Film Synthesis Essay: The Holocaust

1153 Words3 Pages

Holocaust Synthesis Essay The Holocaust was a devastating genocide of millions of Jews and other people due to the Nazis during World War II. Nazi Germany was the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945. During that period of time, Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. People in the world around us tend to characterize all Germans as "the mass murderers of millions and millions of innocent people during World War II", but they never truly realize that the whole population of Germans are not all to be blamed for that catastrophic event in the 1940s'. Throughout the Holocaust, when the Jews were being taken away, many German family's stepped up to the plate and took them into their homes. Even though many Germans were risking their lives to keep Jewish people safe, the world still portrays the whole German race as murderers. …show more content…

When the main character, Szpilman was sheltered in a broken down house in a deserted ghetto, one of the German soldiers found him, but for once, did not shoot him that instant. It surprises the viewer when watching that scene because you automatically assume that the Officer will either shoot him or bring Szpilman to a camp knowing that the soldier is a German officer. Consequently, the soldier was sympathetic towards Szpilman by letting him hide in the attic while the soldier would bring up food. This demonstrates how we might've believed that the soldier would kill him on the spot because of the way we portray all Germans during that time but an unexpected turn occurred when the soldier began to feed and hide Szpilman. The film definitely changes the perspective the viewer has towards some of the German soldiers because the officer turned out to be more empathetic than how the viewer believed he would be to

Open Document