The Logic Of Illogic In Reification : Holocaust And The Holocaust Analysis

Jewish people were tortured, abused, and subjected through horrific unfathomable situations by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Despite all of the unpragmatic hardships Jews all over Europe faced, many stayed true to their faith and religion. There are numerous stories in which Jewish people tried to keep the roots of their religion well knowing the risk of torture and death. The never ending fear of Jewish people living in the Ghettos and trying to survive concentration camps was difficult, but not impossible for the Jews to keep religion.

Dzungar, Holodomor, Rwandan, Cambodians, Armenians, Circassian, Ottoman Greek, and the Jewish. All too many genocides. When will it stop? When will we learn? When will we stop forgetting about the past and when will the history books end the patterns of war and death? When? The survivors share their stories, but do we listen? Elie Wiesel was a fifteen year old boy with the a life ahead of him, when his religion, following Judaism, made him a target in Adolf Hitler's extermination plans. He was only a boy. He had done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing, yet his life had been ended before it began. From Auschwitz to Birkenau to Buna to Gleiwitz and Gleiwitz to Buchenwald. Wiesel endured separation and starvation, to survive the brutality of the Jewish Holocaust that left millions of others dead. Individuals with lives, with hopes, with dreams, suffering with no end, and losing everything upon survival. Adults, children, elderly, everyone one of them innocent. As individuals living without these threats we cannot empathize for the horror stories we hear, since we have no personal connection, we can only sympathize for them. With no personal connection to the events, it is sure that we will forget Wiesel, but why do we forget? Because humans are imperfect beings? How do we stop erring and forget the mistakes that have preceded us? Humans struggle to understand that the mistakes of one individual do not define those similar to them. If human can attempt to

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.

The Holocaust was one of, if not the worst mass murder in history. The Nazis did one of the most horrifying things you could think of, killing so many innocent people. Many different groups of people other than jews were also victims of this tragic event. Some of those other groups were: LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, slavs, and members of opposing political groups. These groups of people were ripped from their homes and put into concentration camps. The Nazis would either separate them from their family or they would keep them together and they would have to watch the Nazis torture their family and friends. During this very tragic point in history, more than six million Jewish lives were taken, in total there were over 12 million victims of the Holocaust. Not only did this affect the survivors it also affected families of the victims, survivors and anybody else that was connected through this tragedy. The Nazis, came to “power” in January 1933, which was during a time Germany was going through an economic hardship. They believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, were "inferior.” Adolf Hitler played a very big factor in everything that went down. Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party and was also known as the dictator of the Holocaust. The Nazis did have others that were Hitler’s “army” and they took orders from Hitler to do awful things to the victims and they were commonly known as

6 million exterminated. That number rolls off of our tongues as we sit and learn history in the 6th grade, or we write a paper on WW1. How about 800,000 murdered in 100 days, while Americans attempted to keep our troops of the conflict yet watched the bloody images daily on CNN. Genocide in our world is something that is impossible to justify or embrace, but we must attempt to understand it. It is only through this understanding will we be able to prevent or stop one of the most horrific acts man can do in the future. Genocide, in both the Holocaust and in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, is grounded in self-reification and the external reification of others. This then, when put into certain contexts, can manifest itself in a

Reification refers to the categorization of people based on those anxieties from fears around conceptions of self-worth and status. Anxiety, a basic component of humanity, is recognized by its feeling of dread rather than its causes. Reification of others is born out of reification of oneself (Weisband, “Social Groupings”). It reduces the freedom and choices available, and it assumes that one is too stagnated to change, especially in comparison to others. This denies that all human freedom is similar. In denying the situatedness of the human condition, people develop the desire to create the uncreatable, and thus they reify themselves to confront anxieties over their own situatedness. As the freedom they have is not what they want, this leads to self-reification, self-contempt, self-denial, and self-disgust (Weisband, “Reification”). It is the beginning of hatred. The reified “self” judges the self in discipline. Similarly, the logic of illogic starts with reification, which develops feelings of supremacism which lead to racism, then racialization, then, finally, spatialization (Weisband, “Rwanda and Nativism”). These reflect the different modes of cultural development that rationalize self-contempt, self-rejection, and denial of self-worth. It represents the beginning of doctrines that aim to explain stereotypes, prejudice, and other forms of hatred (Weisband, “Social Groupings”).

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once stated, “No human race is superior; no religious faith inferior. All collective judgements are wrong. Only racists make them.” Imagine being discriminated against for something you couldn’t control; like the way you look or talk, what you believe in or the way you live, how would that make you feel? Now imagine being dehumanized for that something you can’t change. It may sound preposterous, but during the holocaust that’s precisely what happened. The dehumanization of the Jewish midst the Holocaust is vital to learn about because it enlightens us on the unfair bigotry, ghastly living conditions, and how the Jewish had their identity stripped away.

History class in itself has a specific purpose which seems to be frequently forgotten. We learn about violent and horrible events in our past, as well as life- changing and positively impacting ones. From the negative events, we learn what went wrong and how to prevent similar tragedies from happening. From the positive, we gather knowledge and comprehension of the basis of our modern society. We are a self- repairing race, analyzing every flaw and figuring out what caused it. It's an ancient practice, trial and error is human nature.

