executed as a result of hiding some Jews in their homes. According to Furth, “Thousands of Poles were executed for helping Jews”(Furth 230). The Polish people received the same punishment as the Jews when they were discovered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The Poles were murdered on the spot or burned alive with the Jewish victims. During that period of time, Jews were walking the streets disguised as Polish people. A
Whenever you helped a Jew you were shamed throughout your entire town. (Document B) The way they did this was by whoever committed the crime was walked down the road along with the people they helped to execution site. (Document B) This was mainly done to show non-Jewish Poles the punishment of helping a Jew. This was also done to strike fear in them. The Germans wanted the Poles of fear them for they wouldn't go against them. These moment were often put in newspaper and put on the radio to scare the Poles. (Document B) But besides the people who were caught and killed there was people who successfully helped Jews live though the war and lived
When the invasion on Poland began, people were running, screaming, and try to find a place to stay safe from the Nazis. Later during the Holocaust war, most of the Jews that were not captured hid in barns, attics, basements, barns, churches and even in the forest. People would risk their life to go and steal food for themselves or their family’s when the Nazi soldiers were on patrol. Jews would spend years in safe houses and trying to steal food and sometimes when they went out to get food, they never came back. Risk takers and safe houses were the two difficult things to do in order to survive during the holocaust
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.
There were many in need of being rescued from the Germans, and there was one special rescue that stood out from the rest. Allison Friedman exclaims, “Families hide Jewish acquaintances in their attics” (8-9). This quote shows that people would help, even if it would mean death to them. When people help the Jews, they run the risk of getting caught. Therefore
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
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.”
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
One of the first things to understand when considering what made those rescuers choose to help Jews during the Holocaust is the punishments that they might face if they were caught by Nazis or Nazi-sympathizers. The harshest of these punishments was death. According to a case study based on the experiences of many rescuers, any consequences that one might
The Jewish race lived in a time of hardships in the mid 1900’s as the Nazis began to take over Germany during the well-known era of the Holocaust. “The Nazis, who came to power in Germany on January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community (Children during the Holocaust).” Therefore, the Nazis began genocide with intentions to kill off all of the Jewish people under the command of Adolf Hitler. Many people were brutally tortured and murdered during this tragic time in Western Europe. However, Jewish children during the Holocaust were the most targeted and tortured groups of individuals.
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.
Nowadays, people tend to forget the morality of human beings. For instance, the people in today’s world are attracted to greed or power letting their mind and body rot them. However, are we doing a right in letting people like that win? It might not seem much or anything, but as history has shown us otherwise with World War II. Like letting a tyrant leader like Adolf Hitler take over different countries and bring in what is believed the most horrific discrimination ever known. Therefore, it is right to agree with Elie Wiesel a former target of the Nazi Final Solution that the moment race and religion are involved then that soon must become the center of the universe’s attention.
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them twice,” Eli Wiesel. These words really reflect the groups that were forgotten to the Holocaust. Many more lives were taken than just the Jews, in fact, the Polish, the Gypsies, and the mentally and physically disabled were some of the main targets for the Nazis. Few people realize that more than just Jews were persecuted during the Nazi regime, so they could perfect their so called “Master Race”. These groups were deemed “defective,” did not have the right to live with the “Aryans” or the “Master Race,” and had to be eliminated along with the Jews. The Nazis did not stop just at the Jews, but planned to eliminate all that were thought to be “defective” or “racially inferior”. As Simon Wiesenthal once said, “The Holocaust is not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a human tragedy.”
Our project is for the other victims of the Holocaust. Shedding a light represents seeing what might not be seen normally, and that fits perfectly with our project because it’s a light box. It is made out of a shadow box,tracing paper, copic markers, and fairy lights. It took one person $28 and a few hours of work. The design was created by layering the tracing paper and only having colors on certain layers so they could, or couldn't be seen when the light is off.
When the war ended in 1945, millions of Jews had perished. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime had almost entirely wiped out a single race of people in what would become known as the Holocaust. However, the Jews were not the only people who had been stripped of their dignity and killed. There were other groups who the Nazi’s persecuted against. The Roma, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Political Prisoners were all systematically gathered up and killed. When the Holocaust gets mentioned, many don't talk about the other millions of innocent people who were murdered alongside the Jews. Many don't see these people as victims at all. The number of people murdered during the Holocaust reaches close to eleven million people. “Contragenics” is the term used to talk about all of the groups who were murdered under the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. These innocent lives were lost in the Holocaust, and while history hasn’t forgotten, humanity has.
Known as one of the most horrific events in history, World War II (WW2) caused tremendous adversity and suffering amongst the lives of people across the globe. However, what is most concerning about the war, was what happened behind closed doors, specifically within Germany. The Holocaust is still considered one the worst ethnic cleansing attacks in the world. Although there is an endless amount of research and hard evidence of the Holocaust occurring, certain groups of individuals strongly reject it. Known as “Holocaust Denial”, this conspiracy theory has always been personally intriguing due to several reasons and will be analyzed more thoroughly.