Summary Of Irene Gut Opdyke's In My Hands

The Holocaust is one of the saddest moments in human history. While World War One and 9-11 were both hugely devastating blows to us and many others, World War Two exceeds both of those in horror and effect, and it all happened because of one man. Adolf Hitler.

World War II (WWII) is a very common topic discussed in high school english classes mainly due to the facts that WWII is a perfect example of good vs. evil in the real world and there is an endless amount of books written about this tragic era in history. Two examples of these type of books are Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and Elie Wiesel’s Night; and like all of the other WWII books, these two address themes about the hardships of war and how hope is always present. One specific theme that these books support is that in war, there will always be peace; this is shown through elements of faith, happiness, and trauma.

The Holocaust, the event in which Hitler’s policy of anti-Semitism led to the murder of over six million Jews, was a horrific tragedy that to this day is a symbol of Man’s Inhumanity to Man. As such a large-scale event, it was inevitable that it would become the subject of many literary works that depict both the cruelty of the perpetrators and the heroism of those who fought for justice. “A Spring Morning” by Ida Fink is a short story about two parents desperately trying to find a way to keep their daughter alive, only to be met with the despair of her death. The events of this story take place during the late 1930s during the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany before the family is actually taken to a concentration camp. “Rescue in Denmark” by

The collapse of France during World War II was as abrupt as it was unforeseen. A major work of art that reflected the provocative history of France during the German occupation and the lives of the captives was that of Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Française, a book she wrote in 1941. The French women that were portrayed in the novel come from different backgrounds and played different roles. The roles that these women depicted in the book were roles that women in reality played; roles that they didn’t necessarily choose, but rather was forced upon them by the French society and the circumstances that the war has brought upon them.

Through character’s hope and perseverance in his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel conveys the theme that the love one holds for another is what fuels their will survive under strain. The Jews displacement by the Nazi’s downgraded them from their homes to filthy, plague-ridden, sewer like boxes of concrete that was Auschwitz. As a result of this many forgot their purpose to be alive. Wiesel shows that the need to survive those conditions was only supported by a sense of duty to one’s family to be there. When Stein says “Were it not for them, I would give up,”(45) he shows that their survival is the only thing keeping him upright. His family is his legacy, his future and his lineage, without which he has no purpose to exist in the camp. This is important,

“I shall never forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.” (Wiesel 34). Wiesel’s experience during the Holocaust shows the shocking side of the world through which no one had seen before. Wiesel’s book has impacted the world’s humanity to become better citizens with kindness. Within the historical nonfiction memoir, Night, by Ellie Wiesel, he shows his experience and suffering during the Holocaust, and the impacts of the Holocaust are still known to this day with continuous questioning of kindness and the existence of God on humanity

The World War 2 is the most large scale war that had ever happened in the world history. It reflects the cruelest sides of the human beings by killing tremendous amount of innocent people. This war not just brought people’s deaths, but also resulted big financial losses to all countries that had participated in it. Many people had to spend most of their time in the underground, apart from the sun, because it was the only place that was considered to be safe. Some of them gave up their hopes, while others cried out for current safety, other than tomorrow’s smile. They might die the next day, or a second later, this fear crushed them down and made them tremble and burst into tears. Fathers, boyfriends, and brothers left their lovings behind and headed to the bloody zone with firm and cold face. They attached their nation’s flags on their hearts and confronted the enemies with murderous weapons, not knowing that their enemy might also be one of the people who were forced to leave their families. Men had to kill the other men unwillingly. August 15, the seventieth anniversary of the World War 2, is coming up and it reminds people the history of this war. Even though, it has been seventeen years from the end of the World War 2, the fact about its existence still alarms people about

Aristotle wrote, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light (Aristotle)”. The Holocaust was one of the darkest times humanity has ever seen. A machination brewed by an extraordinarily perverse man that resulted in the deaths of millions, and robbed millions more of their faith and hope. Families were torn apart, towns were destroyed, and humanity lost, all to satisfy one man’s extreme racism and psychotic agenda. If however, one only chooses to focus on the darkness, they might overlook the light, specifically in the two stories of boys who survived against all odds and shared their tales years after defying death. Rubino Salmoni and Eliezer Wiesel tell their stories not to revel in the dark moments, but to show their readers the light in the horrific situation they lived through.

In war, there is a winning side and a losing side, but both suffer casualties. Afflictions are not always dealt in death and physical pain, but also emotional damage. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he emphasizes war’s capabilities to change people. When Mary Anne, a sweet, innocent, all-American girl, arrives in Vietnam to be with her soldier boyfriend, change is inevitable, and she will eventually lose her naiveté. O’Brien utilizes personification, jarring imagery, hyperbole, and pathos to convey that war shatters all innocence, no matter how hard one may try to avoid the change.

Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.

The story “Soldier’s Home” by Ernest Hemmingway depicts the wounding and post-traumatic experience of the First World War of the main character Harold Krebs and his family. Like most soldiers’ experience of the war, upon return to their lives back home, their lives virtually had no more meaning to them. Krebs presents a painful realization in this manner in which he interacts with his mother. She tries to think of her son as a hero and make him feel like one by encouraging him to re-tell his tales from the war. Krebs knows that the impressions his mother is making are not authentic and she, just like the rest of his fellow town folk are tired of hearing and reading the same stories from the war (De Baerdemaeker 24). Hemingway uses the story to painfully highlight the internal conflict that leaves an individual veteran like Krebs questioning his peculiar heroic status after fighting in the war.

Nella Larsen’s Passing is a novella about the past experiences of African American women ‘passing’ as whites for equal opportunities. Larsen presents the day to day issues African American women face during their ‘passing’ journey through her characters of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. During the reading process, we progressively realize ‘passing’ in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s becomes difficult for both of these women physically and mentally as different kinds of challenges approach ahead. Although Larsen decides the novella to be told in a third person narrative, different thoughts and messages of Irene and Clare communicate broken ideas for the reader, causing the interpretation of the novella to vary from different perspectives.

More than 40 years ago elie wiesel,Holocaust survivor courageously wrote his memories of surviving the holocaust,survival was mentally emotionally and physically challenging.

“Now that you have started reading this essay, you and I are now connected by a web of connections.” This is what Susan Griffin, author of “Our Secret”, a chapter taken from Griffin’s insightful book A Chorus of Stones, most likely would have declared. Griffin argues that, “all of us, especially all of us who read her essay - are part of a complex web of connections” (265). She implies that people are part of a “larger matrix” and have a “common past” (265). The “common past” between people that Griffin asserts can be proved by examining the unique paragraphs in the chapter. In “Our Secret”, Griffin recounts her own life story to the life stories of others, including Heinrich Himmler, Heinz, a painter, a friend, Holocaust survivors, a homosexual

Undoubtedly , WW1 was the first utmost military conflict in the modern times that has evoked variety of literary responses which reflect the sociopolitical and psychological background of that time and are considered as vital part of the historical and cultural memory of WW1 . War poetry has provided us with variety of images of the war and the battlefield by men who have experienced the reality of war face-to-face. On the other hand, women knew from the beginning that the war was going to be a great tragedy not only for men who were enlisted in the army , but also for women on the homefront who battled against the fear and horror aroused by WW1 . Women 's voices of agony, anger and anguish have emerged from the shadows of marginalization during WW1 to express their anti-war attitude. Women 's poetry of WW1 mirrors the 'new ' roles that women took during WW1 and shows the connection between men in the battlefield and