Persecution and Perseverance are displayed throughout Jewish history from the time of 1800 BCE to modern day. In the story of Abraham and the covenant with God, Hebrews suffered through the drought in Canaan, became slaves of the Egyptians, survived many plagues, fought for their land, had The Great Temple destroyed twice and, exiled from their promise land where the Jewish faith was banned. In more modern times Jewish people are still persecuted and discriminated against. The Holocaust took place from 1933-1945 which involved discrimination against Jews that lead to isolation and persecution. The Holocaust is one of the most remembered and important events that has lead to their overall perseverance. The Holocaust, was lead by Nazis Germany and their collaborators, to abolish mainly Jews living in Europe. The Nazis believed that they were superior and that the existence of Jews threatened them. Hitler sent Jews to concentration camps and the ghettos where they were forced into labour and were slaughtered in mass shootings or killed by carbon monoxide gas. All Jewish people's names were replaced with identification numbers and separated from their families. During the time of the Holocaust, it was very hard for Jewish people to have hope of survival and that there would be “light at the end of the tunnel” but, they never gave up or never gave in and persevered against the hatred towards them and the empt of completely annihilating all Jews. Another example of perseverance of Jewish people is after the destruction of The Great Temple which was seen as the center of the Jewish world/ faith, people thought that was the end of Judaism because it was known that If you couldn’t go to the temple, you weren’t upholding the covenant of the Jewish faith and with Yahweh. Once the temple was destroyed, the Jewish preserved against not having a place of worship and the era of “portable Judaism” was procreated. Synagogues were created as a place for Jews to worship. A synagogue was anywhere with a minimum of ten men and a Torah in a room. Synagogues are still used as a place of worship but are now more accessible and are filled with things such as stain glass windows which honor God by making the synagogue look beautiful

The horrific events that took place during the Holocaust marked a significant reversal in the human evolution. The origin of the cruel acts immediately came into question, with historians arguing that the ‘final solution’ was either predetermined and planned by those in power or it was stumbled upon and orchestrated in a bottom-up approach, these notions are known as either functionalism or intentionalism. This essay will argue in support of the latter, drawing evidence from various academic journals, Adolf Hitler’s January 1939 speech and Reinhard Heydrich’s instructions to the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen in 1939. To accurately support this perspective, this essay aims to provide some background as to where intentionalism originates from

I was given what some would argue, the easy task of examining how the Holocaust "destructed" the "idea of man." I say that some would call this job easy because one could simply compare and contrast a man before the Holocaust and after the Holocaust and say that these differences are how the Holocaust disassembled the idea of man. However, simply comparing and contrasting someone before and after the Holocaust does not account for what happened during the holocaust that would destroy them, Which means that I must dive in deeper than just that and look closely at a slew of things to get the real answer to my question. However before I can answer that question I must respond to the question of what is a man. Then I must respond to the question of what is “the idea of man” Any dictionary would tell you that a man is either an adult human male or human being regardless of gender. Nonetheless, that does not answer my question because if that is a man then what is the idea of man? Now given that the text that we are read for this class has not solely been written by men then I must look past the definition that a man is an adult human male. Furthermore, I must look at the fact that the term man must represent humans as a whole. If that is true, then the idea of man is the idea of humans, in the only thing that separates man from beast is our ability to feel, show compassion, empathy, and build lasting relationships. Consequently, if the Holocaust disassembled the idea of man it

With all the Holocaust & Genocide Studies and Jewish Studies classes I have taken, not one class made me second choice. All of the classes opened my mind and made me think about life more. In particular, Rabbi Miller's class was a overview of Judaism, but I felt that he was able to get the students to not think only with books, he was able to get me to think with my heart. There was so much to talk about in such a little time, yet he was still able to teach great knowledge. Learning about the Holocaust is also an interesting topic because there are so many unanswered questions. In class, my professor explained there is no definite number as to how many died during the Holocaust, but about six million Jews and five million others died. It was

Humanities history is filled with notorious acts. We are always discriminating labeling and finding new ways and reasons to kill each other even though we all are the same. People with evil thoughts can corrupt people to think a certain way about another group. After they recognize there difference they start labeling them. Like how Hitler made all the Jews wear the David star so when ever they walk out in their society they are ridiculed ard hard core judged. This strategy is used to humanize this specific ethnic group making others have the mentality that they are everything but human and the ethnic group believe that they are deserve this treatment. After the people would be isolated from the world like how the jews were put in concentration camps and how the Nazis or non Jews were isolated to what is happening in their backyard. They had no clue. This is how genocides develop and they can happen right under our nose without us noticing.

With this conceded class distinction came the fight for reigning ability, and amidst this power vacuum, Rwandans fell victim to conflicting groups and crime, the eventual building blocks that lead to the massacre of 800,000 civilians. The origins of this ethnic loathing and in turn ethnic genocide can be secured to European colonialism, where those who arrived to colonize and yield the wealth of western knowledge, instead carried racist beliefs. Through this haunting event in history, when foreign governments unfittingly place their ideologies in unknown territory, revealed is how uninvited nations can destabilize a state by stimulating ethnic warfare, causing it to collapse and crumble through conflict.

An abstract is a brief summary—usually about 100 to 120 words—written by the essay writer that describes the main idea, and sometimes the purpose, of the paper. When you begin your research, many scholarly articles may include an abstract. These brief summaries can help readers decide if the article is worth reading or if addresses the research question, not just the topic, one is investigating.