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Poems and their analysis
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Poems and their analysis
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During World War II, six million Jews were brutally massacred by Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime. Several authors have written about the actions of bystanders in the Holocaust. In a poem, "The Hangman," and an allegory, The Terrible Things, Maurice Odgen and Eve Bunting described how bystanders could cause problems through their inactions.
In the poem "The Hangman," by Maurice Ogden, the poet explained that a person could resolve a situation by showing acts of courage. One day, a hangman came to a town and built a scaffold on the courthouse square. The townspeople asked him which criminal would be hanged and he replied with a mischievous grin and a glint in his eye that it would be the person who will continually make his job easier. When the hangman spotted a foreign person, he chose him to be the first victim. The townsfolk were relieved that they weren't picked to be hanged, and that the gallows frame would be gone the next day. However, after they saw that it was still there, the hangman said that the foreigner was used to determine how strong the hemp was. When a man cri...
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
“Jews, listen to me! I see fire! There are huge flames! It is a furnace,” Madame Schachter imagined fire, the fire that would burn millions of Jews, gays, and disabled people. Many people died in crematory ovens during the Holocaust. The people who are responsible for the Holocaust are the minor Nazi soldiers because they didn’t question decisions, they ultimately pulled the trigger, and they separated families.
In George Orwell’s essay, “A Hanging,” and Michael Lake’s article, “Michael Lake Describes What The Executioner Actually Faces,” a hardened truth about capital punishment is exposed through influence drawn from both authors’ firsthand encounters with government- supported execution. After witnessing the execution of Walter James Bolton, Lake describes leaving with a lingering, “sense of loss and corruption that [he has] never quite shed” (Lake. Paragraph 16). Lake’s use of this line as a conclusion to his article solidifies the article’s tone regarding the mental turmoil that capital execution can have on those involved. Likewise, Orwell describes a disturbed state of mind present even in the moments leading up to the execution, where the thought, “oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!” crossed his mind (Orwell.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
John Proctor is, at first, willing to offer up a false confession that his life may be spared. Inevitably, John Proctor possesses that fateful attribute known to fall fatal to many human beings - pride. While he has, indeed, been ashamed of his many sins throughout his life, Proctor's soul still clings to his pride and his good name, however soiled it may have become. On the morning scheduled for his execution, Proctor wrestles with the realization that one more sin so heaped upon the rest in his life will make precious little difference in the end; "I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man.... My honesty is broke... I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie." (126) He attempts to calm his pride by telling himself that the other accused witches who will not give false testimony to save themselves from the gallows have every right to do so; they led lives free of blame. He, however, he tells himself, did no such thing; what right has he to hang among the righteous? "Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretense for me, a vanity that will nor blind God nor keep my children out of the wind." (126) Thus the conviction first reached by John Proctor is to save his life rather than to throw it away in mock martyrdom.
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between 1933 and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in the world’s history. “The Holocaust is the most investigated crime in history, as has often been pointed out in response to deniers. Eichmann may be that crime’s most investigated criminal” (Sells, Michael A.). Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazis.
The Holocaust was a bloody, terrifying event that unfortunately happened during the world’s most bloody war, World War II. The end result of a portion of deaths of the Holocaust resulted in astounding number of about 6,000,000 Jewish people dead. However, there were about 13,684,900 other lives that were taken during this “cleansing period” that Adolf Hitler once said. Those lives included civilians in surrounding countries, resisters against the Nazi nation, opposing religious members, and many more. Although, over 6,000,000 Jewish people died, many others died who are just as memorable.
During World War II, the Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, attempted to eliminate all the Jews and other “inferior peoples” of Europe. The Nazis and their collaborators killed millions of people, including six million Jewish people and other minority groups, such as 200,000 gypsies and 200,000 disabled people ("Introduction to the Holocaust”). This terrible period in history is now referred to as the Holocaust ("Background to the Holocaust”). A young girl named Anne Frank wrote one of the most notable Jewish texts from this period. Her optimism about the future should inspire the resolution of the modern religious and racial conflicts which stem from WWII era prejudices.
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.
The Holocaust was a terrible time in history; many innocent people were killed, all because of their faith. The book Night by Ellie Wiesel portrays the vigorous journey Wiesel and his family undergo throughout this torturous time. The holocaust wasn’t just genocide against the Jews; it was also a long process of dehumanizing them too. Their valuables were taken and their heads were shaved stripping them of their identity.
In the Holocaust millions of Jews lost their lives because of simply who they were. Many however hid and survived this dark event in history. It was the year 1933 and WW11 roared on, some saw it as a war against countries but eventually everything dark and ugly came to the light. Adolf Hitler was the chancellor of Germany and had obtained great popularity with the German people. While beginning to attack nations he was also trying to destroy all Jews in a horrific mass genocide. Creating concentration camps and taking all that the Jews owned he began to round up these human beings as if they were cattle. The stories account for them as being kidnapped at midnight to being tricked into going to their death thinking they were going for a better life. Not all stories ended in despair, there were many who managed to outsmart the Nazis and their allies. Many hid from them, blended in or fled to safe countries. Even under all the pain and horror many prevailed and won the prize of life. People, no matter who will fight to live no matter what the circumstance. These are the stories of those fortunate survivors who hid, fled, lived to tell their perilous account of the holocaust.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
The Holocaust is the history of continuing mourning and dismay. It seemed to be no ignition of concern or sympathy to lighten up this dreadful history. The Holocaust was the extermination of six million Jews and millions of other people that fell into the “undesirable” category, including blacks, gypsies, and homosexuals, by the Nazi Party during World War II. By 1945, two out of every three Jews were killed: 1.5 million children were murdered. Holocaust survivor, Abel Herzberg said,” There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.”