The Effects of the Holocaust on Individual and Society

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The Effects of the Holocaust on Individual and Society

"What the world learned from the Holocaust is that you can kill six million Jews and no one will care."1 The Holocaust occurred because society neglected the individual, allowing six million Jews to be killed before the rest of the world intervened. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, society had to come to terms with the changing needs of the individual, especially the Jewish individual. The effects of the Holocaust caused the Jews to re-identify themselves and develop their loyalty to the Jewish race. Society had to overcome the initial view of the Jews as "the other" and learn to accept them and other minorities. Society also had to implement methods by which to prevent possible future mass genocide. The Holocaust left lasting effects on the relationship between the individual and society, resulting in a greater responsibility of the society for the individual.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, it is the responsibility of society to understand the loss experienced by the Jews to help prevent mass genocide. While the idea of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust may seem like a lot, it is still just an abstract number to those not concerned with the Holocaust directly. What society needs to understand is that the six million is someone’s mother, son, grandparent, or friend. Those who survived the Holocaust must live with this trauma everyday; for them, it is not just a historic event.2 Innocent Jews were persecuted, tortured, and murdered for their faith and only for their faith. The unimaginable actually happened to them. Once society can understand the loss felt by the Jews, it can learn how to prevent the Holocaust from happening again.

The Holoc...

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8. Rappaport, 96

9. Hass, 91

10. Gur-Ze’ev, 161-177

11. Hass, 40.

12. Hass, 183

13. Andrew Nagorski, "A Strange Affair," Newsweek, 15 June 1998, 36-38.

14. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, "Europe’s Success Story," Newsweek, 15 June 1998, 38.

15. Hass, 193.

16. Rappaport, 47.

Bibliography

- Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. "Europe’s Success Story." Newsweek, 15 June 1998, 38.

- Gur-Ze’ev, Ilan. "The Morality of acknowledging/not acknowledging the other’s

Holocaust/genocide." Journal of Moral Education, June 1998, 161-177.

- Hass, Aaron. The Aftermath. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

- Nagorski, Andrew. "A Strange Affair." Newsweek, 15 June 1998, 36-38.

- Rappaport, Lynn. Jews in Germany after the Holocaust: Memory, identity and Jewish-

German relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

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