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The Holocaust : Symbolism, And Portrayal Of Religion In The Holocaust

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The Holocaust, sometimes is referred as the Shoah, was a terrible event in the world’s history. The word Holocaust is from the Greek holo “whole” plus kaustus “burnt.” It refers to an animal sacrifice in which the entire animal is burned. The word Shoah is Hebrew for “destruction.” It started January 1933, whenever Hitler came to power. Over six million jews were killed by the Nazis during this time period. The Jews were forced into prison camps and they were made to do hard labor work. Young children would be targeted particularly, the Nazis thought if they grew up they would parent a new generation of Jews. Before all this, they were forced to live in ghettos, and in the larger ghettos over one thousand Jews would be picked up and taken by train to a concentration camp. Between 1933 and 1945, 11 million men, women, and children were killed during the holocaust, approximately six million of these people were Jews. Over one million people were killed at the Auschwitz complex, this was more than any other place. The Auschwitz complex consisted of three large camps, Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz. The testimonies of some Jews who went through the Holocaust were put in a book, for example you have the Diary of Anne Frank. Comparisons can be drawn between Night and Maus through author’s purpose, symbolism, and portrayal of religion. The books Maus and Night were written by authors with two different ways of expressing their story, but the stories told some of the same things, just in a different perspective. The main difference between the two books was, Maus was a graphic novel, similar to a comic book and Night was a regular novel. The book Maus was written by Art Spiegelman, he’s son of Vladek Spiegelman who is a Holocaust survivor. He told his father, “I still want to write that book about you… The one I used to talk about… about your life in Poland and after the war.”(Spiegelman, 12) Spiegelman wanted to write about his father’s life because he believed the world should hear about it. He also wanted his father to tell him more about his ex-wife Anja, who was also Art’s mother. Elie Wiesel wrote his book Night to remind people of the harm done to the Jews and all the other races during the Holocaust. He

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