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Why were the jews targeted in ww2
The conditions in the concentration camps
The persecution of the jews world war 2
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Have I taken the right decision, have I done the right thing? Questions like this have been on my mind since I decided to join the NKVD (Stalin's secret police.) May 19 1941 Today we are being reassigned to a concentration camp in Siberia.Thousands of Jews were deported to the Gulag camps of Siberia also run by the NKVD(History of the Cheka). But I didn't know, none of us did. Questioning Stalin and even the commander is something we learned to never do. Stalin ruled by terror and eliminated anyone who might oppose him.("Joseph Stalin")
“Mr. Krupinski” said the commander.
“Franz, sir you can call me Franz” I said shaking his hand
I got in the car and we headed to a place where my thoughts about Stalin would change completely.
Siberia sounded
…show more content…
This morning, like every other morning the NKVD goes around and we pick up any Jews that died overnight. We take the corpses and burned them in open pits it’s cheaper and a more efficient method(Meltzer 12). As I was handed the last corpses I heard a little girl crying hysterically. I warned her to quiet down or she was going to get shot. It seemed as if she didn’t care she kept on crying louder and louder. Another NKVD officer heard the crying and started walking closer to us. He reached where we were and pulled out his gun pointing at the little girl. My heart started pounding faster and faster I couldn't believe that after all this time here at the concentration camp, I still felt sorrow over the kids that were killed. I quickly pulled my gun out and pressed it against the soldier's head. He slowly backed up and put his gun away. What had I just done.If a single person helped a Jew they would be punished(Meltzer 29) All these thoughts just came rushing in my mind. What would the soldier do? would he tell the commander? What would the commander do? Jewish children were special targets,Hitler and Stalin saw the next generation as a threat of a jewish future(Meltzer 32) One and a half million jewish children under the age of twelve were gassed in the death camps,or otherwise deliberately killed(Meltzer
Elie Weisel and his family, taken from their home along with hundreds of other Jews from their hometown, were brought to Nazi Germany’s Concentration Camps. “From this moment, you come under the command of the German army.any of you who is later found to have kept anything will be shot on the spot,” (Weisel 15). Even prior to entering Birkenau, Auschwitz, or Burma, the prisoners were forced to give up all belongings under the threat of death. In a godless and unloving environment, twelve-year-old Elie must now survive against all odds in a concentration camp. “You’re going to be burned”.
Following the conclusion of the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union made it a priority to outdo each other in every possible facet from arsenals of missiles to international alliances and spheres of influences. Yet when the Soviets launched Sputnik on October 4th, 1957, the world changed forever. The first manmade object was fired into space, and it appeared that American technology and science had fallen behind. Yet, the public feared that not only were they now technologically inferior to the Soviets, but also deduced that if a satellite could be launched into space, a nuclear missile could just as likely reach the mainland United States. Less than a month later, the Soviets pushed the bounds of technology yet again by
Activities in the concentration camp struck fear within the hearts of the people who witnessed them, which led to one conclusion, people denied the Holocaust. Nazis showed no mercy to anybody, including helpless babies. “The Nazis were considered men of steel, which means they show no emotion” (Langer 9). S.S. threw babies and small children into a furnace (Wiesel 28). These activities show the heartless personality of the Nazis. The people had two options, either to do what the S.S. told them to do or to die with everyone related to them. A golden rule that the Nazis followed stated if an individual lagged, the people who surrounded him would get in trouble (Langer 5). “Are you crazy? We were told to stand. Do you want us all in trouble?”(Wiesel 38). S.S guards struck fear in their hostages, which means they will obey without questioning what the Nazis told them to do due to their fear of death. Sometimes, S.S. would punish the Jews for their own sin, but would not explain their sin to the other Jews. For example, Idek punished Wiesel f...
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
Murders inflicted upon the Jewish population during the Holocaust are often considered the largest mass murders of innocent people, that some have yet to accept as true. The mentality of the Jewish prisoners as well as the officers during the early 1940’s transformed from an ordinary way of thinking to an abnormal twisted headache. In the books Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Ordinary men by Christopher R. Browning we will examine the alterations that the Jewish prisoners as well as the police officers behaviors and qualities changed.
“Nobody can know for how long and under what trials his soul can resist before yielding or breaking.” This quote from Primo Levi eloquently describes how it is impossible to know how people would have reacted during the Holocaust and how much pain they could stand. Among the millions of Jewish people killed, there was a special unit of prisoners, the Sonderkommando, that were forced to witness and aid in the extermination of their people. At the time many people thought the Sonderkommando were accomplices in the murder and that they willingly participated in the acts, however, they were just as tortured as the people who were killed. The Sonderkommando had to engage in horrific acts in the extermination camps such as cremating the bodies or burying them in mass graves which berated them till the point that they were shells of their former selves, but they never stopped fighting.
