Themes Of The Holocaust

In the Holocaust by Bullets Father Patrick Desbois recounts the tale of the mission he gave himself to discover and inspect all the mass burial sites of a million Jews exterminated by Nazi Mobile Units in Ukraine amid World War II. He started by wanting to travel to the burial site in Rawa Ruska where his grandfather Claudius had been taken during world war II. He finally got the chance to visit Rawa Ruska in the mid-90s.On another visit he asked the mayor where the Jews from the work camp were buried and the mayor said he didn’t know and he changed the subject. A year later there was a new memorial put up and at the celebration Desbois asked a violin player if he knew where the mass grave for the Jews from the work camp was and he knew and

Max Vandenburg, a jew, has been hiding almost all of his adult life from the Nazis. Max makes his way across Germany to Molching where Hans and Rosa Hubermann take him into hiding. If Max were to be discovered by anyone outside of the household, the Hubermanns and Max would most likely be killed because Hitler had 90% of the German population convinced jews were the enemy.pg 422-423. As for political discrimination, if a German was not part of the Nazi party, they were treated poorly compared to those who were in the Nazi party. Hans Hubermann was saved by a jew, Max’s father Eric and Hans could not hate the jews. Hans is a painter but he does not find much work because most of his customers were jewish people, driven out and killed by the

“To build up a future you have to know the past”. Otto Frank survived the Holocaust by hiding in an annex for two years straight, he maintained logical and composed throughout the hiding. Otto had lost his family after they were captured by the green police during the Holocaust.

     Throughout history the Jewish people have been scapegoats; whenever something was not going right they were the ones to blame. From Biblical times through to the Shakespearean Era, all the way to the Middle East Crisis and the creation of Israel, the Jews have been persecuted and blamed for the problems of the world. The most horrifying account of Jewish persecution is the holocaust, which took place in Europe from 1933 to 1945 when Adolf Hitler tried to eliminate all the people that he thought were inferior to the Germans, namely the Jews, because he wanted a pure Aryan State.

During the Holocaust people resisted external sources of power because they were brave enough to stand up against Hitler's regime. In the novel The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak, Liesel a young German girl given up by her mother in sent to a small town named Molching. In Molching Liesel lives with her foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann. She also befriends a young German boy named Rudy who later becomes her best friend. Liesel, Hans and Rudy all resist the Nazi regime because of personal morals and experiences they've had indirectly with Hitler. Therefore, these characters commit acts of rebellion because it allows them to realize the depth of the Nazi oppression.

‘It could be worse.’ He looked his friend in his Jewish eyes. ‘I could be you’(Zusak 8). Walter is a solider for the Nazi’s while Max is a Jew. Walter being a friend of Max’s since youth helped Max out by getting him to the Hubermann’s household. Walter gave him a book with a key and papers to get past security. Even though all the Nazis killed all the Jews, Walter was different and stood against every other Nazi and did what he thought was best. This shows resilience because Walter should kill Max for being a Jew but they are friends and Max survives and lives

After nearly 2 years of misery, anguish, and despair, a young boy is finally freed to a normal life he had almost forgotten existed. Elie had started to become accustomed to the fact that indifference would be what decides if he survived in the concentration camps or not. In the novel, Wiesel employs the motif of silence to illustrate that silence from the Jews represents the fear, apathy, and the absence of God which results in them constantly feel hopeless and are mentally defeated.

This can be shown using the diary of a young girl named Anne Frank who went into hiding with the intention of hiding out the war. She wrote “We’re afraid that when the Germans retreat, they’ll take the entire population with them” (Frank, ___). This demonstrates that the main reason behind silence is fear. Fear, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “to be afraid or apprehensive” (Merriam-Webster). This is acceptable within this time period, there was fear ringing through every possible corner of the countries involved, fear of captivity, fear of dying, fear of disease, and numerous other factors. Combined, you may see a whole population who remains silent and anxious of what may occur in the future, scared to say anything or commit actions that may be considered inappropriate to the Nazis. Although these horrible measures were taken during this war, there was a yet a group of defiant heros who spoke for what they believed is true and spoke with the intention of liberation and freedom for all, no matter color, race, ethnicity, or religion and these people are the reason the world is as it is

According to Napoleon Bonaparte, courage isn’t having the strength to go on … it’s going on when you don’t have strength. Liesel, Max and Hans are the main characters in “The Book Thief” that have acts of courage entirely change their lives. This novel takes place during WWII in Germany. Countless Jews are desperately looking for the courage to endure the harsh rule of the Nazis. On the other hand there are some Germans who use their courage to stand against the Nazis in their own exceptional ways. The characters in “The Book Thief’ show acts of courage and this greatly affects the course of their life and relationships with other characters.

Similarly, “The Nazi claim that Germany was being ‘Judaized’ can hardly be substantiated” as Germany’s Jewish inhabitants in 1933 made up a mere “.80 percent of the total population” (Foster 15).

Throughout the novel, a miniscule act of heroism goes a long way. While working for Oskar Schindler, a Nazi, at his factory, Schindler portrays kindness. Leyson informs us that, ‘A true Nazi observing such an action, such humane treatment of a Jew, would have murdered them both’ (141). By simply making

Commentary: Max’s dreams of fighting Hitler symbolize his struggle to survive because in reality, he is fighting Hitler. It’s always Hitler against the Jews.

At one point in the novel, the reader is introduced to Max. He is a Jew. Jewish people were the Nazis main target and the scapegoat for the loss of World War I. Max would have been sent to a labor camp to die if he was caught in public, so he hid in a dark room for two years. According to The Book Thief, “A GUIDED TOUR OF SUFFERING To your left, perhaps you're right, perhaps even straight ahead, you find a small black room. In it sits a Jew. He is scum. He is starving. He is afraid. Please—try not to look away.” Max may have survived Dachau and World War II altogether, but so many other Jews -and people of different religions, sexualities, races, etc- died because of the Nazis. Only

The average person’s understanding of the Holocaust is the persecution and mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s, most are unaware that the people behind the atrocities of the Holocaust came from all over Europe and a wide variety of backgrounds. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution, and Jan Gross’s Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedbwabne, Poland, all provides a different perspective on how ordinary people felt about their experiences in the Holocaust both perpetrators and victims.

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