Category: Holocaust

The Roots of the Holocaust

The Holocaust is presumably the greatest genocide we know about; these atrocities thrived not because of the fear in the ranks/ not following orders as often misunderstood but because of the prevalent anti-Semitism, racism, and hate that was cultivated, praised, and allowed to thrive during that time period. Calling the Holocaust an ethnic cleanse downplays it. We need to understand that ethnic cleansing and genocide are two different things; Jews were not removed from certain geographic they were systematically murdered.

Why did the Holocaust happen? Was already a brewing stereotype and hatred for the Jews in Germany? The country/ Germany was already a broken nation after the ww1. They needed someone/ a group to blame. Hitler strongly believed in eugenics; to fulfill/test this pseudo-scientific theory of a racial hierarchy he strongly believed in, he needed a scapegoat. He played on the German’s vulnerability, basically conditioning them to believe the Jews were the reason for all their problems.

The Vulnerability of Children During the Holocaust

Children were particularly vulnerable during the Holocaust era; before the escalated, Jews children were being denounced in class for being Jewish. The killings of these kids were justified under the grounds of preventive measures. According to the United States Holocaust memorial museum, about 93% of the Jewish children population were dead. To give a clearer picture, of the nine thousand prisoners liberated from Auschwitz, only 451 were children. There were routine ‘children actions’ carried out to reduce the number of kids in the camps, and gassing of children and pregnant mothers upon arrival was the norm at most of the camps.

It is important to know that while there were cases of anti-Nazism, being anti-Nazi did not automatically mean being a sympathetic Jew helper. The 7% that survived faced a future with no familiar face/family, and for some, that was even worst/ worse than dying. There were a few factors that increased survival rates, the ability to look ‘German/Aryan’ being the best booster. However, ‘blue-eyes blonde hair did not always guarantee a pass, as we saw in the case of this often? This leads to the question; How exactly did the Nazis construct an Aryan identity. Who decided who had ‘good blood’? Why was blue eyes and blonde hair a marker of that blood in some cases and in other cases not enough?

The Struggle for Survival and Identity

Ultimately, avoiding the camps came down to these two decisions; can you openly pass as a non-Jew? Or are you small and quiet enough to be hidden in tiny spaces like attics, chicken coops even barns? Even with that, you would have to be strong enough to be able to move from hideout to hideout without being caught. For a good number of these kids, the emotional trauma was too much. It was also very hard to find a family willing to keep them for so long.

There were a couple of organizations that helped link Jews with sympathetic non-Jew helpers. These organizations focused more on children as it was easier to place them. Most of these organs, as you can imagine, were in Western Europe. There was a Committee de Defense Des Juifs, a Zionist youth movement in Budapest, that helped with falsifying documents. Also, the network called Circuit Garel was set in place by the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) in southern France; they tried to recuse, race, and transport as many children as possible to Switzerland during the Holocaust.

The Aftermath and Search for Identity Post-Liberation

Life in the camp was very horrible. ‘Plenty of empty beds in the infants’ shelter even though the birth rate in the camps was relatively high.’ -Hava Volovich. Children born at these camps were murdered immediately. Records from the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum show that children from the age of six months and upwards were helped at the camp, where they died by the thousands. They were not seen as any different from the adults even though their bodies could not handle as much. Many of these kids, especially twins, were the subject of different inhumane pseudo-medical experiments while at the camp. A majority of the children liberated at Auschwitz were only alive because they were supposed to be used for medical research. These atrocities went on up until the final days before the liberation.

Liberation for the surviving 7% did not mean light at the end of the tunnel; some of them had forgotten what it was like to even be themselves, and they hid and blended so well that they had forgotten their true identities. In comparison, others had to deal with survivals guilt. A good example of forgotten identity was the case of Menachem Frenkel, Rescued by the OSE alongside other kids on their way to Auschwitz and taken to a private institution to increase his chances of survival. Menachem was there for so long that he forgot he was Jewish and ate pork like every other French boy up until the age of nine.

After the liberation, the painful search for other relatives who survived began. There were various efforts by various organizations like the Jewish relief organization a lot of them were not fruitful. However, a reunion was not a blessing for all. Some children were away for far too long. An example will be Renee Fritz, A Jewish child hidden in Belgium. She said, ‘I had been separated from my mother so long that mother did not mean anything to me.’ There were a number of cases where parents trying to get back their children were met with resistance and hostility by these same kids.

