The Memorialization Of The Holocaust In West Germany

At the entrance to each death camp, there was a process of Selektion or selection. Pregnant women, small children, the sick or handicapped, and the elderly were immediately condemned to death. As horrific as it was, it didn’t surprise many that Hitler had the audacity to do these terrible things. The Holocaust was an act of genocide in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany killed about two thirds of the population of Jews in Europe from 1941-1945 but the trouble started brewing much before that. Though there were only a small amount of survivors, very few alive to this day, there are many pieces of literature that help prove that this in fact happened. Literature can help us remember and honor the victims of the Holocaust because, it gives different

“Was German ‘Eliminationist Anti-Semitism” Responsible for the Holocaust?” is a fascinating and somewhat discouraging debate that explores the question of whether German anti-Semitism, instilled within citizens outside of the Nazi Party, played a vast role in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust . Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of “The Paradigm Challenged,” believes that it did; and argues quite convincingly that ordinary German citizens were duplicitous either by their actions or inactions due to the deep-seeded nature of anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. On the other hand, Christopher R. Browning, who has extensively researched the Holocaust, argues that the arguments of Goldhagen leaves out significant dynamics which were prevalent throughout most of Western and Eastern Europe during this period of history.

“Holocaust remembrance depicting the horrors of Auschwitz, published in 1960, to forget would not only be dangerous but offensive to forget the dead would be akin to killing theme a second time.” It tell about The Danger of Forgetting And The Imperative of Remembrance. “Their race, religion or political views,

As Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel once said, “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice,” that is why we are called to remember. Many movies, novels, and story representations of the Holocaust have been created in order to spread the memory of the past. An important part of remembering is learning, and therefore not repeating the same mistakes once again. Movies may find it difficult to represent the Holocaust accurately, while also giving it meaning and artistic expression. The writer, Edwin de Vries, and the director, Jeroen Krabbé, strive to represent the legacies of the Holocaust and Jewish culture in the film, Left Luggage (1998), based on a novel by Carl Friedman through a portrayal of the daily lives of Holocaust survivors and their children in late 1960s Antwerp, their direct confrontations with their memories of the Holocaust, and character development. The film shows us many examples of the legacy of the Holocaust as it is passed through the children of survivors, and how it continues to affect their daily lives. The audience understands the intentions through depictions of muteness and the necessity to remember.

The Holocaust took place during the late 1930s to the early 1940s, a time when many external and internal factors were affecting Germany and its people (Hill 1). Nevertheless Nazi leaders and common Germans killed almost two thirds of an estimated nine million Jewish people (Hill 2). One of the most puzzling questions about the Holocaust is why did common Germans take part? It is difficult to formulate an exact answer to the question because it deals with a whole nation, but many historians have hypothesized explanations related to the German’s unwilling and willing participation (Goldhagen 375).

Currently America honors those murdered by the Nazis with museums, monuments, and even a remembrance day. However during the Holocaust, under the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, America was reluctant to save the Jews from Europe. Six million Jews were systematically murdered through mass shootings, gas chambers, and in death marches. We might expect that as a model democracy, America would have made a great effort to rescue these Jews but that was sadly not what occurred. Due to America’s tradition of isolationism and a singular focus on achieving military victory, Roosevelt's attention to Jewish refugees in Europe during World War II can most accurately be characterized as a mix of missed opportunities and limited achievements.

A common misconception about the Holocaust is that the world was naïve of the atrocities happening under the Nazi’s rule. The horrors of the Holocaust were not left undocumented. Unfortunately, many saw these malicious acts as insignificant to the global population; people only start sympathizing when the hindrance affects them. Hitler, with the help of his many allies, achieved to murder millions of innocent men, women, and children. After spending this semester studying the Holocaust, I have realized that the Nazis’ greatest ally was neither an individual nor a country; Hitler’s greatest ally was indifference.

