Resistance During The Holocaust

It is extremely important to prosecute the criminals as a way of remembering the Holocaust victims and knowing what they went through. “Everywhere in the world, there is an obscene attempt by people who call themselves historians who dare to deny the deaths of the victims. Who dares to tell me my parents were not killed in the camps” (Wiesel 6). This shows that many people disbelieve in the Holocaust; therefore they are forgetting the horrendous things done to the victims. It is very important to remember the tragedy that the Holocaust caused in order for it to not happen again.

Hitler, the Nazi leader, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and the Jews were “inferior”, therefore they should be eliminated. Does this not happen today? Stereotypes, racism, prejudice and discrimination keep us from evolving and living at peace with each other. We see discrimination and racism happen everyday in our lives.

Individuals make choices every day that affect history. During the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews during Hitler’s reign, ordinary European citizens shaped history by allowing Jews to die. Their decisions were greatly influenced by their understanding of the universe of obligation, which sociologist Helen Fein defines as “The circle of individuals and groups ‘toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for [amends]’ (“We and They” 56). The majority of ordinary citizens chose to neglect Jews in order to protect themselves or their families. However, some brave individuals called upstanders chose to stand up to the Nazi regime by rescuing Jews and other victims of persecution.

We all know that Jewish people were the main targets in the Holocaust, but not many people know that other groups and races. Some groups that were killed are but not limited to: disabled people, LGBTQIA+ people, Roma Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Polish People and people of African descent. While Jewish people should be recognized for their struggles, so should every other group. Disabled People Hitler didn’t want to have any disabled people in Nazi Germany. He thought that they were too much work and overall useless to society.

In “Resistance During the Holocaust” resistance was so hard because many Jews were murdered by the Nazis and they had very little access to weapons. The purpose for passive resistance was to forget the worries of the ghetto life and to keep themselves clean, and personal satisfaction. The types of cultural and spiritual resistance were Violins of hope, poems, books, music, reading, writing, singing, photography, and art. Oskar Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg, and Chiune Sugihara were forced enormous risks to save and care for those being persecuted in Europe.

By colin anders and ethan Koss " During that time, germans just liked burning things" -Death. This quote is from the book, The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak. It is a good book that stars; book stealing children, fire addicted nazis, jewish fist fighters, and death itself.

For instance, Holden Caulfield calls many people throughout the novel who he feels has selfish motives “phonies.” Equivalent to Holden, Wiesel feels the need to prevent people (the “phonies”) from forgetting the Holocaust. Holden rebels against respecting widely revered people and Wiesel rebels against the progressing society. However, Wiesel’s rebellious actions are less voluntary than those of Holden. Wiesel has a sense of responsibility for justifying the deaths of the Jewish people: “We had all taken an oath: ‘If, by some miracle, I emerge alive, I will devote my life to testifying on behalf of those whose shadow will fall on mine forever and ever.”

Another example of an anti-hero is Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the leader of Germany during World War II; he led the Nazis to war and executed over 6 million Jews because of their religion. Some people considered him a hero because he executed the enemies of the German people, one of his mottos was “Strength lies not in defense but in attack. “(Hitler).This shows that he was not inspiring because heroes never try to show that fighting physically is the answer as it can cause a bigger problem and cause people to get hurt, yet Hitler believed that it was okay to fight proving he is not a hero. In addition, Hitler is not a hero because he killed 6 million innocent Jews just because of their race, which proved he was villainous, and a hero cannot be evil.

In our courts, when it 's a white man 's word against a black man 's, the white man always wins. They 're ugly, but those are the facts

If we didn’t have written records then it would make it harder for them to believe and understand what these people had to go through. Hitler's ultimate goal was to get rid of all jews, as you can see he didn't reach his goal. And a big part of that is because of passively active

The worst part about it is, many people turned the other

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.” -Hitler. These words spoken by Hitler were the end of Jews. But I bet you didn’t know that he wasn 't the main reason the Holocaust happened. The Top SS Officers, The Allies and Hitler were the reasons the Holocaust happened.

Not only were German resisting but people in other countries, like Poland, were resisting as well. Polish citizens were willing to risk their lives to help the Jewish people during the Holocaust. “Besides the obvious difficulties of hiding someone under the crowded conditions of the occupation and the constant surveillance of German soldiers and police, there was an automatic death penalty imposed on Polish Christians and their families if they were caught helping Jews” (Zegota Paragraph 18). Think about how hard it would be to hide your boyfriend in your room, if your mom kept coming in to make sure you weren 't doing anything suspicious? That 's how the Polish felt, but on a much larger, more terrifying

All prisoners from the concentration camps suffered in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Failure to comply meant one’s own death, and death of any individual would not stop the Nazi officers from finding others to do the job. To say any victim was worse off than others would be to belittle their suffering; suffering itself is not a competition. Tadeusz Borowski’s story is said to be “one of the cruelest of testimonies to what man did to man, and a pitiless verdict that anything can be done to a human being” (Borowski 12). Borowski’s disturbing account depicts the atrocities of victims-turned-executioner.

In life being free rather than safe shows how your rights and opinions matter. The Holocaust, same sex marriage, and having a torn ACL shows that it 's better to be unrestricted, because being guarded stops you from being your own person. The Holocaust was an example of being held guarded against their will. Millions of people were killed because of racism and those who were easily targeted.