References:

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Children During the Holocaust.”
2. Volovich, Hava. Quoted in “Plenty of empty beds in the infants’ shelter even though the birth rate in the camps was relatively high.” – Hava Volovich.

Introduction to “Night” and Elie Wiesel’s Experience

The autobiographical book “Night” by Elie Wiesel tells us about the rough lives of living in the concentration camps. This book is about a young boy witnessing the gruesome of innocent lives being taken, who survives the Holocaust and loses his father for three months. During World War II, millions of innocent Jews were prosecuted till their death which led to many Jews having a loss of faith. Everyone tells a story about themselves in their own head. This story makes you who you are. We, humans, are responsible for presenting the messages of our past times to send information to ourselves and our future generations. For example, it may be to prevent a repeat that had happened, such as the Holocaust.

Identity Transformation Amidst Atrocities

The physical and mental appearance each individual has is created from the choices he/she has made since the day they were born. Elie said, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore “(113). This story has changed the identity of Weisel. He had lost all of his faith. This sends a message of how he lost his dad. Wiesel wrote this book to not gain the compatibility of the world for the victims or the survivors of the Holocaust. He reached to awaken our moral sense. This is his perseverance in measures aimed at preventing something as tragic as the Holocaust. Wiesel has given us not only an onlooker explanation of what happened but also an analysis of the destructive powers which lay behind the action. In these events, his main worry is the question of what type of capacity we can take to prevent repetition.

Loss of Innocence and Faith

Wiesel starts off by being an innocent child and devout Jew to a denied spirit, a soul, and human dignity, and even their bodies are denied the aid needed to survive. Wiesel said, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (115). Wiesel states his old identity of being an innocent Jew has been taken over by this unpleasant corpse. He will never forget his story from his past. He also says, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” . He couldn’t believe his god could let such horrid things happen to such a young boy.

The only thing that kept Elie and his father alive was the existence of each other. If one died, the other person probably could not make it and would die eventually. ‘My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me… I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his only support”. The connection between Elie and his father had made a relation with their identities. Overall, Wiesel educated people’s minds on how unique stories like his were a witness to history and a courier to mankind.

References:

1. Wiesel, Elie. “Night.”

Voices from the Abyss: Wiesel and Douglass on Inhumanity

Forced into bondage due to their racial differences, victims of the Holocaust and American slavery had their lives destined in endless torment where they had lost a sense of humanity and hope. The events of the Holocaust and slavery had inflicted many lasting effects of devastation and traumas on the victims, yet its pressing issues became silent in the aftermath of the events. Two survivors of these events, Wiesel and Douglass, decided not to keep their voices silent but to use the hardship they endured to voice out and educate the people around the world about the tragic events of the Holocaust and American slavery. Elie Wiesel’s Night and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass are memoirs about struggling to survive in inhuman conditions. In the narratives of Elie Wiesel and Frederick Douglass, both men experienced dehumanization while enslaved, yet differed in the way they dealt with the hardship that they faced.

In both accounts, Elie Wiesel and Frederick Douglass faced merciless treatment under German soldiers and slaveholders, who were stripped of their identity and humanity. Wiesel describes one of his Selection experiences where tormentors forced the Jews to run like dogs and brute in frigid conditions by describing that they were “were no longer marching. We were running. Like automatons.” (Wiesel, 85) Wiesel recounts how, in the concentration camps under his German oppressors, he no longer felt like a human but a creature that has lost a sense of individuality.

Loss of Identity and Humanity: Personal Accounts

Furthermore, this loss of individuality is shown throughout the narrative as many of the Jews were tricking, stealing, and even killing others for food and other necessities since men became selfish beings who were careless of others and sought only their own survival. Similarly, depicts the reevaluation of his worth as a slave when his master Captain Anthony dies by describing how “men and women, old and young married, and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and wine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and child, all holding the same rank in the scale of being.”

