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Essays on learning from the holocaust
The importance of learning about the Holocaust
The importance of learning about the Holocaust
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The Aftermath of the Holocaust For the main character, Vladek, the effects of Holocaust are surviving, guilt, and memories. “You always pick up trash! Can’t you just buy wire”.Vladek worked as a Tin Worker so he witnessed everything that went on and understood how the chamber worked.While he was at camp he realized that he didnt have the fortunes that he was provided before he went to camp.To compincate for these losses he had to come up with ways to survive and make his life not so negative.The effects of Vladek working in the gas chamber made him work harder and realized that he did not want to end up in the gas chamber.It made him find different creative ways to survive and not end up in the gas chamber.Basically by him working there in made him work harder and harder to surivive and never give up.Vladek saw all things people were faced with as they entered the gas chamber and he did not want to become one of the victims that did not survive of the Holocaust. The guilt of being apart of the Holocaust can have a great effect on the lives of the survivors.“I dunno…maybe everyone has to feel guilty. Everyone! Forever!”. By saying this people …show more content…
You heard about the gas, but I’m telling not rumors, but only what really I saw. For this I was an eyewitness.” Vladek still remembers that went on at the camp.He incorporates this in his everyday life.The memories are significant because they are things that Vladek will never forget.He understands that what happened to him was wrong and terrible,but they have shaped him to the man that he is today.Memories can educate people. Even if people burn all things related to war, the memories can’t be erased easily.“These notebooks, and other really nice things of mother … one time I had a very bad day … and all of these things I destroyed.” By keep these memories of his wife he could not fully get over the Holocaust and was still harboring on to old
Vladek learned many skills before the Holocaust that guided him throughout his life during the Holocaust. Vladek knew that he could use his skills to help him survive. First, Vladek taught English which resulted in not only survival, but Vladek also acquired clothing of his choice which almost no other person in his concentration had the privilege to do. After teaching English, Vladek found an occupation as a shoe repairman in the concentration camps. Vladek’s wife, Anja, was greatly mistreated by a female Nazi general, and Anja noticed that the general’s shoes were torn. Anja informed the general that her husband could repair her shoes, and after Vladek fixed the general’s shoes, the general was nice to Anja and brought her extra food.
Using his quick thinking and adaptability, Vladek Spiegelman is able to endure the war and make a life for himself. While in the camps, Vladek Spiegelman must adjust to the situation and quickly learn how to survive, not just physically but mentally as well. He immediately grasps that in order to withstand the camps, he must ration his food. Telling Artie Spiegelman about his consumption habits, Vladek
Vladek has clearly never fully recovered from the horrors of the Holocaust. Because he was once wealthy and carefree now he’s cheap and pragmatic. Once a generous businessman now he’s a selfish miser. The Holocaust affect each survivor differently. Art notes on a few separate occasions, the Holocaust cannot be the reason for all of Vladek’s behavior. “I used to think the war made him this way.” Art says to Mala. In which, she responds that "all our friends went through the camps; nobody is like him!” It may be that no survivor is like him, but it’s the way he copes with what he went through. Basically, he’s still living his life as if he were still in those concentration camps in the present time.
The comic implies that surviving the holocaust affects Vladek’s life and wrecks his relationship with his son and his wife. In some parts of the story, Vladek rides a stationary bike while narrating his story (I, 81, panel 7-9). Given the fact that it is a stationary bike, it stays immobile: no matter how hard Vladek pedals, he cannot move forward. The immobility of the bike symbolizes how survivor’s guilt will never let him escape his past. Vladek can never really move past the holocaust: he cannot even fall asleep without shouting from the nightmares (II, 74, panel 4-5). Moreover, throughout the story, the two narrators depict Vladek before, during and after the war. Before the war, Vladek is characterized as a pragmatic and resourceful man. He is resourceful as he is able to continue his black business and make money even under the strengthened control of the Nazi right before the war (I, 77 panel 1-7). However, after surviving the holocaust, Vladek feels an obligation to prove to himself and to others that his survival was not simply by mere luck, but because h...
...s would be all too happy to pay for a meal with the lives of others, there were some good people left. There were people all around who were ready to aid someone else in their quest to stay alive, sometimes at the expense of their own lives. People such as the soldier, the priest, Ms. Motonowa, and Mancie kept things going from day to day for the Spiegelmans. In the end, Vladek and the others survived not because they did not have any friends as Vladek feels, but because they had many friends. Without the people who helped them along the way, Anja and Vladek would have surely died in the concentration camps along with the hundreds of others victims who were not so lucky.
