My heart stopped and my mouth became dry as I knocked over a chair and it fell onto the floor : this could be it, they’d find us and we’d all be dead. It wasn’t the best of times. Frankly it was the worst of times. I had a normal childhood. Our family had lived in Frankfurt, Germany from my birth in 1929 until 1933. My father, Otto Frank, decided to move us to the Netherlands in 1933 because of the rise of anti - semitism (biography.com). There, I attended a montessori school and had many friends, I was also “an inquisitive and bright student” (biography.com). Life changed for me when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940: I was forced to attend a Jewish lyceum and my father’s business was signed over to a non-Jew (People of the Holocaust). In 1942, my father converted an attic in his company warehouse in case we needed to go into hiding. And we did, that same summer. My race and I were strenuously condemned during my lifetime, and my loneliness became overbearing. Fortunately, I was able to counteract the adversities I have faced during my lifetime by relentless optimism as well as confiding to my diary. Despite the apparent destruction and and horrible events occurring just outside of the annex, I was able to restore faith in humanity with optimism. During my time hiding in the annex, the Nazis had been responsible for the death of six million Jews (history.com), committing perhaps one of the worst crimes against humanity. The leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler,
We all know the horrific experience, the Jews faced during the Holocaust and after it. Even after some survived the holocaust physically, they will always be tormented and haunted by those gruesome memories from those inhumane actions that were directed towards them. After, all they went through it is obvious the holocaust affected the survivor 's drastically, but how about the future generations of Jews. In which I believe the holocaust did in fact affect the second generation, but the third generation of Jews as well.
When many think of the Holocaust as a solely negative experience, and while it may seem easy to write the event off as a dark time in history that seems remote and unlikely to affect us today, there are some positive results, including the lessons that it brings for current and future humanity. The lessons that the Holocaust brings are applicable to every person in the world. While many of these lessons do focus on the negative aspects of the Holocaust, like what circumstances permit such a vast genocide and how many people can die because of widespread racial hatred, there are also those that focus on how some people, in all parts of Europe and throughout the world, retained their good human nature during the Holocaust. For example, what made some gentiles in Europe during that time willing and able to help Jews. Currently, Yad Vashem has recognized 26,513 rescuers throughout the world (Names), and the actual number of rescuers could likely be close to twice that amount (Baron,1). It is important that we analyze the reasons behind these rescuers’ choices to be upstanders instead of bystanders because we can learn about our own motivations when we face decisions between helping others and protecting ourselves, and possibly those we love, from harm. Fulfilling one’s self-interest was a potential motivation for helping Jews that will only be briefly addressed. This type of rescue potentially benefitted both the Jews and the Gentile rescuers; these Gentiles only helped Jews survive because they found personal gain, likely social or economic, in the action (Baron). However, in the situation that existed while rescuing the Jews, most efforts included the high possibility that both the rescuer and the rescued would end up worse off than they had begun with no potential for personal gain on either side. So those rescuers’ motivations are less easily explainable.
While examining the works of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi it becomes apparent that the holocaust was a horrendous time in our human history. However, although both writers went through similar experiences during this time; both seem to reflect and dwell on things differently such as their point of view and lives in the camps as well as the different themes they focus on. In this analysis the stories of the two authors will be compared and as stated above will also focus on how they recount their experiences.
It’s about the jews and how and what happened to them after the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the time where about six million jews and one million other people dying. Most people were killed because they belonged to different races and religions. The Nazis wanted to kill people that weren’t from their same religious group. The Nazis also killed people who disrespected Hitler. Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party.