Douglass, like most slaves, was stripped of his identity since birth since his slaveholder never granted him the knowledge of his own birthdate or age. Both the oppressors of Wiesel and Douglass had control over them where. Wiesel worked like a machine following order, and Douglass was degraded to a piece of property and was compared to the value of livestock. As the German soldiers and slaveholders used their superiority to subjugate the Jews and slaves, both Wiesel and Douglass experienced inhuman conditions and a loss of their humanity during their captivity.

Religious Perspectives Amidst Atrocities

Although both men were dehumanized, they differed in the ways they acknowledged religion. As the inhumane conditions of the concentration camp finally take a toll on Wiesel, anger consumes him, and he cries out, “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” Unlike Douglass, Wiesel was able to freely worship God and already had a founded relationship with God before he became a captive in the Holocaust.

Additionally, Wiesel had the privilege of learning about God through the influence of a Jewish religious background. Yet, when his faith was put to the test, Wiesel’s faith in God wavered as he began to doubt and detest God due to his circumstances during the concentration camps. In contrast to Wiesel’s response to his enslavement, Douglass, on the other hand, cries out, “O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! … II Will run away. I will not stand it.

Get caught, or get clear, I’ll try it … God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave.” Douglass differed from Wiesel in that he had to learn to love and build a relationship with God while slaved. In fact, being born a slave, Douglass did not have the privilege of having a formal education of God since his masters prohibited slaves from reading and learning the Bible. Throughout his enslavement, Douglass recognized God’s providence and distinguished Him from the evils of the religious hypocrisy of slavery. In contrast to Wiesel, Douglass’s faith in God strengthened through his sufferings, and he trusted that God would help lead him to freedom. Despite the fact that both men believed in God, Wiesel’s faith wavered while Douglass’s faith remained strong as they faced hardships during their enslavement.

Journeys of Hope and Struggle

Along with differing in their relationship with God, Wiesel, and Douglass differ in their attitudes toward their enslavement and their fates. During Wiesel’s arrival at Auschwitz, a Polish man instilled hope in Wiesel by saying, “You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection. Therefore, muster your strength and keep your faith. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life, a thousand times faith. By driving out despair, you will move away from death.”

Unlike Douglass, Wiesel experienced what it was like to be a free man until he was kidnapped and enslaved in the Holocaust. For this reason, it was difficult for Wiesel to accept his fate in the concentration camps when he was forced into submission. Wiesel instilled within himself that the only hope for the end of his enslavement was either survival, liberation, or death. During his enslavement, his own purpose in life was to focus on surviving to hope for the day of his liberation.

On the other hand, Douglass realized that his condition as a slave was inescapable unless he purposed within himself to be free for a “white man’s power to enslave the black” was ignorance, and Douglass “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” would be education. (Douglass, 27) In contrast to Wiesel, Douglass was born a slave and never experienced the taste of freedom. Since slavery bound him to a life of captivity, he was already used to the constant discrimination and oppression inflicted by his slaveholders. Douglass came to realize that he had a chance to determine his own fate and escape slavery through the freedom gained through educating himself. Withal, both men differed in how they dealt with their destinies while being enslaved as Wiesel surrendered to the life of a prisoner while Douglass took the initiative to free himself from bondage.

In the narratives of both Elie Wiesel and Frederick Douglass, they showed the abuse and brutality they faced during their enslavement, yet differed in the ways they responded to their treatments. Wiesel and Douglass exemplify a character of undying perseverance through the horrors of maintaining life on a concentration camp and a southern plantation. Though these authors still live with the constant remembrance of these events, they use their past circumstances to better their lives and to share with people from around the world the horrific events of the Holocaust and American slavery.

Wiesel and Douglass encourage the reader to examine these events as a result of the sinful nature of man and to determine without our hearts to put off injustice and place within our hearts the love of God toward all of mankind. By sharing their stories, Elie Wiesel and Frederick Douglass have given the readers a glimpse into the untold testimonies of the suffering of millions of victims of the Holocaust and American slavery.

References:

1. Wiesel, Elie. “Night.” Hill and Wang, 2006.
2. Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” Dover Publications, 1995.

The Purpose and Destiny of “Night”

“I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny,” Elie says during the introduction. This truly speaks to a person because there was a purpose to this, all the lives lost, all the families separated. Often when disastrous and horrifying events such as the Holocaust occur, many people typically don’t bring it up. This event is crucial in our history. However, it did happen, and we as a country need to acknowledge that.

