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The Holocaust refers to Nazi Germany's systematic genocide (ethic cleaning) of various ethic, religion, national, and secular groups during the World War 11 starting in 1941 and continuing through out the 1945. The word Holocaust itself originally derived from the Greek word (holokauston) meaning a complacently (holo's) burnt (karsten) sacrificial offering, or a burnt sacrifice offered to God. Holocaust was intentionally and amorously planned attempts to the entire eradicate the target group based on ethnicity. Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away -- of choosing to be passive -- as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does so deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands.
Indifference is as determined -- and as forcefully muscular -- as any blow. (Cynthia Ozick) By definition, a bystander is one who is present at some event without participating in it. This "passive" attitude has spawned some of the most horrific atrocities ever visited upon the face of this earth. The Holocaust is no different. Men, women and children were carried off by the hundreds of thousands, brutally murdered or forced into slave labor camps, and turned into cruel mockeries of humanity, yet few had the courage to save them or even protest their treatment. An entire nation fell silent as millions died, and the only objection was the collective death rattle of the fallen. This is why the Holocaust must be remembered.
If the stories are not told and the memories are not remembered, how can we keep such an event from reoccurring? Although all who hear the stories and the pleas of survivors call the action of Hitlers and his legions insanity, do they truly realize the extent of the implications set forth by his actions? The fact that one man and a small number of followers could rises to power and put into motion the organized and brutally efficient extermination and dehumanization of the entire set of people cannot and should never be ignored. Although America as a nation prides itself on the equality and well being of its inhabitants, still ignorance is at large. This man-made demon runs rampant amongst America's youth. Some have only heard the term "Holocaust" once or twice, and the word itself is cold and unfamiliar.
Some even believe such an event never happened. Is this situation so different from the ignorance that prevailed in World War II era Germany? As seen in Elie Wiesel's heart-wrenching classic Night, many in that period thought that such a thing could never happen, that no one in that day and age could commit such an incredible crime against his own. This false sense of security led millions willingly to their death, while their neighbors sat idly by hoping to avoid the same wrath visited upon their friends and countrymen. "Fanaticism has many faces: racism, religious bigotry, ethnic hatred. What these faces have in common is an urge to replace words with violence, facts with propaganda, reason with blind impulses, hope with terror" (Wiesel 3). If it is true that there can be no good without evil, then we as humans have a responsibility to con troll that evil, to ensure the safety of our fellow men.
This duty was forgotten during the Holocaust when pervasive anti-Semitism led to crimes committed not only by Nazis but also by the gentile citizenry of Europe. In the Polish city of Lvov in 1939, "mobs of Ukrainian hoodlums... combed streets and houses, murdering Jews" wherever they were found (Gilbert 163). When the mob's rampage ended, thousands of Jews had been killed. This mutual hatred united the Ukrainians and Nazis, even if there was no official affiliation. If hatred of this magnitude is allowed to flourish again, the world may not get another chance at redemption.
To contribute to a more free and just world, students must continue to campaign for tolerance, understanding, and acceptance of all people, regardless of creed or ethnicity. Through education, we learn the lessons of the past, and we understand the consequences of future prejudice. We refuse to let ignorance overtake us. As Heinrich Haines once said, "Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people" (god. in Lawliss 31). This proved all too true during the Holocaust, and it rings especially true today.
A truly compassionate education, one that preaches acceptance of all people, can do more to combat prejudice than the waging of any war. Nothing else can better nurture our human spirit. Conditions of this sort were not accidental. (What conditions please explain? ? ? ) They were determined by doctors and professionals in order to dehumanize the victims. It worked.
As Lee Potantki, a survivor of seven camps, point out, the only way to survive was to save your own life, not to worry about saving someone elses. He tells of a boy who would not share his one raw potato with his starving father. Another time, Potanski's tattoo number was called, which meant that he was to be taken to the gas chambers. When he hid, someone else was taken in his place. He says now, "Even today that is not a very pleasant thought" (Monagle, 12). The guilt felt by survivors is probably the final punishment that Hitler carried out on them.
In the past fifty years, the guilt felt by each survivor has surfaced in thousands of different ways. Three fairly common ways are nightmares, giving up on life, and keeping that period of their lives a secret. Irene Zisblatt told of her own nightmare while revisiting Birkenau on the March of the Living in 1994. In her dream, it is Passover and her entire family, who perished in the camps, is sitting around the Star table. Her brother is asking the four questions, but when she tries to find a chair for herself at the table, there is none. Everyone at the table explains to her that before she may sit with them, she must earn her chair.
Now she realizes that in order for her to deserve her seat, she must first teach children about the Holocaust. The reason she feels that it is the children she must educate, is her own feeling of guilt for surviving as a child, while so many children did not (Zisblatt 4 / 8 / 94). Other survivors have horrifying dreams of what they saw while they were in the camps. One survivor kept dreaming of seeing a baby being torn apart by a Nazi and never understood why.
It was not until May of 1994 that she realized that she had witnessed the incident during her internment at Birkenau (Zisblatt 5 / 24 / 94). Some have the ability to mentally handle what they experienced (Who do some refer to? ? ? ). Many cannot. It is those people who lose their hope and finally their will to live.
Jacob Rauchwerger blamed himself for his wife's, son's and the rest of the family's imprisonment and ultimate death. After his liberation, he discovered that no one in his family had survived, and refusing all medication and food, he died in an American hospital, finally joining his wife and sons again (Sendyk 227 - 229). In other cases, Holocaust victims simply tell one of their past. It was not until Deborah Sussman was ten years old that her father revealed his horrifying childhood to his children. Her father later explained to her in a letter the reason he had for keeping his secret. "I didn't think that you should be burdened with it when you were little, and were just beginning to form a concept of what the world is all about. " Once he told his story to his children, he made them promise not to tell anyone. When Deborah was sixteen, he finally really began to tell her everything (Sussman 20 - 21).
As one Schindler Jew says, "What we tell is not even ten percent. The rest is either too painful or too incomprehensible. " The victims of the Holocaust were real people. What they went through was real hell. The way they have dealt and will continue to deal with life after the Holocaust is just as real. As Peter Sussman said, "There was very little besides death, disease, filth and hopelessness. There was no beauty of any kind" (Sussman 21).
The emotional trauma that the surviving victims have experienced and will continue to experience can be described in the same way. Works Cited Bible, Jacob. Personal interview 25 April 1994. Central Agency for Jewish Education (CAJE). March of the Living Study Guide Gilbert, Martin.
The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985. Lawliss, Charles. and God Cried: The Holocaust Remembered.
New York: JG Press, 1994. Monagle, Kate and Karen N. Peart. "Life in the Darkness" Ozick, Cynthia. http: // fit.
code. usf. edu / holocaust /people / bestand /. htm. A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust 4 / 17 / 2002 Sendyk, Helen. The End of Days.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. Sussman, Deborah. "My Father's Shadow. " Scholastic Update. April 12, 1993: 20 - 21 Wiesel, Elie. "Have You Learned The Most Important Lesson of All?" Parade 24 May 1992: 3 - 6.
Wiesel, Elie. (1960) Night. New York: Bantam Books.
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