History 12 :)

Wow. One of the things I often forget about when I’m reading...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:19:14 -0500

Wow.

One of the things I often forget about when I’m reading about the Holocaust is that every person who was put in a concentration camp or killed, had a story. We have to realize that these Jews were people, just like us, living their lives like anyone else, then all of the sudden one day, it was decided that the were no longer a human. This book reminds me of how impossibly difficult it must have been adapting to an event such as the Holocaust. I feel like the greatest fear of all would have been not knowing what was to become of you, and not having a say in whether or not you lived or died.

What really got to me about this story was how quickly Eliezer Wiesel (the narrator) learns to adapt to his new lifestyle. He is shocked at how his “father had just been struck, in front of [him], and [he] had not even blinked”. His indifference to violence is truly astonishing, as his time progresses more and more in Auschwitz. When brutally is the norm, anything less than that is surprising. Such is the case with their Polish boss who offers them merely words that are fit to be spoken to other fellow humans. How hard would it have been to come back from that once the Holocaust ended, and be expected to function normally? How difficult must it have proved to be when it was all over, and you had a number on your arm to remind you of everything you saw and experienced?

I found this link to two Holocaust testimonies that are similar to the ones in this story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNpl83-rXKM

I agree with Amy, i often do not think about how these people were once people just like you and i and than one day it was all taken away from them. Going from living an average life to loosing everything because one man claims you were not human anymore is something i would not be able to handle. Especially like Amy was saying trying to go back to normal life after experiencing such horrible acts would be extremely difficult. I could only imagine everyday living in fear and than when it was finally over always having that constant reminder of the number on your arm in my opinion it would be the worst part.

I found this page of the book to be rather interesting for the...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:03:03 -0500

I found this page of the book to be rather interesting for the fact that even the German soldiers were emotionally scared during this horrific time. Many of the police officers asked if they could not par-take in the shooting’s and i was surprised that the one officer ( Sargent Kammer ) allowed the officers be be re-assigned to things such as guard duties.While the other Captain Wohlauf was mad that the two men who are fathers asked to be re-assigned for the day and told them that they can go lay be side the prisoners or take place in the shootings. I also found it interesting how they were trying to avoid the situation by hiding in the bushes by the church. This all makes me wonder why they didn’t just stand up against the captains if many of the Sargent and the policed believed it was wrong because they would out number them . But at the same time i guess they were all living in fear like the Jews because if they did anything wrong it could result in death for them as well.

nicktheodorakis: Hearing about the Holocaust from the...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:41:05 -0500

nicktheodorakis:

Hearing about the Holocaust from the perspective of a victim helps put a face to the numbers. It’s easy to say “6 million Jews were killed,” and not actually take the time to consider how they were each unique individuals, just regular people. I respect the speaker for having the courage to relive these experiences in detail. It is important for people to be educated on the Holocaust if we are to avoid something similar. I cannot imagine the joy of finally being liberated, which must have been in stark contrast to the horrors that had been witnessed on a daily basis. The message at the end is very poignant: People should be respected equally, regardless of race, nationality, or religion.

I feel the same way, reading up about the stories does not have as much as much as an effect on me like this video has. Hearing his experiences captivated me more than a text from a book ever could because like Nick said he put a face to the numbers. Hearing about all the little things like climbing over a fence to get potatoes because they were starving or how they were being transported by cattle cars to go else where but every time he was else where it was worse than where he was before left a long lasting impression. It was almost more real for me hearing his stories through him because you got to see that he was just like any average guy. But because of his race he had to go through a way more tragic life than the average person and for me i think that was the most impacting part.

tara-flagel: It’s rare and enlightening to see the thoughts...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:15:15 -0500

tara-flagel:

It’s rare and enlightening to see the thoughts behind a Nazi and to learn that some Jewish prisoners, as members of the Special Detachment, were the ones to keep the other Jewish prisoners calm and clean up the corpses as part of the extermination procedure. Rudolf Höss thought of them as exterminators for their willingness to deceive and dispose of the prisoners, even when their loved ones were among the prisoners. He wondered if the members of the Special Detachment were “really able to hide [their] emotions so completely, or [if they had] become too brutalised to care about” about what they partook in. I often envision these thoughts from a victim of the Holocaust; to read this from the mind of a Nazi is something I never expected.

When Höss comments on “the eagerness with which [the Special Detachment] carried out their duties [that] never ceased to amaze” him, I draw a comparison between him and the members of the Special Detachment. He later stated that in “the face of such grim determination [he] was forced to bury all [of his] human considerations as deeply as possible”. I find his statement applicable to the members of the Special Detachment as well: both Höss and the members must bury their feelings and show eagerness in their duties in order to stay alive for as long as possible.

I also never knew of some Jewish prisoners willingly relinquished the addresses of others in hiding, but it made sense: they were desperate and must have thought any useful information would grant them pardon from their impending demise.

One of the few parts of the excerpts that did not surprise me was when political members advocating for the Jewish exterminations actually witnessed the act and queried Höss on how he and his men “could go on watching these operations, and how [they] were able to stand it.” I was, however, a little peeved when Eichmann continued to drunkenly blurt his anti-Semitic beliefs regardless of what he witnessed.

I was interested to see Hitler’s rule of fear even affect Höss: when he was told “that [he] could have disobeyed [the] order [of mass extermination]” he replied that he was “perfectly certain that not a single [SS officer] would have dared to raise a hand against [Hitler], or would have even contemplated doing so in his most secret thoughts”. Hitler, through his strategy of fear, causes his forces to believe even a thought against Hitler is treason.

