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The atomic bombings of Japanese cities and the genocides of the Holocaust are horrific events in human history. Although these events have their differences, they influence the world greatly today because they differ from each other to provide comparisons for history, have significance because of the survivors who tell their personal story, and achieve significance morally as well as immorally. Though they both occurred during World War II, they have their variances. In Toshiko Saeki’s narrative of the Hiroshima bombing, she fails to find her mother in Hiroshima, but is eventually shown what was left of her burnt head by her brother. She describes her brother’s psychotic post-nuke behavior as his “mind was shattered into pieces.” Despite many …show more content…
Primo Levi’s narrative of the Holocaust explains the true struggle and chance for survival for the Jews in camps, specifically Auschwitz. Separately, Levi describes the true chance people had for survival in that they could have been selected to or in some cases boarded alone either the train car going to work or the train car going straight to the gas chambers. This is similar to the bombing of Hiroshima where some people could have been in the city, such as Saeki visiting her mother in which she could have died, or Kuribayashi being lucky enough in the distance away from the city. As Levi worked in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, he describes the struggle and dehumanization Jews had to go through to survive including tattooed numbers on their arms which labelled them, prisoners stealing soup or shoes to keep going. The major difference between the Hiroshima bombing and the Holocaust was the torture before an end versus an end before a torture. The Holocaust was either a two-minute torture in a gas …show more content…
I do not believe the people who claim this reasoning would think of a boy to be left alive without either of his parents’ or any relatives’ support as Kuribayashi “had no nowhere to go except an orphanage” (Kuribayashi, 547). This how he was taken care of, however, he felt unhappy and did not think seriously of them as the bomb desensitized his mindset. The atomic bombings fail to recognize the aftereffects of radioactivity as within Saeki’s narrative where her brother goes mad and his mind is shattered. Saeki explains this simply in, “war does not only destroy things, killing people, but shatters the hearts of people as well” (SWS, 345). The negative sides to the atomic bombings are these aftereffects of physical and mental, contrarily the atomic bomb was the correct plan to go with according to a moral significance standpoint. To save the lives of tens of thousands of American and Japanese soldiers shows how far extreme the Unites States had to go to put an end to the second World War. The Jews were not causing much harm in Europe, a small 1.7% of the total Europe population, however they were blamed for being a nuisance to society. Europeans were only effected by them because the government or someone has said they were a “pest” for no reason, such as Adolf Hilter. Historians should not analyze
World War II, known as the largest armed conflict in history, began in Europe in the 1930s and led to effect many people. The war resulted in not only the involvement of more countries than any other war but also introduced powerful, new, nuclear weapons that also contributed to the most deaths. As Hitler rose to power in 1933 the Holocaust began, his quest for the ‘perfect’ race resulted in the use of concentration camps, which would help to create the largest genocide of people in history.
Primo Levi’s tales of his labors in “Survival in Auschwitz” connected Marx’s ideas with work under extreme and unique circumstances. In the Lager, workers suffered extreme working conditions, were deskilled in labor, became one with the masses, and were dehumanized. Through Marx’s four estrangements (estrangement of man from the product of his labor, estrangement of man from the act of labor, estrangement of man from humanity, and the estrangement of man from man), it became evident the ways in which the Holocaust is a product of a heightened version of capitalist modernity.
In the book Hiroshima, author paints the picture of the city and its residents' break point in life: before and after the drop of the "Fat Boy". Six people - six different lives all shattered by the nuclear explosion. The extraordinary pain and devastation of a hundred thousand are expressed through the prism of six stories as they seen by the author. Lives of Miss Toshiko Sasaki and of Dr. Masakazu Fujii serve as two contrasting examples of the opposite directions the victims' life had taken after the disaster. In her "past life" Toshiko was a personnel department clerk; she had a family, and a fiancé. At a quarter past eight, August 6th 1945, the bombing took her parents and a baby-brother, made her partially invalid, and destroyed her personal life. Dr. Fujii had a small private hospital, and led a peaceful and jolly life quietly enjoying his fruits of the labor. He was reading a newspaper on the porch of his clinic when he saw the bright flash of the explosion almost a mile away from the epicenter. Both these people have gotten through the hell of the A-Bomb, but the catastrophe affected them differently. Somehow, the escape from a certain death made Dr. Fujii much more self-concerned and egotistic. He began to drown in self-indulgence, and completely lost the compassion and responsibility to his patients.