Prior to the holocaust, however, he exhibits none of these characteristics. He was kind, wealthy, and uncommonly resourceful, and his marriage to Anja was filled with compassion, intimacy, and love. Where now Vladek is now stubborn, irritable, and almost comically stingy with his money. His experiences in the Holocaust undoubtedly played a role in these dramatic personality changes. It wasn’t until the war started that Vladek got a little more precautious about a few things. Whenever a bad thing would happen, Vladek would remain hopeful and trusted that things would go well for him and his family in the long run. Even when Vladek had to fight in World War II and was put in a prisoner camp with the most terrible conditions he still seemed to keep faith. However, one can slowly notice how Vladek becomes cautious about food and any kind of valuable. It is natural because he couldn’t get much so he had to be very careful about wasting anything. At times, he was willing to share, but he quickly realized that he had to fight for himself to survive and that everyone was responsible for themselves. He became a little careful about who his real friends were. ---- need uote here
My sister is ripped from me, shouting and kicking with fear. Anger and confusion build up in young Rina’s wide, grey eyes. The German devils roll their eyes when they see our pain. They scuff, “Toughen up, Jews,” making us feel worse about this tragic life we’ve been forced to live. Rina yelps when a Nazi soldier slaps her and shoves her away from me. I think to myself, “This is the end. If Rina is gone and my parents are separated from us, how are we all supposed to live in this unfamiliar place alone?”
Treated like dirt through a majority of his life is all Shep Zitler knew, he was born into a religious family and a tough culture surrounding him, the Holocaust effected his life to the extreme but along with all his suffering and the tragedies in his life the Holocaust did not take him. He stuck by his believes and made it out alive.
The Holocaust, one of humanities most horrendous acts and a large topic in the history of World War II. Led by the German National Socialists, the Holocaust was an attack on innocent people for reasons of race, sexuality, nationality, and religion with their main target being the millions of European Jews who they saw as an ‘inferior race’. Hitler and his higher up stripped Jews of everything. He took their money, their homes, their jobs, their nationality, their dignity, and eventually he took their lives. In Peter Longerich’s Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, Longerich takes an in depth look at Nazi politics and how it eventually led to their Final Solution of the Jewish Question. His research that began in the late 1990s, when he questioned both schools of Holocaust studies, the Intentionalists and the Structuralists. His studies in Europe led to a novel that that outlines the entire history of the Holocaust, the ideas of Judenfrage, and the implementation of Judenpolitik on the Jews of Europe from 1933 to 1945.
The term Holocaust is one that the world is used to hearing, but only a few people really know what it really means. Today the Holocaust is understood most clearly by Jews and those living during World War II, but not all currently in the world know the full meaning of what the Holocaust meant to those it affected most—the Jews. The word Holocaust is a Greek word that was used to describe the horrific historical event that occurred during World War II. The term holos means “a whole”, and kaustos means “burned” in Greek. Historically the Greek term Holocaust was used to describe the sacrificial offering burned on the altar.
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.
Those who survived are here to tell the tragic and devastating history of their lives. The survivors have shared brutal but yet realistic stories from each of their experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust. History shall never repeat itself in the manner of racism, murder, and fear of our leaders. The burning hope of those who were involved still generates an enormous sadness upon the many who have heard the horror of the Holocaust.
Anger billowed up inside me and grew with every step I took. I headed home, hoping my parents would be upset for how the Jews were being treated. They never liked Hitler or the things he stood for, but they had never disobeyed the Nazis either. I resented them for not standing up to the Nazis. I hoped that after hearing this news, they would become outraged and try to help the innocent Jews. I had always thought to myself, that if I were ever in their shoes at this point in time, that I would at least try to help the Jews, and maybe even hide some of them.
The subject of the Holocaust is brought up many times but I'l now tell you the actually reality of this whole time. Back then we Jews never knew what was going on. No one ever mentioned that we would be stuck in a camp having to work our butts off just so we basically I can afford our life. During the time when we first arrived we were joyful besides having to be cramp and having to sit or stand on the train ride here. But once we finally were out and had all of our luggage we were joyful for the vacation we were promised. But that all took a mad turn in sudden minutes. The Nazis all the sudden command that we get into two lines. One was filled with mother and children while the other was filled with the men. looked around and all could see was worry in everyone's eyes. We then realized the
The Holocaust is one of the most well known genocides that have taken place. It had destroyed millions of Jewish lives and has caused a historical pain to these people that cannot be taken away till this day. The Holocaust can be seen from Goldhagen’s perspective of eliminationism. It did have all of the five steps and yet there was uniqueness about the Holocaust. The first one that can be looked at is the concentration camp itself. The history of the camp and the stories are still being unfolded till this day. From the prospective of Victor Frankl, I will prove that the Holocaust was unique.
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.