This book is about history, the moment they never thought that just for being Jewish, such a horror could happen. Elie Wiesel wrote this book to communicate his experiences and what happened. One of the main themes throughout the book is the title of the book “Night.” There are multiple references from Elie about the night during the book. The word “night” is used constantly, and Elie recalls every night and morning throughout the book. For example, the night can be used as symbolism for the Holocaust, which made families and thousands of Jews divided for life in the darkness and somber moments in concentration camps.

Violence: A Predominant Theme

Another theme would be violence. Violence affected the Jews in many ways. They were forced, beaten, and abused. The last theme is Faith.
The main theme is violence. Violence is shown throughout the whole book. “Over there, that’s where they will take you. Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand? You sons of b******. Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned…turned to ashes.” Someone was warning them of what could happen. No one there remained hopeful. It was all crushed, their dreams, future, and families.
A developing theme throughout the story is seen in the word “Night.” It symbolized darkness and somber feelings. “I watched darkness fade…I was no longer afraid…I was overcome by fatigue”.

Symbolism of “Night”

Throughout the story, the weakness of faith emerges. Elie’s faith in the integrity of the world is completely shaken by the cruelty and evil he witnesses during the Holocaust. He cannot picture the concentration camps’ unbelievable and inhumane cruelty that could potentially reflect positively. He wonders how God could possibly be part of this. His faith is even more shaken when he sees not only the Nazi’s behavior but also the selfishness of the Jews. But he sees that the Holocaust exposes the selfishness, evil and atrocious behavior of which everybody-not, only the Nazis, but also the fellow prisoners, he feels God might not exist at all.

Conclusion

The book Night was somber and, at times, hard to read. However, it was real, and it did happen. More people need to be aware of it and realize what millions of Jews were forced into life experiences.

References:

1. Wiesel, Elie. “Night.”

Introduction

Hope is closely associated with the feelings of trust and existence. Stories of hope are central not only in literature but also in science, cultural movements and spiritual studies. In hope, someone tends to focus on the idea of positive change – either personal or social change – can or will happen. Feelings of hope is an exceptionally common topic in writing for various reasons. Hope can be the reason a person doesn’t give up, hope can be the reason a person gets back up instead of staying down, hope can be the difference in fighting and living, or giving up and dying.

Explanation of Hope

In my hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, written by Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong, is an autobiographical explanation of Irene Gut Opdyke, who gambles her life to help save Jews in her Nazi-occupied homeland. The extraordinary tale of bravery, hope and commitment as the holocaust rescuer starts in a small village in East Poland where she was raised. She was born May 5th, 1922 to Maria and Wladyslaw. Raised as Polish Catholics along with her four younger sisters in a caring family environment. Irene was a bright, sociable young woman full of hope. Her strong desire to assist others in need inspired her to study nursing in the Polish city of Radom. But in September of 1939, when Irene was only 17 years old, the German army occupied the city. Irene volunteered to join the Polish army to assist in the fight. Unable to defeat the German forces, Irene’s regiment ran into hiding in the Ukrainian forest where she was brutally beaten, and raped by Russian soldiers.

Back in Nazi-occupied Poland, Irene was reunited with her family. But, the family was separated once again and Irene remained in Radom with one of her younger sisters. She was forced to work first in a factory for the German army, then she was moved Ternopol, a city in modern day Ukraine where she was a waitress in a Nazi officers’ dining room. Irene witnessed a Nazi death march and many other acts of violence against the Jews, it was her outrage at these acts that motivated her to fight back against the death and destruction she bear witness to.

In her words, she became ‘a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and Nazis.’ She overheard conversations in the dining room and communicated what she learned to Jews in the ghetto. Irene hid twelve Jews in the home of a German officer where she worked in the dinning room. When the German solders discovered them, he demanded that Irene become his mistress as payment for keeping her secret. ‘It was not easy,’ Opdyke says, ‘but it was a small price to pay for so many lives.’

In 1944, the Germans were suffering defeat and started to withdraw. Putting her friends in hiding first, Irene snuck them to the forest where they would be safe from the German soldiers. Irene escaped from the Germans and joined a group of freedom fighters dedicated to opposing fighting both the German and Soviet enemies of Poland. Irene was captured by the Soviet military and was interrogated relentlessly, she managed to make an escaped through an open window. At this point, Irene was taken in and hidden from the Russians by some of the same people she had hidden.

