“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to the change.” - Charles Darwin. One key point to surviving in the Holocaust was self-preservation. In order to ensure that one would survive one would have to focus on his own being; however, sometimes this mindset was taken too far by Holocaust victims. Throughout history books there are many cases where the Jews would kill each other, including family and friends, for food. Part of being alive brings an urge to survive. In the novels, Night by Elie Wisel and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand the central theme that is displayed through both novels is the idea of Self-Preservation.
The reason I believe this is because if something bad is happening to me and I gave up I think that it would be more painful giving up then praying and believing in God to come help me and deliver me from evil like He says he will in the bible. God works in many ways that people may not understand but in the end, I know He does it for a reason. The Holocaust was a horrible time and I don’t think anyone would want to back to the time period. I think the Jews were saved because of their power of praying.
Solomon Radasky was born in Warsaw, Poland, on May 17, 1910. He worked in the Praga district of Warsaw with the family business of making fur coats. He had 2 brothers, 3 sisters, and a mother and father who lived in the same area as Solomon. He remembers that whenever a Jewish holiday came in his town, the stores closed for the day and everyone celebrated the Jewish holiday. In his early 30’s, the Nazis began to force many Jewish families, along with the Radasky family, into the newly established ghettos.
“ … The world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear - the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured, remained silent in the face of genocide.” - Elie Wiesel. The man behind that quote is one of the few people in the world to survive one of the worst tragedies in human history, The Holocaust. An event in which millions of people perished, all because of a crazed dictator’s dream. Elie Wiesel who amazingly survived the horrors, documented his experience in his book, Night. He has a very specific message in his book that many of us can learn from. Elie Wiesel wrote Night to show that the silence and hesitation surrounding the Holocaust is was what allowed it to occur and continue for as long as it did,
Fear causes people to makes judgements. It’s what makes people cautious and skittish, mostly in unsafe situations. Without fear people’s life would be at risk. Throughout the memoir Night fear builds up over time, starting when the Germans taking over Sighet, they slowly start to take over their lives. They begin by doing good for them like giving them a box of chocolates. Through a slow process the people becoming less human and begin to gain fear right when they are forced to leave there home, true fear sets in. This leads to people not standing up for themselves or doing anything about their situation, all because of fear. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, it’s clear that fear overpowers the actions of people and
The Holocaust now serves as a time to learn what can happen and how innocent people can be hurt over something that could have been avoid. It serves as a time to not repeat our mistakes. It shows us the consequences of the action of others. Most of all it’s initial to ask ourselves about the lessons we learn because even though we say that the Holocaust won’t ever occur again, it still is, all over the
Historians have been debating how the spirit triumphed during the Holocaust for years. The spirit triumphed through the Holocaust through many, many distractions, nature, and the support and love of family and friends. The Nazis had killed, and enslaved so many Jewish people in concentration camps. But, the Nazis couldn’t take their spirit from them. Even though the Holocaust had so many deaths, there were also so much love, and so many good people. People like Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum, and Syvia Perlmutter had to live in ghettos in cities, had to wake up to a heart pounding, scary feeling of death, and were put in and killed in concentration camps. The spirit triumphed through the Holocaust because many still had hope and happiness throughout the Holocaust.
Throughout Night, dehumanization consistently took place as the tyrant Nazis oppressed the Jewish citizens. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being human. The feeling of dehumanization was very common between the jews. They were constantly being treated as in they were animals. The author and narrator Elie Wiesel, personally experienced being treated like an animal and he also saw how his father and peers were treated less humanely. The dehumanization of jews began because of their belief, they did not believe in the same things that the Nazis did. The nazis thought they were impure souls because they were not like the them.
Do you think the holocaust could happen again? Do you think if people aren 't aware of history that it can repeat self? If people aren 't aware of what happened in the holocaust and how horrific it was, then people wouldn 't know what to do if it happened again and people wouldn 't know how to prevent it from happening again.This memoir points out the worst parts of a personal experience of Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor. The Holocaust was a horrific, terrifying experience for people of the jewish religion where over 5 million innocent people were killed. Elie Wiesel lived through tough times and watched his family get separated from him. He watches innocent people get killed and tortured. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel he uses dark imagery to create a sad and helpless tone to connect the reader with the pain he went through in the holocaust to ensure history doesn 't repeat itself.