The atomic bomb killed many innocent people, but it was necessary to end World War II.
When most American people think of Germany, they think of sports cars made for the autobahn, sauerkraut, Adolf Hitler, and the Holocaust. Compared to Germany, when most American people think of Japan they think of sushi, Godzilla movies, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was such a significant event in history that almost 70 years after it came to an end, today’s younger generations often associate former Axis controlled countries with the war. People around the world are filled with disgust and immense hate when they hear the name Hitler, mainly because of his leadership under the Holocaust; which was the discriminatory mass genocide of 11-17 million people, the vast majority of which were European Jews. Hirohito, former Emperor of Japan, should strike a similar bell with people when they hear his name because Japan carried out genocide on Chinese civilians and soldiers in World War II. Japan’s attack on the Chinese city of Nanking, was one of the most atrocious events in history. This event has been named both the Nanking Massacre and the Rape of Nanking. The torturous, violent techniques used by the Japanese army upon Chinese civilians and soldiers including dehumanizing them, addicting them to drugs, and other perverse and violent acts, are some of the most grosteque methods ever recorded that could only be thought of by sadistic Japanese soldiers. The events committed by the Japanese army in Nanking, are equally as disgusting as the acts that Nazi Germany committed and should become a major topic involved with World War II in the future, despite the lack of light shed on it in the past for various reasons.
Angelina Jolie said, “Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to windows, without it, there is no way of life.” On August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a small city whose death toll rises to 90,000-166,000. On August 9th, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, 60,000–80,000 . In total, 15 million people lost their lives during the duration of the Second World War. In John Hersey's book, Hiroshima, he provides a detailed account of six people and how the bombing of Hiroshima affected their lives. John Heresy felt it was important to focus his story on six individuals to create a remembrance that war affects more than just nations and countries, but actual human beings. Moreover, the book details the effect the bomb had on the city of Hiroshima. “Houses all around were burning, and the wind was now blowing hard.” (Hersey, 27). Before the bomb, there existed few laws to govern the use of a weapon of this magnitude because of the complexity and modern technology that the bomb used. To address the fears of the use of the atomic bomb, new laws were created to govern its use. The atom bomb should have been dropped on Japan in order to prevent the further use of such a destructive force.
Concentration camps, such as the one in which Levi lived, were tools of national socialist ideology. It further empowered the Nazi?s to treat the Jews as subhuman (an ?inferior race?). Within in a short time after arriving at the camp, men were stripped of everything they had known throughout life. Families were immediately separated after the transport trains were unloaded, dividing the ?healthy? from the ?ill?. Levi learns that he is now called a ?Haftling? and is given a number (174517), which is tattooed on his forearm, replacing his actual name. ?The whole process of introduction to what was f...
World War II played host to some of the most gruesome and largest mass killings in history. From the start of the war in 1939 until the end of the war in 1945 there were three mass killings, by three big countries on those who they thought were lesser peoples. The rape of Nanking, which was carried out by the Japanese, resulted in the deaths of 150,000 to 200,000 Chinese civilians and POW. A more well-known event was of the Germans and the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazi regime persecuted and killed over 500,000 Jews. This last country may come as a surprise, but there is no way that someone could leave them out of the conversation. With the dropping of the Atomic bombs the United States killed over 200,000, not including deaths by radiation, in the towns of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and ultimately placed the United States in the same group as the Japanese and the Germans. What are the alternatives other than dropping the two A-bombs and was it right? The United States and President Truman should have weighed their opting a little bit more before deciding to drop both atomic bombs on the Islands of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In the case of dropping the atomic bombs the United States did not make the right decision. This essay will explain through logic reasoning and give detailed reasons as to why the United States did not make the right choice.
