The Ordinary Men of the Holocaust

Eleven million individuals were victimized by the Holocaust. Six million of those victims were Jewish, while the other five million were groups targeted by the Nazi’s because they didn’t fit their discriminative criteria. Inhumane practices were used in attempts to purify and unify the German state (Novick, 225). When the Holocaust is discussed, the Jewish victims are usually the main focal point of the massive “genocide.”

The Holocaust, yet another unpleasant time in history tainted with the blood and suffering of man. Human beings tortured, executed and starved for hatred and radical ideas. Yet with many tragedies there are survivors, those who refused to die on another man’s command. These victims showed enormous willpower, they overcame human degradation and tragedies that not only pushed their beliefs in god, but their trust in fellow people. It was people like Elie Wiesel author of “Night”, Eva Galler,Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser, and Solomon Radasky that survived, whose’ mental and physical capabilities were pushed to limits that are difficult to conceive. Each individual experiences were different, but their survival tales not so far-reaching to where the fundamental themes of fear, family, religion and self-preservation played a part in surviving. Although some of these themes weren’t always so useful for survival.

Throughout history, humans have encountered adversity and challenges in large or small ways. The Holocaust was a Jewish genocide in Europe from 1941-1945 where 6 million Jews died. The Holocaust is the pure example of humans going through hardship. Two texts, Maus I and “Often a Minute,” explore the topic of the Holocaust and the gruesome scenes they experienced and how they kept hope. Each text comes with a nuanced theme about this topic and uses a different structure to convey that theme to the reader.

Challenge: The truth that he is used to these words. Anti-semitism prejudice against jewish people is a fact of life in warsaw as many european cities, warsaw 350,000 jews, Ben doesn't dwell on the petty hatreds of ignorant people. (6 )

During the era of the Holocaust, it was no secret that Jewish people had to surpass many trials and tribulations in order to stay alive. Those who survived had the odds in their favor because as many as six million Jews were wrongfully murdered. Nonetheless, there were many survivors, who have come to tell their compelling and educating stories of what they experienced during these unfathomable times; with it come two stories, Maus, written by Art Spiegelman and Night, written by Elie Wiesel. In both stories, we get a sense of the horrors the Jewish people had to bare during these hard times and we get to envision a clear focus on both Spiegelman and Wiesel’s relationships with their fathers. While Spiegelman did not have first hand experience with the horrific scenes, he was very interested in learning about his father’s experience, even though he and his father had a difficult relationship. Elie, on the other hand, did experience the holocaust first-hand and he seemed to have a good relationship with his father.

The Nazis weren’t the only people who treated Jews like inferior beings; anybody who has the power can treat anything lower than themselves. “…a present whose abnormality suddenly becomes routine.”(Langer 6). The gypsy considered himself as the superior of the group so he could strike anybody he wants (Wiesel 39). When the gypsy’s life becomes too important for him, he has adopted to the way of the Nazis. As the Allied forces advanced, the Nazis led death marches as their last resort because they had concerns about their own lives. “...life becomes too much for man and death assuming the throne in the human imagination” (Langer 6). S.S made Jews run for hundreds of miles nonstop (Wiesel 85). They, the SS, were frightened that their cruel ways dug up, decided they had to bury the evidence which explained that they could not believe what the inhumane actions they engaged in with other people. People had the potential to manipulate other people in mass numbers but the second they think for themselves, they will find out what is right and what is not.

Spiegelman’s book presents us with a unique way of showcasing a person’s personal experience of a historical occurrence, that being the Holocaust. According to Hatfield, Spiegelman’s manner of sharing this tale is not exactly the best. Hatfield states his disagreements over Spiegelman’s book.

The books Maus I and Maus II, written by Art Spiegelman over a thirteen-year period from 1978-1991, are books that on the surface are written about the Holocaust. The books specifically relate to the author’s father’s experiences pre and post-war as well as his experiences in Auschwitz. The book also explores the author’s very complex relationship between himself and his father, and how the Holocaust further complicates this relationship. On a deeper level the book also dances around the idea of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. The two books are presented in a very interesting way; they are shown in comic form, which provides the ability for Spiegelman to incorporate numerous ideas and complexities to his work.

Maus has an interesting way in approaching a historical account such as the relationship with his father and the Holocaust. One of the most interesting aspects of Maus is the way in which Spiegelman uses animals to distinguish the various races within the comic

Brainwashed, heartless Nazis. Many believe these were the kind of men who were involved in the Holocaust, which makes it much easier to dismiss them and believe we could never become like them. However, this was not truly the case for many of those who participated in the Holocaust. These men were not brainwashed, and some were not even Nazis— they were simply ordinary men.

There were many groups of people, other than the Jews, that were victims of persecution and murdered by the Nazis. The groups affected by the Holocaust were the Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other Slavs, political dissidents and dissenting clergy, people with physical or mental disabilities, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals. According to A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust, There is evidence as early as 1919 that Hitler had a strong hatred of Jews. As Chancellor and later Reichsfuhrer, Hitler translated these intense feelings into a series of policies and statutes which progressively eroded the rights of German Jews from 1933-1939 (“Victims”).

The Holocaust began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe officially was over. About six million Jewish civilians perished because of it. There were some people that survived. What impact did the Holocaust have on its survivors? When the Holocaust ended, all survivors suffered from different emotions because they survived the tragedy. The survivors lost loved ones, and they had to keep that memory of the event with them for the rest of their lives. As a result of these emotions, they coped in many negative ways. Survivors of the Holocaust experienced guilt, isolated themselves, and suffered from a mental illness.

The Holocaust was more than just Jewish citizens being taken to labor/extermination camps to be killed or to work. There were many non-Jewish victims during this time who were thought of as different or "evil". For example, Jehovah's witnesses, Roma gypsies, and Homosexuals. I would like to discuss some epiphanies I experienced during the reading of this memoir, although there are not many. Going back to the point I made about the Holocaust not only victimizing

This report is based on the best-selling graphic novel Maus, written by renowned American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. The book was originally published in 1986 by Pantheon Books. The anomalous novel depicts the life and story of Art Speigelman’s Polish born parents - Vladek and Anja Speigelman and how they survived the Holocaust. In his novel, the Jews are portrayed as mice, the Poles as pigs, and Germans as cats. The story alternates between the parents’ struggles and the present day strained relationship between Vladek Speigelman and his son, including the suicide of Art’s mother when he was 20 years old and its effect on them.

The Holocaust was one of the largest genocides in history. An estimated eleven million people were killed- six million of these people being Jewish. Not only were millions murdered, but hundreds of thousands who survived the concentration camps were forever scarred by the dehumanizing events that they saw, committed, and lived through. In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel recounts the spine-chillingly horrific events of the Holocaust that affected him first-hand, in an attempt to make the reality of the Holocaust clear and understandable to those who could not believe it. What was arguably one of the worst punishments the victims of the Holocaust faced, was how they were dehumanized within concentration camps. To dehumanize means to steal away the attributes that make one human, be it loyalty, faith, kindness, or even our love for one another and ourselves. The inhumane treatment of the Jews alongside millions of other victims by the Nazi’s was rooted from the systematic dehumanization of these groups. Although the extent of the brutality cannot ever be fully understood by those uninvolved, Wiesel’s terrifying record of his involvement proves how the unlivable conditions in Auschwitz not only typically concluded with death, but on the way stole the Jews’ faith, forced them to turn on one another in an attempt at survival, and even tore apart the previously unbreakable bond between family members.