These friends would later disguise her as a Jew and smuggle her to a camp for displaced persons in Hessich-Lictenau in Germany. While in the camp, Irene met William Opdyke, a United Nations delegate who was sent there to interview survivors of the war. Moved by Irene’s story, he told her that America would be proud to have her as a citizen. So in 1949, Irene went to New York to start a new life in America. She worked in a clothing factory and lived in Brooklyn. Five years later arrival in America, Irene Gut Opdyke became a United States citizen.

Conclusion

Finding and maintaining hope can be one of the most important things in a person’s life. Hope gives people a reason to keep trying and it helps you see the good in bad things. Seeing the good in a bad situation, as hard as it may be, is very important. In the novel In My Hands, hope is mentioned throughout the book. “For the young people, who can accomplish the impossible and can achieve greatness by finding strength in God and the goodness of the human spirit. I dedicate my life story to encourage them to find hope and strength within themselves.” (pg.3). Irene Gut’s dedication to all young people is one of the many examples how hope in your life can only help. In Irene’s mention of hope shows how she didn’t lose her hope even when everything seemed over and that is why she was able to survive.

As we all know, the Second World War was the cruelest and most lethal war humankind has ever experienced. With over 70 to 85 million deaths, this is by far the war with the most deaths all-time. One of the main reasons this war has been so cruel was the advancements that humanity made since it’s last big wars. The biggest advancements are the development of nuclear weapons, technological improvements (weapons, transport), improvements from weapons in the air like for example the dog fights and the placements of bombs that were being dropped. All of this set up that cruel war.

There was a big variety of people who passed away. What I mean with this is that obviously there were a lot of countries involved in the war, so people were fighting and dying all over the world, but the people that died weren’t all soldiers serving their country. There were a lot of innocent people involved in this war. A lot of people who had no idea when their lives would end and in what way that would be. That made the common people scared and they were fearing their lives a lot. Also, the soldiers, of course, feared their lives as they could be killed by a random bullet or a bomb falling out of the sky. The point I want to make here is that everybody had to fear for their lives. It does not matter if you are a Jew, a normal civilian, a kid, a soldier or a leader, you all have a chance of dying in one way or another.

In some way, you should interpret that there isn’t a high surviving rate during this time, but that doesn’t mean that nobody or almost nobody survived the Holocaust. There were also a lot of survivors of this war. Most of the Germans survived because they gave up and fled to a place where they would not be convicted. The Jews survived in all different ways. They improvised and tried to hide as good as possible, which was probably the smartest thing to do. They all had a different way of surviving.

Vladek Spiegelman was a survivor too. He had found a very complicated and difficult way to survive. After his factory got vandalized and robbed, he left home to join the Polish army to fight against the Nazis. During a shoot-out, the Germans overpowered the troops where Vladek was a part of. A logical follow-up was of course that he got captured as a prisoner of war. He returns to Poland where he tries his best to make a living on the black market after he loses his factory to the Nazis. Scared of being deported he sends his son Richieu to another Polish town with the sister of his wife, but that didn’t help. The sister of Anja is so scared to be deported that she commits suicide and poisons her children and Vladek’s son. Vladek and his wife try to get to Hungary by paying smugglers, but this didn’t end well as the smugglers accepted the money and turned them in with the Germans. Vladek and his wife were being sent to different concentration camps. Vladek was sent to Auschwitz, and Anja was sent to Birkenau. Vladek gets two jobs: one as a tin worker and the other one as a shoemaker. In this way, he can survive in Auschwitz and also let his wife Anja transfer from Birkenau to Auschwitz. After a year or so, the Germans start to disassemble their camps because they fear the Allies. Vladek ends up catching typhus in a camp in Dachau. Not a long time after this, the Germans bring the people from the camp in Dachau to a forest at the Swiss border, with the plan to execute the people that are left, but Vladek gets very lucky as all the prisoners from the camp are released. The Germans are scared that the Allies will come to repercuss them. From this moment on he is a free man who reunites with his wife Anja back in Sosnowiec. Vladek and Anja pursue a better life as they immigrate to Sweden and after that immigrate to the United States to live in peace.

