Trying to help
According to Elie Wiesel, an American Jewish writer and holocaust survivor, “It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.” Wiesel was describing how the future was questionable, and how they did so much to affect how we live today. In the holocaust, lives of many were put to waste, and innocent people were tortured. Though most non-Jews supported the holocaust, there was a select group of people who worked hard to end it. This group was known as the resistance. During the Holocaust, many groups contributed to the freedom of Jews. First, Jewish partisans fought for freedom of Jews. Secondly,
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For example, these groups consisted of Jews who got out of where they were held captive. Fighting forces were created from these associations. They hid and attacked on the daily basis. As stated in the text, “Some Jews who managed to escape from the ghettos and camps formed their own fighting units.” (Jewish Partisans 1). Life as a partisan was never easy. Never anytime to think twice, and always sleeping with one eye open. It was also very dangerous. They had to move from place to place in order to not get caught. Locals near the unit stations would sometimes offer help and assistance in the process of escaping. But help from locals was risky. There was a chance of being punished if caught. Jews forged documents and identity cards to make the escaping process easier. A twenty-three-year-old named Hannah Senesh emigrated to Palestine in 1939. Hannah warned Hungarian Jews about extermination camps on June 7, 1944. She wrote a poem for the Jews, but was captured and executed the next day for betraying Hungary. …show more content…
To conclude, Jewish partisans, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and non-Jewish people led Jews to exemption. Day after day we are reminded of these terrible times. From political to comedic views, there is no way of forgetting what happened in Germany. It is an amazing feeling to know that there were some individuals who stood against the Nazis, proudly. Without those magnificent people, the war may have never ended, who knows? From young to old, big to small, this event had an impact on everyone’s hearts, and it continues to today. Maybe it is a lesson well learned, that making an impact and trying to help does not always turn out so
The holocaust, or Shoah was a systematic, planned program of genocide to exterminate all Jews. This government based program was carried out by Hitler, and its allies in the Nazi army during world war two. Approximately 6 million Jews were killed, and if the murder of the Romani, Soviet civilians and prisoners, the disabled, homosexuals, and others who apposed to Hitler’s religious, political and social views were counted, this number would be more like 11 to 17 million. The holocaust is generally described with two periods, 1933-1939, and 1939-1945, the end of WWII.
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in the small town of Sighet Romania. (Roth page 1) He was 3rd born and the only son to Sholmo and Sarah Wiesel. (Roth page 1) In Elie’s hometown of Sighet about 40% of the population was Jewish.
My goal with my research is to look into the resistance of both the Jewish people and the others in European society who assisted in Jewish escapes. The perceived image of the Jews during the Holocaust is of “lambs to the slaughter.” The pictured painted of the rest of European society is one of either knowing accomplices or silent spectators. The Jewish people had many forms of resistance, some small and some large. While many of their neighbors were silent spectators, but many people were actively resisting the tyrannical Nazi government by assisting Jewish escapes. Each of these individuals risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends to aid these hunted individuals. They all deserve to have their stories heard and honored. In a time of complete chaos and destruction many people would not have the ability or fortitude to save the life of another person. The people that I will discuss in this paper were not only able to take that step, but put themselves and their families in real and eminent danger for the life, at times, of a complete stranger.
Although many people have written about The Holocaust, Few have done so with the eloquence of Elie Wiesel. The Holocaust was the period between 1933 and 1945 when Nazi Germany persecuted and systematically million murderer of Jews and other innocent people. His works speak of the need for people to feel compassion for their fellow human beings. Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, a small town in Romania who had been a sanctuary for Jews since they were driven south out of Ukraine in 1640. He was the third of four children and the only son born to Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel Feig. Wiesel had three sisters, Hilda and Batya were younger than him and Tzipora was younger. Education is very important for the family. The region was an important part
Elie Wiesel experienced several horrors throughout the Holocaust. As a boy, he lost his family and his faith in his own religion because of the mass slaughter of six million Jews along with several different races and religions. Elie describes scenes that a fifteen year old child should never have to see such as frantic families lined up for a death in fire, bodies crushed all over as people ran them over, and babies being thrown into pits of fire.