The Holocaust took a great toll on many lives in one way or another, one in particular being Vladek
For many educated people learning about the Holocaust can send them feelings of sorrow or deep remource. Not only for the meaning of the word, but why it is called that. The pure evil of the final solution created thought of and created by none other than Adolf Hitler will never stop haunting people more than half a decade later. One of the prominat things that everyone missed in his highly sold auto-biography "My struggle". The thought of solid hatrid found within the cover of the horiable book will always burn in the souls that it harmed from the day it began till the dawn of today.
It's a sad tale, as although Vladek survives the Holocaust, the shadow of the great swathe of humanity that was butchered by the Nazi killing factories hangs over the entire book. It is also haunted by the ghosts of Vladek's first wife Anja and their son Richieu; the former surviving Auchwitz but eventually committing suicide, the latter not making it out of Poland.
The Holocaust was a very impressionable period of time. It not only got media attention during that time, but movies, books, websites, and other forms of media still remember the Holocaust. In Richard Brietman’s article, “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust,” he reviews two books and one movie that were created to reflect the Holocaust (BREITMAN 11). He notes that the two books are very realistic and give historical facts and references to display the evils that were happening in concentration camps during the Holocaust. This shows that the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust have not been forgotten. Through historical writings and records, the harshness and evil that created the Holocaust will live through centuries, so that it may not be repeated again (BREITMAN 14).
For some, it seems that the Holocaust in another lifetime, but for others it will be something they will never forget. Holocaust was a time for fighting. The Jewish would fight for the right to live as they were killed solely for being Jewish. The Holocaust began in 1939 and would continue through 1945. It was introduced by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, although he did not act alone. His mission would be to “exterminate” all minorities, but most abundantly, the Jews. Based on information given by About.com, it is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million of these were Jews.
An estimated six million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust, and many were thought to have survived due to chance. Vladek in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, is one of the few Jewish people to survive the Holocaust. Though Vladek’s luck was an essential factor, his resourcefulness and quick-thinking were the key to his survival. Vladek’s ability to save for the times ahead, to find employment, and to negotiate, all resulted in the Vladek’s remarkable survival of the Holocaust. Therefore, people who survived the Holocaust were primarily the resourceful ones, not the ones who were chosen at random.
The Holocaust tends to be a bitter memory and an unpleasant subject to discuss. Although this event took place many years ago, repercussions are still present in the twenty first century. Especially in Germany, the Holocaust not only influences patriotism, but it also influences education and immigration policies. In contrast to other countries where nationalism is common, Germany has been forced to lessen the sense of nationalism in order to dispose false beliefs some individuals have of German racism. By allowing people from other countries to become German citizens, Germany avoids transmitting the sense of being a better and a cleaner race. A further sector influenced by the Holocaust is the education system. Approaches to teach about this event are difficult since the Holocaust is a sensitive issue and continues having vital importance in numerous families. Although the Holocaust continues conveying negative influences, the Holocaust also led to positive medical and technological improvements. In fact, numerous improvements are unknowingly implemented in societies today. Therefore, the Holocaust is one of the most horrific and influencing events in history whose repercussions are still felt in Germany today. However, in spite of the horrific occurrences, the associated medical findings and technological improvements make it intricate to look at the Holocaust as plainly evil. Thus, societies should view the Holocaust with a broader perspective.
These issues are shown from beginning to end and in many instances show the complexity of the father-son relationship that was affected from the Holocaust. Even though this relationship gets better by the end of the second book, Vladek’s and Artie’s relationship remains tenuous for the majority of the book. This begins at the very beginning when Artie’s friends leave him behind when they were skating and Artie goes to his father crying and Vladek says, “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them in a room with no food for a week THEN you see what it is Friends” (Spiegelman 6).
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
Vladek lived a normal life before the war, got married to Anja a daughter of a millionaire. He also got Richieu his first son. They all lived a happy life for awhile until the Swastika was raised as an emblem of the German Nazi party. That’s when the fairytale ended. Vladek went to the army and got captured by the Nazi. Back to luckiness, he could easily died at the P.O.W camp, disease, hunger or even get beat up by the Nazi. On page 48, the bullets came in his direction, the bullet ricochet on his helmet, he could have died if the soldier aim better or if he didn’t have the helmet, he could have easily been dead. Being resourceful also helped him in the war. On page 53, he bathed in the river in the winter, unlike his soldier mates, he didn’t get infection on his frostbites.