The excerpts brought questions and if anyone has any answers or opinions, I’d love to hear them:

-Was “what the Führer…ordered was always right” derived from the phrase “Mussolini is always right”?

-Were Jewish people only earmarked for extermination or were all of them earmarked?

If anyone is interested, the site below gives an amazing contrast to the excerpts:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Hoess.html

(Thank you to Emily who initially posted this site, which allowed me to find more information on Höss)

to go long with your question above asking -Was “what the Führer…ordered was always right” derived from the phrase “Mussolini is always right” in my opinion yes. after getting to know Hitlers actions and sayings more it seems like he is more so copying the persona of Mussolini than creating his own. Like when Mussolini does speeches for example although some of his actions were completely outrageous he was able to captivate the people with hand gesters and dramatic pauses. Than Hitler came along and did the exact same thing and was able to captivate the people just like Mussolini did . Along with the idea of the black shirts Hitler basically copied Mussolini by making the Brown shirts. Even the Nazi solute was used in Italy first by Mussolini, which leads me to believe that the chances of Hitler deriving the phrase from Mussolini are quite plausible.

colesteere: After reading this I am somewhat disturbed. Reading...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:47:20 -0500

colesteere:

After reading this I am somewhat disturbed. Reading parts of this just made me sick. I do not understand how people can be so inhumane and do such horrific things to others. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Nyiszli to help Dr. Mengele with his experiments, let alone be in the same room with the man. I think what affected me most in a negative way was reading about the father and son and how Nyiszli talked to them before their deaths and then later had to boil off their skin… I don’t even know what to say in response to that…

i agree with Cole one hundred percent, it was disturbing in the way he treated them it was almost like he didn’t see them as human. I cant believe that it did not bother him one bit doing all these horrible things to these people, it makes me wonder if he was in the same mind set as Hitler in the sight of them not even being considered human really. it must of been traumatizing for Nyiszli to see his own people being treated that way and not being able to do anything about it. The part that Cole touched on about having to boil the skin off of the father and son bones really bothered me as well in fact i thought that was the part that impacted me the most.

kitteringhamhistory12: Click on the picture to visit a nifty...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:33:58 -0500

kitteringhamhistory12:

Click on the picture to visit a nifty online museum related to the Holocaust.

I found this website to be really intriguing for a number of reasons. I liked how there was write ups on all the camps telling you more about them like the camp called Dora Mittlerau for example was the worst for living conditions. The workers were forced to make tunnels in mountains and such that could survive allied bombing. But mot of these tunnels lacked clean air, and diseases, starvation and exhaustion killed many of the prisoners who were forced to work in the camp. The part that i found most upsetting about this camp is that if you were proven to be useless or unable to further the tunnels that were being made due to your heath they would send the prisoners to Auschwitz or Mauthausen to be killed. I was surprised by the use of ghetto’s as well, i never knew that the Germans forced the Jews into two square miles were they were subjected to violence and slave labor before heading to the concentration camps. The use of ghettos by the Germans intrigued me and i found this website that goes into deal about the Warsaw ghettos (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069).

It was an interesting read because it went into more deal about how the jews were treated and what they made them do like identify themselves as Jewish by wearing white armbands with a blue star.

I was rather disgusted on the lengths that Doctor Megele...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:39:08 -0500

I was rather disgusted on the lengths that Doctor Megele experiments went on to complete his objective. It was almost creepy how he was so fascinated with some people like dwarfs and hunchbacks to the point where he would kill them after studying them and than boil the flesh of their bones so they could be displayed in a museum. How he did experiments on being able to change eye colors in this write up interested me because it made me think that maybe they were trying to see if instead of having to try to breed a so called Aryan person they could just make them themselves. It would make it quicker and easier to expand the population of the Aryan race if all he had to do was change the eye color on a blonde man. Also when he transplanted amputated limbs it seemed like to me they were seeing if they could make a man big and strong instead of them having to be born that way. Lastly i thought that the fact that he did test to see how much affect certain chemicals had on different organs from different races to be rather interesting. It was almost like he was seeing if he could find the people who would be the most immune to things as if he wanted to almost make sure they were the master race. Because if another race that they thought was no harmful could be in the future because they are immune to things that this master race is not. Making them competition to the Aryans .

I found this reading to be very interesting, i never expected...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:12:20 -0500

I found this reading to be very interesting, i never expected for most people in the concentration camps like the Jews to just accept the fact that they were going to die. I thought they would have fought or something but like in the reading they just let themselves be passively led to their deaths in the gas chambers. It was almost like they started to believe the Germans in what they were saying about their race along with the undesirables. Or maybe they thought that there was no point of fighting back against them because their fate could be much worse than being put into the gas chambers. Which makes me wonder if the Nazi’s told them ( the Jews/ undesirables) to go along with dying that way because it was more civil. Or maybe they just liked the fact that it was not as messy, they did not have to clean up the blood after killing them or possibly it could have been more full proof and much easier to kill people with the chambers. It was almost like the Germans had found a way to make a death assembly line by using the gas chambers because it was fast and easy and they were able to pump more and more people into them in one day. There for decreasing the population of the so called undesirables quicker, and quicker making Hitler’s followers more common. If you think about it, if Hitler was able to keep what he was doing to these people under the radar and if he didnt pursue going into world war two so fast Hitler could have gained a rather large cult and probably could have won the war by making his arian race a common thing around the continent, growing his popularity and possibly not having to take place in a war at all because the people would have surrendered to him .