Dehumanization In The Devil's Arithmetic

Could you picture around 6 million people? Now how would you feel if all of them were killed right now? All of them being killed because they were African American or they were Mexican. The Holocaust was when the Nazi’s led by Adolf Hitler persecuted, tortured, and killed people just because they were Jewish. People were separated from their families and gassed or burned just to keep up with how many people were coming into the camp, or just to amuse themselves. The book and movie Devil’s Arithmetic go into a lot of detail on what happened to the Jews during the holocaust. Not near enough to really show how terrible they were treated.

In this book the author uses excellent words to set the tone of the story, such as fierce, strong, nonsense, and ominously.The author also includes some German words and their translation. Raus, ‘raus, schneller, which means out, out, faster, is one example. There is many tones in this book. Some of the tones are scared and worried, because you never know when something bad will happen. Some other books written by Jane Yolen are Sister Light, Sister Dark, Owl Moon, and The Dragon’s Boy.

“Why dwell upon the study of the Holocaust when history is loaded with other tragedies? Because the Holocaust was unique. This is not to say that other tragedies were less horrible, only that the Holocaust was different and should not be compared and trivialized,” the author noted (Tarnor Wacks 9). A mere 71 years ago a defining feature of world history took place, in concentration camps across Eastern and Western Europe. 6 million Jews were ripped out of their homes and ultimately murdered. It is imperative that we remember the Holocaust because the magnitude of this tragedy is astronomical and shouldn’t be forgotten.

Death, sickness, and torture among humans. The Germans were extremely cruel people during WW1. Jews were taken from their homes and put into concentration camps where they were forced to do work or die. In The Devil’s Arithmetic the tragedy and harshness of these camps was brought to life. Using real life details mixed with made up things, The Devil’s Arithmetic is a story full of suspense and truth that shows the pain and suffering in the camp. I believe that the book and the movie are good but the book is better. You can decide later.

Many lives were lost during the German’s attempt to wipe out all Jews, and those who lived lost a part of their life during this time. The young boys lost their childhood and ‘innocences’. They witness more death and suffering than anywhere in the country. Today, there is still death and violence against others. There is pledges from other countries to want to kill Americans and Christians. As Elie says in Night, “ Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” We must make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, and there is no more pain or suffering for

In the prodigious book, The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, she portrays the tenor of courtesy for the atrocious time and crimes the Nazis did to the innocent Jews. Yolen wants us to honor the people who were near death many times. Yolen wants others to perceive what the Nazis did to the Jews. Yolen’s novel makes us endure pity on the Jews. In The Devil’s Arithmetic, Yolen claims, “Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory.” (Page 169). Yolen’s tool throughout her novel was cogent vocabulary,facts,Being a Jew and figurative language that touched the readers’ hearts.

Should the holocaust be taught in schools today? That question has been in the minds of parents, school officials, and teachers for some time now. Many believe it should be taught, while others say it shouldn’t. The holocaust is the term used for the Murder of Jews since 1993. That event shocked many people at that time, and it continues to shock people today. The Holocaust is ultimately the result of the Nazis’ racist ideology.The holocaust should be taught in schools because, it teaches students about the thin line between good and evil, it was a major event of history in the 20th century, they should know the past early so they can prepare for the future, and it helps them deal with the world they live in today.

Many times people take things for granted. For example, we think since food is always provided to us we shouldn’t be thankful for it, or for pure drinking water or even for our freedom. Most of society receive this benefits, and we assume everybody gets them too, unfortunately that is not the case. Not all people can afford these privileges. We may not perceive them as that on the contrary, we think of them as needs, and fortunately for us we can afford to enjoy them. However, in the past this was not the case for most people. Even today people can't afford them. In the Devil’s Arithmetic, Hannah a 13-year-old girl realizes this after a spiritual awakening at the end of the story.

Religious wars fought over beliefs were always fought between two sides and one is thought to have a winner and a loser victor and victim. In Elie Wiesel’s Noble speech “Hope, Despair, and Memory” he describes his experiences during a religious war that were more of an overpowering of people than a war no clash of metal, no hard fought fight, just the rounding up and killing of people with different beliefs that barely put up a fight. Elie Wiesel the author of the Noble lecture “Hope, Despair, and Memory” implores us to respond to the human suffering and injustice that happened in the concentration camps by remembering the past, so that the past cannot taint the future through his point of view, cultural experiences, as well as his use of rhetorical appeals.

In a span of 10 years, the Holocaust killed over 7 million people, that’s just as much as the population of Hong Kong. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel shares his experience on how he survived the Holocaust and what he went through. How he dealt with the horrors and even to how he felt of his dad’s death and how he saw himself after it was all over. As he tried to publish it he was constantly turned down due to the fact of how horrid and truful it was. He still tried and tried until it was finally published. This book shows how the Holocaust should be taught and not be forgotten, due to it being a prime example of human impureness. Humans learn off trial and error, how the Jewish population was affected, decrease in moral, and the unsettled tension are prime examples of such mistakes.

The nineteenth century isolationism was a movement of the United States to become an independent nation. They did not want allies and they wanted to be their own country. Meaning they did not want to be part of the UN. A lot of countries at the tim were becoming independent at the time because they felt compelled as a nation to come together in union. A lot of countries did not realize at the time that because their was a strong sense of nationalism. This cause allies to be driven out and a lot of hatred amount countries. The United states in the early 1900s started to separate from England and Germany and as well as France which were our allies at the time. But this of course was also during the time of world war one and two. Since there was

Elie Wiesel once stated “for the dead and the living, we must bear witness”. Remembrance of historical events is vitally important for the collective narrative. If horrific events such as the Holocaust are allowed to be forgotten, then we have forgotten the significance of the event and debased the people who died. In order to keep the event in the collective narrative, as a way of creating a universal understanding of the tragedy not only for the sake of those directly involved, but also as a warning to future generations, we must as Wiesel states “bear witness”.

The Devil’s Arithmetic, based on author Jane Yolen’s novel, is a 1999 film that aims to educate viewers about the horror, importance, and impact of the Holocaust. The director, Donna Deitch, depicts the journey of a modern teenager, with an apathetic view of her Jewish heritage, who travels back in time during her family’s Seder feast to a concentration camp in 1941. The protagonist experiences the terror of the Holocaust first hand as she develops a new, appreciative meaning for her existence and family’s history. The film serves as a non-violent and efficient way to inform young viewers, who may be uneducated or disinterested, of the Holocaust. This is especially true when considering the film’s engaging plot, cinematic techniques that recreate the horror of the Holocaust, and the film’s primary purpose.

In the Devil’s Arithmetic--both the book and the movie--Hannah, a young Jewish girl, begins the story by heading off to her Seder Dinner, much to her dismay. She doesn’t care much about her past, and she doesn’t want to remember what happened to the Jews. She greets her favorite aunt, Aunt Eva, at the door, and unenthusiastically goes along with the celebration, drinking too much wine and treating everyone with disrespect. When asked to go open the door for the prophet Elijah, Hannah reluctantly gets up and opens the door. In an instance, she is transported back in time to 1942, the peak of the Holocaust. What follows is a story of hope, terror, and courage. Hannah meets Rivka

“We are in the presence of a crime without a name,” said British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Nazis were always remembered for the killing of over six million European Jews, but at the time, there was no name for this wicked act. After the war, many of these Nazi war criminals were convicted of an act called genocide, a word that did not exist before 1944. Genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Genocide occurs because of many factors that trigger this cruelty. Although there are many reasons that can be considered to result in genocide, the three main reasons that result to this mass slaughter, are caused by: the authority that leads them, the ethnic tension between