The major factor for a Jew to have survived the Holocaust is probably having a very good guardian angel and being very lucky, but also having the perseverance to keep on hoping that one day you will be free again and to not give up. To answer the question ‘How does one survive the Holocaust?’. There isn’t one plan to follow. The people tried to dig their way through hell on earth. They had to keep themselves strong and don’t give up. They had to be brave and have a will to survive the Holocaust. I just gave the story of Vladek Spiegelman, which is one way to survive it. He shows a lot of bravery and perseverance. This may be what made him and his wife survive the war.

Everyone was happy that the war ended, but even though the people were as happy as can be, they could never forget how cruel the Second World War, the Holocaust was. Vladek and Anja made it out alive, but their child Richieu died. They both changed a lot since the beginning of the Holocaust. Anja had a hard time processing the loss of her first child, even though they had a second son, named Artie. She got into a depression and couldn’t heal from the cruelties she has witnessed and experienced. It gets that bad that she eventually commits suicide. Vladek held strong for a long time, but when Anja died, he couldn’t bear to keep her notebooks because it hurt him too much.

At the beginning of the book, he also thinks that writing the book isn’t such a great idea, because it brings up bad memories about the past which he would rather not talk about. Art says that his father didn’t survive the Holocaust in some ways. It changed his entire life in a way that is not really describable. It is something that he could never eliminate out of his mindset and something that he will always think about. Vladek and his current wife, Mala, don’t come along that well, and this is because he has high expectations. He wants to have Anja back, but Mala isn’t Anja, so whenever Mala does something wrong, he gets very mad with her. He also tells Art sometimes that his mother did things way better than Mala is doing right now, like, for example, cooking. Art didn’t experience one moment of this war, but as a child of two survivors, he is still affected by it. One of the things that come back a lot in the book is when Art gets mad with his dad because he thinks it’s his fault that his mother committed suicide. He can’t really use the memory of his dad because this is hurting his dad a lot. He also gets frustrated with his dad really quick and he doesn’t always respect his father.

World War II was a war that changed the world, but also changed people. The story was written by Art Spiegelman about the life of his dad Vladek Spiegelman is the perfect example. A lot of people died during the war and the survivors, the people who didn’t die, probably never lived their same life ever again. If you wanted to survive, you had to be brave, work hard, make good decisions and have a good guardian angel. The things they saw and the way they had to fight through hell on earth back then was very impressive, and the numbers show that this wasn’t for everyone. Descendants from the survivors are also affected by the war in numerous ways. They can’t really talk about memories without hurting their parents or themselves. They get a different look on life which is passed through by their parents, the survivors of World War II, the most lethal and cruel war man-kind has ever seen.

The six years between 1939 and 1945 shaped the world as we know it today. What happened in these six years is now known as the Holocaust, a period of time when Europe was run by Hitler and the Nazi party. Hitler’s anti-Semitism views started World War II. The Holocaust claimed the lives of 6 million Jewish citizens from all over Europe. Along with the Jews, around 17 million other people were murdered, including Gypsies, homosexuals, people with physical or mental disabilities and anyone who didn’t fit into Hitler’s Arian race. Survivors and artefacts are all that remain to help us put together the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust. Their stories help to teach people about what happened in these six years in the hopes that it will never happen again.