Faith is such an important part of life. It is the drive, the motive to live, to breathe, to feel. When faith is lost, so is the reason to exist; life is lost in oblivion. Faith is a truly powerful weapon and as the story of Eliezer 's life during the Holocaust is played out through this book, a first-hand perspective is gained of what someone can do to cause questioning of faith and how people respond, whether by strengthening faith or losing it entirely. Eliezer is hit with every hard trial imaginable within a year of his life and eventually withers and hardens into this completely new person than the boy he was when he first stepped into that cattle car expelling him from Sighet, his home, and life. When everything familiar is taken, doubt
The Holocaust was many years full of torture to innocent people. Dehumanization, neglect and the ovens were not the right solution to Hitler's plan. The people who lived through these harsh years are scarred for life. Hope filled their minds while they all prayed to God to leave Auschwitz some day. The time went further and every day felt longer. Death happened through
Imagine the world as you know it is no longer. The plain scentless air is now the stench of burned human flesh. You’re torn from your family not knowing their fate. You are no longer free to roam earth but now trapped in a torturous cage with the only escape being death. For Elie Wiesel and many other Jews of this time, this was their reality. It is estimated around 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust, each death leaving a scar on modern history, each death showing the monsters we all can be to our own people, or just revealing the monsters we truly are. Harsh changes were put on the Jews from the loss of basic human rights like freedom to the loss of lives. This inhumane treatment was done by their own kind, no sympathy, no empathy,
During the Holocaust, many people suffered from the despicable actions of others. These actions were influenced by hatred, intolerance, and anti-semitic views of people. The result of such actions were the deaths of millions during the Holocaust, a devastating genocide aimed to eliminate Jews. In this tragic event, people, both initiators and bystanders, played major roles that allowed the Holocaust to continue. Bystanders during this dreadful disaster did not stand up against the Nazis and their collaborators. This action of silence encouraged more people to follow, which lead to Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power without having to face formidable opposition. Following the Nazi Party’s rise to power, the Holocaust began to take form. Fueled by hatred, intolerance, and anti-semitic beliefs under Adolf Hitler’s rule,
The Jews realize that the possibility of being burned or killed was very likely. Wiesel writes, “We stood stunned, petrified. Could this be just a nightmare? An unimaginable nightmare? I heard whispers around me: “We must do something. We can’t let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse. We must revolt.” ...There were, among us, a few tough young men. They actually had knives and were urging to attack the armed guards...But the older men begged their sons not to be foolish: “We mustn 't give up hope, even now as the sword hangs over our heads” (31). Even after experiencing the harshness of the situation, some of the Jews still think they can defeat and escape the German Concentration Camps, even though they don’t understand that there is no escaping, and resistance is futile . Rebelling would’ve been the most naive thing to do, since it would’ve failed, and would have had every Jew on that train car killed. This shows that even when the Jews see the reality of the situation, they don 't want to believe it and choose to be optimistic, which could be blamed on their religion, which grants the Jews a very positive and optimistic outcome on living. However, the Jews and Elie’s belief and faith throughout the book slowly dissipates, as they continue living under the control of the Nazis. On the other hand, some
Of all the terrible events in history, the Holocaust may be the worst of them all. This tragedy was so terrible, I cannot think of the ones who instigated it as human beings. It was against many morals and standards that the world views today as common ethics. The most terrible part of this is, perhaps, how today’s new and younger generations are not sufficiently educated about this disaster. Although many younger generations do not know about the Holocaust, it’s importance should be emphasised in today’s society to learn from it, to realize that every human life is important, and to appreciate the blessings of the present day. I, like many others, did know about the events of the Holocaust for the longest time and when I did, I gained a feeling of disgust towards everything that occurred at that time. In the movie, The Devil’s Arithmetic, I gained a much larger sense of the hostile feeling that this tragedy brought on and it made me realize that this was something that is very important to know and learn about. For the