The quote by Wiesel has a deep meaning that can impact what people have learned about the holocaust. The Jewish holocaust was a devastating event that affected a worldwide number of people then and now. It had come to a point during the holocaust where “fear was greater than hunger” (Wiesel 59) during those times. The words written by Wiesel is indicating that the fear of death and misfortune was far greater than hunger. When people hear the word holocaust they think of how tragic it is, but they do not know true essence of what the survivors had to go through. When discussing the holocaust we learn that the Jews were downsized to animals “faster, you filthy dogs” (Wiesel 85). Jew and non-Jews in the concentration camps began to lose a sense
Examining any issue pertaining to the Holocaust is accompanied with complexity and the possibility of controversy. This is especially true in dealing with the topic of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. Historians are often divided on this complex issue, debating issues such as how “resistance” is defined and, in accordance with that definition, how much resistance occurred. According to Michael Marrus, “the very term Jewish resistance suggests a point of view.” Many factors, both internal such as differences in opinion on when or what resistance was appropriate, as well as external, such as the lack of arms with which to revolt, contributed to making resistance, particularly armed resistance, extremely difficult. When considering acts
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
The Holocaust of 1933-1945, was the systematic killing of millions of European Jews by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis) (Webster, 430). This project showed the treacherous treatment towards all Jews of that era. Though many fought against this horrific genocide, the officials had already determined in their minds to exterminate the Jews. Thus, the Holocaust was a malicious movement that broke up many homes, brought immense despair, and congregated great discrimination. The Holocaust was an act of Hell on earth.
The phrase "a lesson to be learned and a tragedy to behold" has been indelibly attached to the Holocaust that to think of it in any other way is thought to insult all those of the Jewish community who lost their lives to the attempted genocide of their race by the Nazi regime. Despite such brevity attached to learning lessons from the Holocaust one must wonder whether the lesson has actually been learned or if people will continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Angela Merkel, the current German Chancellor, has stated that the German experiment towards multi-culturalism has failed, those who wish to migrate into the country must learn the German way whether it is the language they speak, the culture they have or the very religion they
Imagine living in a completely different world then you do now. Where you are kept in a confined space with no one and nothing to do. That’s what the jewish people of 1933 to 1945 suffered with. Concentration camps were everywhere, there was nowhere to go or hide. The Holocaust had an atrocious impact on jews and they will never be thought of the same After the camp, many were grateful for what they had and no longer took anything for granted. Each article shows a different way of how Jewish people were treated badly but each shares the same message. After the holocaust was over everybody was grateful for what they had.
I am and SS officer. I was stationed at Auschwitz. More Jews were coming in every day. There were eighty to a cattle cart. There were so many families that had to go separate ways from one another. I had killed mothers and the babies and weakest of the men that couldn’t work. It was horrible, I do say. If I could say no I would never do it again. I loved my country and Hitler at the time, so I was willing to do whatever it took to get noticed. I was then stationed at a woman’s concentration camp. They all had gotten shaved, had no gold teeth, and had had tattoos on their arms. It was their identification code. They were so skinny it was just skin stuck to the bones. They looked like corpses, but alive. I wonder how many died soon after.
First, forced to leave your home and everything they worked for to move into a
The Holocaust was the murder and persecution of approximately 6 million Jews and many others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The Nazis came to power in Germany in January of 1933. The Nazis thought that the “inferior” Jews were a threat to the “racially superior” German racial community. The death camps were operated from 1941 to 1945, and many people lost their lives or were forced to work in concentration camps during these years. The story leading up to the Holocaust, how the terrible event affected people’s lives, and how it came to and end are all topics that make this historic event worth learning about.
Learning about the Holocaust is important because it is a big part of world history. It teaches us about the traumatic events of World War II (WWII). It also shows us how people suffered, starved, and even died. Another thing it shows us is what events can occur when there is an abuse of power. The word Holocaust means, "sacrifice by fire".