Regine Donner, a famous Holocaust survivor, once said, “I had to keep my Jewishness hidden, secret, and never to be revealed on the penalty of death. I missed out on my childhood and the best of my adolescent years. I was robbed of my name, my religion, and my Zionist idealism” (“Hidden Children”). Jewish children went through a lot throughout the Holocaust- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Life was frightening and difficult for children who were in hiding during the rule of Adolf Hitler.
From the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century major historical events such as the Industrial revolution had occurred. During this period of time Europe was switching into an economy that is focused mostly in the industrial field. From this emerged two social-economic classes, the rich bourgeoisie and the poor proletariats. Furthermore tension brewed from the two groups since the bourgeoisie source of wealth was from the exploitation of the proletariats. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ book The Communist Manifesto responded to the situation and created a vision of an equal communist society. The Communist Manifesto was defined by the abolishment of the bourgeois sovereign rule that followed to a revolution against capitalism
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Did you know that millions of jews were killed for no reason during the holocaust? Milkweed, “Until Then I Had Only Read About these Things in Books,” and “The Guard” are all about children experiencing life during the holocaust. It’s clear that there are some similarities and differences about how the narrators in these stories view the Nazis.
The Great Terror, an outbreak of organised bloodshed that infected the Communist Party and Soviet society in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), took place in the years 1934 to 1940. The Terror was created by the hegemonic figure, Joseph Stalin, one of the most powerful and lethal dictators in history. His paranoia and yearning to be a complete autocrat was enforced by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the communist police. Stalin’s ambition saw his determination to eliminate rivals such as followers of Leon Trotsky, a political enemy. The overall concept and practices of the Terror impacted on the communist party, government officials and the peasants. The NKVD, Stalin’s instrument for carrying out the Terror, the show trials and the purges, particularly affected the intelligentsia.
Imagine waking up on a normal day, in your normal house, in your normal room. Imagine if you knew that that day, you would be taken away from your normal life, and forced to a life of death, sickness, and violence. Imagine seeing your parents taken away from you. Imagine watching your family walk into their certain death. Imagine being a survivor. Just think of the nightmares that linger in your mind. You are stuck with emotional pain gnawing at your sanity. These scenerios are just some of the horrific things that went on between 1933-1945, the time of the Holocaust. This tragic and terrifying event has been written about many times. However, this is about one particularly fascinating story called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne.
Dear diary, I have been deported, we traveled through Hungary and Poland. We were taken through the forest to an area where we were required to dig huge trenches. When we were finished with the job, the Gestapo had to do theirs. Without even hesitating or resisting, the Gestapo had each of us stand in front of the trenches and killed each of us. I managed to escape by being mistaken for being dead but I was just wounded. What broke my heart was that infants were being thrown in the air (young children) and were used for the machine gun target. Young children had to suffer, all Jews had to suffer. Why would any human wanna do this to us? We all are humans too and we shouldn’t be used as targets or killed because of our religion.Once I had made
1. Vladimir Lenin born on April 22,1870. He comes from a upper-middle class family from the Russian town of Simbirsk. His father, llya nikolayevich Ulyanov, was a schoolmaster. He was awarded a special order that made his and his family noblemen. His mother, Maria aleksandrovna, was a daughter of a Jewish doctor. Lenin's family was a mix of cultures and nationalities. Lenin had a brother named aleksandr Ulyanov, he was executed for taking part in a plot to assassinate tsar Alexander III. After his brother's death Vladimir took up to his revolutionary ways. Lenin went to st. Petersburg university. He was expelled from the college because he took part in political demonstration. Lenin studied law and read a lot of revolutionary literature. In 1891 he formed a group called " The Union for the Liberation of the Working Class." The socialist got careless and admitted a police informant into the circle and got arrested. In 1895 Lenin got a fourteenth month sentence. Then he got exiled to Siberia for three years. There he married nadezhda krupskaya. Vladimir led a party called the majority ...
This memoir, which sits on the library shelf, dusty and unread, gives readers a view of the reality of this brutal war. So many times World War II books give detail about the war or what went on inside the Concentration Camps, yet this book gives insight to a different side. A side where a child not only had to hide from Nazi’s in threat of being taken as a Jew, but a child who hid from the Nazi’s in plain sight, threatened every day by his identity. Yeahuda captures the image of what life was like from the inside looking out. “Many times throughout the war we felt alone and trapped. We felt abandoned by all outside help. Like we were fighting a war on our own” (Nir 186). Different from many non-fiction books, Nir uses detail to give his story a bit of mystery and adventure. Readers are faced with his true battles and are left on the edge of their