During the reign of the Third Reich, the symbolization of the pink triangle was used to identify the thousands of gay prisoners who were sent to extermination camps under Paragraph 175, the law that criminalized homosexuality between men. Researchers say that an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 gay men died in these camps, however this figure does not include those who were interned and later released, let alone those who died undocumented and forever forgotten to history.¹ These thousands of men were forced through excruciating cruelties with little to no reprieve or recognition of the atrocities perpetrated against them. It is because of this that while they are not a distinct racial, ethnic, or religious group, the treatment of those who bore the pink triangle during the Holocaust follows the genocidal process and as such gay Holocaust victims should be considered sufferers of genocide.

German narratives on the holocaust have changed since 1945 propelled by debates during that time along with political developments and distance from historical events. The German population tends to focus on their fate as to idolize their society’s behavior during the holocaust era. Germany’s students have trouble connecting German history to the holocaust.

The year is 1998, not only was I, Carleigh Irgens, born August 21 in Miles City, Montana but some other big and exciting things happened! Three of the most important events were, The Holocaust History Project was founded, John Gacy; The Clown Killer was convicted of killing young boys and even the death of Paul McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney.

The official name of the memorial is called The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This name gives a clear stance on the history of the Holocaust and portrays the responsibility that the German government has taken for their wrongdoings against the Jewish people. Significantly, it was the first German government sponsored memorial, which further explains its importance. This reflects postconvetionalism in the way that the German government has acknowledged the truth of their role during the war. The truth is also explanatory in the name of the memorial; however, the physical structure does not display certainty of it being a memorial of the six million murdered Jews. The structure is beyond the binary and fixedness of other Holocaust

“Germany's Holocaust Memorial Problem-and Mine” is an article that analyzes the complexities of creating a memorial that will represent a great amount of Jewish people that perished in the hands of the Nazi Germany during the 1930's and early 1940's. James E. Young author of this article, was part of a five member committee that would agree whether or not to build a memorial and the process was very difficult because they had to make sure that the jewish community accepted the memorial and the Germans would not feel offended or targeted. What made things awkward in a way was that Young was Jewish so he would be responsible of the criticism for either accepting or denying a memorial option. What was significant in the article was that the topic

World War II was a very devastating and scary time for Jews in Germany. Not only were they blamed for everything, but their government was in a fool’s gold paradise. Everyone has most likely heard this expression; One man lived and 55 million people died. But, who is the one man? Adolf Hitler, to be specific. Sadly, Germans had no choice but to accept anti-Communist and anti-Jewish policies (Adams, 14). This was the war that was started to gain world peace.

Germany had many huge problems throughout their years as a country, but one major problem that made a huge impact was the Holocaust. The Holocaust refers to the period January 30, 1933 when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Then in May 8th, 1945, the war officially ended. It all started after its defeat in World War I, Germany was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which reduced its prewar territory, drastically reduced its armed forces, demanded the recognition of its guilt for the war, and stipulated it pay reparations to the allied powers. “With the German Empire destroyed, a new parliamentary government called the

Elizabeth Heineman argued in her article that the collective societal memory of the experiences of German women in the immediate aftermath of World War II greatly contributed to the development of West German national identity, and directly influenced their eventual status in the partitioned country.1 She suggested that in order to fully comprehend this “history of memories” it was necessary to understand the distinctions and interconnections between what she refereed to as “counter”, “popular”, and “official” memories.2 In order to support this argument, the author conducted a series of formulaic analyses on the German perception toward women in three major areas of Post-War German cultural memory; war rapes by Soviet soldiers; the experiences of women who rebuilt the nation and the economy without much assistance from men; and finally those women who fraternized with Allied soldiers. She began her formula by first exploring the “universalization” of certain aspects of what became the stereotypical female experience of Germans at the end of World War II through the immediate post-war years.3 Next, she examined the effects of the universalization of the female German experience upon the formation of the West German national identity.4 This second point was further elaborated with an analysis of the relationship between “counter-memories” of subordinate groups and the “public” or “popular” memories of the dominant culture, national identity, and culture of West Germany.5