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Essays on the Holocaust history
Essays on the Holocaust history
The influence of the holocaust on world history
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Simon Wiesenthal: The Nazi Hunter There are many heroic individuals in history that have shown greatness during a time of suffering ,as well as remorse when greatness is needed, but one individual stood out to me above them all. He served as a hero among all he knew and all who knew him. This individual, Simon Wiesenthal, deserves praise for his dedication to his heroic work tracking and prosecuting Nazi war criminals that caused thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other victims of the Holocaust to suffer and perish. The Life of a Holocaust Victim The effect the Holocaust had on Wiesenthal played a major role on the person he made himself to be. Born on December 31, 1908, Simon Wiesenthal lived in Buczacz, Germany which is now known as the Lvov Oblast section of the Ukraine. The Nazi-Hunter came from a small Jewish family who suffered horrifically during the Holocaust (The Simon Wiesenthal Center). Wiesenthal spent a great amount of time trying to survive in the harsh conditions while in internment camps and after escaping the last camp he attended. Wiesenthal spent weeks traveling through the wilderness until he was eventually captured by the Allies, still wondering the entire time if his wife was even alive (The Simon Wiesenthal Center). Of the 3000 prisoners in the camp Wiesenthal escaped from, only 1200 survived and Wiesenthal was one of them (Holocaust Research Project). Once Simon was safe, he began working for the War Crimes Section of the United States Army and was later reunited with his wife (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The two were under the impression that their spouse was dead. After their reunification, they had their first child in 1946 (Holocaust Research Project). Wiesenthal opened a Jewish... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited “About Simon Wiesenthal.” –Simon Wiesenthal Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014. Bascomb, Neal. Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased down the World's Most Notorious Nazi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print. 06 Feb. 2014. Knopf, Alfred A. Anne Frank in the World. New York: Knopf, 2001. Print. 06 Feb. 2014 “Nazi Hunting: Simon Wiesenthal.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2014 “Simon Wiesenthal.” Jewish Virtual Library Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014 “The Holocaust: 36 Questions & Answers About the Holocaust.” 36 Questions & Answers About the Holocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014 “Understand Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mission.” The Holocaust Research Project Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014
At the end of the war, Eichmann disappeared without a trace. The initial war crimes investigators managed to secure one photograph of Eichmann for reference but could find no further trace to where he lived. Even Eichmann’s wife and sons had no information on his
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize men and cause them to revert to basic instincts. Wiesel and his peers devolve from civilized human beings to savage animals during the course of Night.
Simon Wiesenthal was born in 1908 on December 31st. He was born in a city called Buczacz located in Galicia. The Wiesenthal family was already involved with war even before the Holocaust. Simon Wiesenthal's father died in World War I being a part of the Austrian Army. His father's death did not stop him from wanting to be educated. Wiesenthal earned a degree in architectural engineering and put that to work in his own practice which was located in Lvov. A couple years after his practice was set up the Soviet Union took over Lvov. After the
Adolf Eichmann was convicted of the mass killing of Jews in 1945. Eichmann murdered almost 11 million Jews, or almost a third of the world’s Jews. Einsatzgruppen was the name of the group that participated in the mass killings of the Je...
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
Interview. The. 2008 - 2011. Frank, Anne. I love you. The Diary of Anne Frank.
Works Cited United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Plank, Karl. Mother of the Wire Fence: Inside and Outside the Holocaust. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Print.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
U. (n.d.). Survivors and Victims. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved November 5, 2013, from http://www.ushmm.org/remember/the-holocaust-survivors-and-victims-resource-center/survivors-and-victims
The Holocaust usually refers to Nazi Germany's systematic genocide of various peoples during the Second World War, the main target of this designed massacre being the Jews. Approximately 6 million Jews became the victims of this fanatical racism, slaughter, and cruelty. However, in all this madness, there were still a few people with sound conscience and courage to act against these atrocities. The most famous of these heroes would be Oskar Schindler, the once opportunistic businessman who, later, spent every last of his pennies to save his 1200 "Schindler Jews." People often deliberate on why Oskar Schindler did what he did. However, the issue of interest should not be focused on why Oskar Schindler did what he did but rather, on why no one else did what he did. The exact reason that makes Schindler a hero is that he did what everyone else did not dare to do.
Today - half a century after the conclusion of the Second World War - it would be fair to expect a less emotional environment, one in which historians, researchers and writers were free to examine the actual causes of the war as well as the atrocities committed by both sides in the conflict. However, those and other topics are more forbidden than ever with the greatest taboo surrounding analysis of the fate of Europe's Jews and others in what has come to be known as the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is often considered one of the darkest and most heinous periods in modern history, however there are numerous accounts of heroism and selfless charity to emerge from the ashes. Despite the Nazi regime’s stranglehold on European affairs during a large part of the second world war, their radical and racially charged agenda was not universally accepted amongst German citizens and Nazi officials. The fear of strict punishment at the hands of the SS squashed popular outcry over the atrocities, but it did not stop the heroic acts of a few compassionate and unassuming individuals. One such hero is Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who spearheaded an effort to protect his Jewish factory workers from the uncertain fate of the the Jewish ghettos and concentration camps. When asked about his motives Schindler reported, "I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do" (Schindler). Though Schindler was himself a registered member of the Nazi party he would would ultimately be responsible for saving the lives of some twelve hundred Jews by wars end. However, the original twelve hundred are merely a portion of Schindler’s lasting impact and the real significance is in the “nearly 7,000 living descendants of Schindlerjuden (Schindler’s Jews)” (Sandweiss). Thus, Schindler’s legacy was cemented in his defiance and in his preservation of future generations of Jews around the world.