THE EVIL OF THE HOLOCAUST by Sheena Lobrin Belmonte
Humanity has come to a point where images of war victims bloodied and robbed of life, terrorists attacking schools full of innocent lives for their religious ideologies, and machine warheads constantly bombing cities for imperialistic motives are normalized. Film and television constantly feature themes of mass murder; slowly desensitizing us. Such ideas no longer make us widen our eyes in disbelief; the situation may hold our attention for a while but we move on and go about our lives. Perpetuation of such cycle has been part of humanity for centuries but one event of mass murder left a deep imprint in history that continues to linger in the human consciousness – the Holocaust.
In this context,
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In the case of the Nazis, their main aim was to rule the world and a step towards their colonizing agenda was the elimination of the Jews who threaten their racial character. Seeing it from this light, we can see that the motivation behind the Jewish genocide was rather baseless and irrational which just rooted from insecurity and pure hatred. What makes the Nazi act more evil is their fascist belief that they were killing for ideals, they totally regarded the Jews as vermin whose extermination was …show more content…
Such claim will not stand because there is still a possibility that mankind will create evil greater than that of the Holocaust. In relation to the concepts of “ends”, Nozick’s claim that the Holocaust was the end of the Christian era is also contestable. The years following the Holocaust may not be redeemed by Jesus’ act of sacrifice, but is redeemable if the stained humanity will do an act of penance until the real end of the Christian era which is the second coming of Christ, the Judgment day. This act of penance can be likened to the Christian doctrine of being one with Jesus as he carries his cross to
“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.
Beginning in 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party targeted not only those of the Jewish religion but many other sets. Hitler was motivated by religion and nationalism to eradicate any threats to his state. It was Hitler’s ideology that his Aryan race was superior to any other. Hitler’s goal was to create a “master race” by eliminating the chance for “inferiors” to reproduce. Besides the Jews the other victims of the genocide include the Roma (Gypsies), African-Germans, the mentally disabled, handicapped, Poles, Slavs, Anti-Nazi political parties, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Homosexuals. In Hitler’s eyes all of these groups needed to be eliminated in order for his master race to be a success.
When Hitler and the Nazi Party first entered power, they proposed strict and unimaginably radical policies. Their goal as the dominant political power was to create a “pure” German society. The idea of a “pure” German society stemmed from the idea that certain racial groups and ethnicities were undesirable and inferior. With that in mind, they sought to completely eliminate, through annihilation tactics, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, biracial children, handicapped citizens, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and any other individual(s) who opposed their radical ideologies. However, the most questionable part of these tactics was how and why the Nazis chose them. Of the many ways dictators and corrupt governments had tortured their citizens in the past, why was Hitler determined that the Einsatzgruppen, ghettos, and concentration camps were going to be the methods of choice to mass murder the Jewish people. Robert Payne notes in his book The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler that Hitler was not satisfied with a gruesome murder of the Jewish race. He preferred them to die in agony and complete humiliation. Methods of mass murder such as killing squads (the Einsatzgruppen), ghettos, and concentration camps proved themselves as the perfect final solution. These tactics would exterminate Jews at an increasing rate while removing them of their respectable status.
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
The atrocities of the Belgian Congo and the Holocaust are two of the main events in history that have been responsible for the mass murdering of millions of people. Although these events significantly changed the course of humanity, and the story behind each one is very different, there are significant factors that make them alike as well as different. Many would agree that comparing two atrocities that affected the lives of so many people and gave a 180-degree turn to each of their countries would be something very difficult to achieve. However, by comparing the behavior of both the perpetrators and the victims of both cases we might be able to further understand the lack of morality and the inspiration that led to these awful events. The perpetrators in both atrocities tended to have a similar pattern of behavior when it came to the way they saw their victims. But, they also acted in ways where you can draw the conclusion that one set of events was not inspired by the other. These two sets of atrocities were reported to have a very similar number of victims. However, the Holocaust is one of the most reminded events in history as a period of shame, tragedy and sadness, while many still ignore the atrocities in the Belgian Congo.
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...
As the years distance us from the Nazi horror, and as survivors are slowly starting to lessen in number, we are faced, as a nation, with the challenge of how to educate the new generations of the Holocaust. Many young people have no knowledge of the events that took place in World War II. However, today, artifacts can greatly contribute to the understanding of the Holocaust, just as the movie La Rafle (The Round Up) did for me. The Round Up by Roselyn Bosch shows that the mass arrest of Jews did not only happening in Germany and it also emphasized the cruel dramatic irony of this historical moment.
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).
The Holocaust is considered the largest genocide of our entire world, killing more than 600,000,000 Jewish people during the years of 1933-1945. The memories and history that have filled our lives that occurred during the Holocaust are constantly remembered around the world. Many populations today “think” that constant reminders allow for us to become informed and help diminish the hatred for other races still today. These scholars believe that by remembering the Holocaust, you are able to become knowledgeable and learn how to help prevent this from happening again. Since the Holocaust in a sense impacted the entire human race and history of the world, there are traces of the Holocaust all across our culture today. As I continue to remember the victims of this tragic time period I think of all the ways that our world remembers the Holocaust in today’s society. Through spreading the word, works of media and memorials across the world, I am continually reminded of the tragedy that occurred.
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.
For many years, people time and time again denied the happenings of the Holocaust or partially understood what was happening. Even in today’s world, when one hears the word ‘Holocaust’, they immediately picture the Nazi’s persecution upon millions of innocent Jews, but this is not entirely correct. This is because Jews
In this paper, I’ll be focusing on the Holocaust and the genocide in Ukraine, spearheaded by Stalin. The Holocaust is one of the most significant genocides in the history of mankind. (Berger 2007:1). It was significant because it was one of the most organized and systematic genocides ever. The Holocaust also wasn’t limited to only one group of people. It included a whole variety of different races, ethnicities, and cultures. The genocide in Ukraine was led by Stalin, and focused on starving out the Ukrainian people during a time where nationalistic pride was running high. The number of deaths accumulated in the Ukrainian genocide is said to amount from any...
Hitler's main idea was to, as he called it, 'cleanse' Europe of these non-deserving people. Hitler despite having gained anti-Semitic views on his own from things. he saw he was influenced a lot by Neil Darwin. He based a lot of his racial arguments and views on this. However, another point to consider was that the Jews were being used as scapegoats for German problems.
If Hitler and the Germans weren’t so concerned about killing the Jewish people, why would they kill? millions of them for no reason? The evidence shows “Nazi racial doctrine defined Jews as ‘race defilers’ who schemed to destroy the Master race through intermarriage and seduction” (Judge and Langdon, Connection A World History, 793). This idea was obviously just an excuse to the Germans; the German leader hypnotized them all. They went through ridiculous, unnecessary actions, just so they can kill innocent people.