Hanička (Hana) Brady, was a Czechoslovakian prisoner who go separated from her parents at the age of 8, when the Nazis raided her home town of Prague. Hana and her younger brother George were then taken to Theresienstadt concentration camp. In 1944, she was put on a train headed straight for Auschwitz-Birkenau. On 23rd October, less than a day after her arrival, Hana was sent straight into a gas chamber. Gas chambers were installed into extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. The Jewish prisoners such as Hana were loaded into the ‘shower blocks’ with the hopes that they were having a shower however, Zyklon B gas, comprised of crystalline hydrogen cyanide, was leaked throughout the vents in the chamber. The gas then caused the prisoners to suffocate. Zyklon B was only introduced in early 1942, but quickly became a tool the Nazis used when it came to the extermination camps. Between the years 1942-1944, 729 tons of this gas were produced, 56 tons went to extermination camps, with Auschwitz-Birkenau receiving, 24 tons. An approximate 20 tons of this gas were used to kill the prisoners of the camp. Hana’s suitcase survived and a Japanese teacher asked to see it in order to teach kids about the conditions of the Holocaust: “A suitcase – that really tells you a story of how children, who used to live happily with their family, were transported and were allowed to take only one suitcase. The suitcase shows this journey”. Hana was just one of 1.1 million lives that were claimed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Heinrich Matthes was a German SS officer in World War II. In 1934, Matthes joined the Nazi party. When the war broke out, he was placed in the army, where he was issued a standard riffle. After two years of serving in the army, Matthes was selected to join the T4 program. A Nazi sponsored program to kill disabled people. He was given a standard issue riffle and used this to kill over 10 disabled citizens. In 1942, he was drafted into the SS and achieved the rank of sergeant and became a part of Operation Reinhard, a secret operation to exterminate all Polish Jews within the borders of greater Germany. He was then sent to Treblinka, an extermination camp in Poland, where he became the chief officer. “Matthes was obsessed with cleanliness. In the autumn of 1942, Matthes shot two prisoners because at the end of the work day they had not properly cleaned to his satisfaction” – Franz Suchomel, fellow SS officer. As chief officer he oversaw most of Treblinka’s operations and regularly shot prisoners, mostly due to them not cleaning as well as he would have liked. “He used to beat the prisoners with a completely expressionless, apathetic look on his face, as if the beatings were part of his daily routine” – Jerzy Rajgrodzki, a survivor at the Treblinka extermination camp. In 1965, Matthes was a part of the Treblinka Trials and was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment due to the part he played in the war.

Samuel Pisar was a Polish prisoner who survived the war and went through multiple extermination camps. Pisar’s mother, father and sister were murdered by a Nazi officer when raiding his town. When he was just 12 years old, he was transported by train to Majdanek, Auschwitz, Bliżyn, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Dachau and finally the Engelberg Tunnel. He later escaped from the camps by running away during a death march. At the age of 16, Pisar went back to his home town to discover that he was the only member of his entire family to survive. Just like all prisoners, Pisar had to wear the stripped uniform with a colored triangle and the number on the front. The different colored triangles represented why they were imprisoned, criminals were marked with a green triangle, political prisoners with red, homosexuals with pink, whilst Jehovah’s Witnesses wore a purple triangle and asocials wore a black triangle. The number replaces the prisoners name as a way for the Nazis to establish power and authority whilst also dehumanizing the prisoners. The uniforms were often made of a coarse material that was too hot in the day and too cold at night. Uniforms were rarely changed, and prisoners had to stay in these uniforms 24/7. Uniforms also included wooden clogs, these often rubbed on people’s feet causing blisters as socks were not provided. Many survivors of the war kept their uniforms as evidence as to what happened, and they often donated them to museums in order to educate people about what happened. Samuel survived the war and donated his uniform to a museum in New York. “I had to wipe out the first 17 years of my life. I muted the past and turned to the future with a vengeance” – Samuel Pisar.

The Holocaust was an epidemic that shaped the world as we know it today. The lives of over 17 million people were lost, 6 million of those being members of the Jewish community. Artefacts help to put together the tragedy that occurred 75 years ago. The stories of survivors help to educate people about what happened all those years ago, with the hope that nothing like this will ever happen again. “The Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a human tragedy” – Simon Wiesenthal.

Holocaust survivor Lydia Tischler mentioned in her interview that she had never felt like giving up and only wanted to know what it would feel like to have a full stomach. She took every day as it came and, paradoxically, got acquainted with a cultivated life while being in Teresin. She shared that, as far as it was possible, there was rich cultural and intellectual life in camps filled with well-known actors, musicians, writers and professors, and she even heard Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ for the first time in her life. Her life story brings out the experience of hardship and trial, but also shows that every life offers deep possibilities for meaningful work and love. She has learnt that courage and compassion can be valued in three significant ways: through their work, their relationship and by how they choose to meet unavoidable sufferings.

After multiple stories’ analysis, I came to the conclusion that one of the biggest motivations of coping with daily life within concentration camps and a desire to stay alive was faith: the religion, the future, the inner self.