But no two events can be identical, just like people every event is unique in its own way. It may be in the way that the event play out its cource, or perhaps it may be in the way that the event is remembered. While we rememeber the holocaust more often than the bombing of pearl harbor we hold both events in different light. As stated in the Article Was the Holocaust unique? The uniqueness of the Holocaust does not lie in numbers. It does not lie in the method of mass murder. What makes it unique is the existence of two elements: planned total annihilation of a national or ethnic group, and the quasi-religious, apocalyptic ideology that motivated the murder (152). Pearl harbor could be said to be an act of revenge against the Japanese, or pure and simple distrust after the bombing, but as Margalit states in his article, it doesn’t compare to the Nazi isolating out the humiliation and death of a certain race, they wanted to destroy them
As World War 2, came to a close, The United States unleashed a secret atomic weapon upon the enemy nation of Japan that was quickly recognized as the most powerful wartime weapon in human history. They completely destroyed the entire Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and essentially vaporized countless innocent Japanese lives. Some historians believe that it was a foolish, brutal decision to use the atomic bomb on a weakened Japan, and that the civilians of the country did not deserve that kind of mass-annihilation. On the opposite side, other historians assert that dropping the bomb saved countless American and Japanese lives by ending the war faster than a regular invasion would have. What is undisputed is that this sad event dramatically changed the course of human history.
Hiroshima, by John Hersey, documents the events in the lives of six people living in Japan before, during and after the deployment of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Due to the fact that the people that he interviewed were bomb victims, they were able to describe, in gruesome detail, the effects of the bomb on their lives. Hersey writes Hiroshima to inform the American people about the suffering of the victims, and to help them understand the atomic bomb from the lens of those affected. As an American writing for Americans, he can narrate a provocative book explaining events that happened to an enemy of America without being subject to xenophobia. In Hiroshima, John Hersey effectively establishes that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was exceedingly destructive by explaining the chaos unleashed on the Japanese. He achieves this by excluding his opinions and increasing his Ethos appeal to make sure that the damage dealt to the city of Hiroshima is clear to the reader.
To date, many survivors of the atomic bombings of developing cancer and die. After the Japanese Emperor 's unconditional surrender still unsigned ( ie surrender : to give up / arise ) , the dropping of a second nuclear weapon over the city of Kokura was prepared. It is said that there should have been no clear command of the U.S. president for the second bombing. In Kokura there was ...
One of the short-term effects was that they had so many people injured and people who had passed away in the flames of the furious Atomic Bomb. The amount of people killed during the bomb was the amount of 80,000 people; the amou...
Primo Levi: Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) [first published as If This Is a Man], p. 86.
Primo Levi was an Italian Jewish Anti-fascist who was arrested in 1943, during the Second World War. The memoir, “If this is a Man”, written immediately after Levi’s release from the Auschwitz concentration camp, not only provides the readers with Levi’s personal testimony of his experience in Auschwitz, but also invites the readers to consider the implications of life in the concentration camp for our understanding of human identity. In Levi’s own words, the memoir was written to provide “documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind”. The lack of emotive words and the use of distant tone in Levi’s first person narration enable the readers to visualize the cold, harsh reality in Auschwitz without taking away the historical credibility. Levi’s use of poetic and literary devices such as listing, repetition, and symbolism in the removal of one’s personal identification; the use of rhetorical questions and the inclusion of foreign languages in the denial of basic human rights; the use of bestial metaphors and choice of vocabulary which directly compares the prisoner of Auschwitz to animals; and the use of extended metaphor and symbolism in the character Null Achtzehn all reveal the concept of dehumanization that was acted upon Jews and other minorities.