The Influence of Faith and Its Change

It felt like the world would come to an end because the God is dead – that is how millions of chosen by the Holocaust thought, while escaping death day-by-day. By going through horrible experiences some lost their belief in God: “Was God dead? Was He just indifferent – or worse, a sadist? If He could not be counted on to live up to His reputation for mercy and intervene, what good was He? And if He did not intervene, by what reasoning did He merit our allegiance?”. Millions of people faced moments that murdered their God, their souls, and turned their dreams to ashes. They could not believe that the one who always gives mercy could allow all their families, all those people, to be killed. They claimed that if there is any God, He will beg for forgiveness. Others found their hope in faith, because only the Lord remembers. They had moments of anger and protest that connected them closer to Him for those reasons; they believed in God even when He was silent, as they believed in the sun when it was not shining, as they believed in love when it could not be felt. People would pray to the Creator in order to give them a strength to ask Him the right questions, showing that only fanatics – both in religion and politics – can find a meaning in someone else’s death.

To have faith is truly seeing light with your heart when the darkness is all that your eyes can see. Faith gave and continues to give people hope, and hope itself makes all things work. The Jews were forced to saw on their clothing the yellow Star of David, which was a humiliation of not only religion: the yellow color symbolized the dirty Jew, a sign of discrimination that forced anti-Semitic behavior – people could beat them up or attack without a reason. From that time on Jews lived in fear – they were forced into cattle wagons, taking them to the concentration camps, where they were separated through a degrading selection process.

“I want you to follow the path of love, forgiveness and tolerance. Hang on to the three strongest pillars of life: faith, hope and love, and never let hatred enter your heart, because hatred is an evil force and ultimately it will destroy you”, were the last words Magda heard from her father. In order to survive, she had to accept an indescribable emotional pain of realization that what was going on was true, the past present of pure nightmare. Magda shares that it was the hardest thing she has even done in her entire life, trying to bring some positivity, some hope into herself, convincing her spirit that all this inhumanity is not going to last forever. One day she collapsed, fell on her knees and prayed to God, hardly speaking and not being able to move. She thought she was going to die and asked the Lord to take her soul to heaven, but that day she also asked Him for a second chance miracle, so she could dedicate her whole life to people, sharing the memory of all who perished there and the memory about the Holocaust.

That day the concentration camp was liberated by British soldiers. Magda referred to her lifesaver as a guardian angel, who found her lying on the ground surrounded by corpses and blinking. Nowadays, she is a former marathon runner, skier and mountain climber, lecturer and author of 14 books, including her autobiography and poetry. She believes it is only because of God she has been able to forgive and fulfill her mission to never let the Holocaust be forgotten. Despite all her experienced sufferings, she is still a loving and forgiving person; her desire for peace, harmony, love, tolerance and brotherhood on earth is best expressed in all her prayers, which are enclosed in her book: “Almighty God, upon I call you, do not let evil spirits possess my soul, do not let hatred strange my love or despair crush my hope”.

Life After the Holocaust

Despite of all life battles of Holocaust survivors, they were able to find resilience and start a new life again, referring to the past as a lesson and the present as a gift. The ordinary daily routine seemed for majority as a sort of abnormal: “That I survived the Holocaust and went on to talk, to write, to have a toast with tea and live my life – how crazy is that?”. Some of survivors had nightmares for couple of months, even these days, waking up and thinking that they are still in the concentration camps and being so happy that they are in a real bed.

Those who survived the Holocaust, right after their liberation, completely stopped talking about it. It was such a horrific event that people had only one desire – to shut it up from their minds, and for 55 years not even a word was said. There were thousands of people who had the same experience and in a way were protected by nature, because the constant thought about inhumanity would drive every one of them mad. There were others that could not recuperate because of trauma (being afraid to go to a shower because there is a possibility of gas coming out). Over time, survivors started to speak up about their experience in order to make peace with the past so it would not spoil the present. They did not want to carry any hatred, because if you go through your life hating people, the people who you hate will not suffer, but you will.

The main message of survivors’ stories is to share love that grew through hell, to maintain hope and faith when it seems like the whole world is going to collapse. They do not want their past to become anyone else’s future and that only the guilty are guilty, but their children are not. Many of survivors were inspired to share their stories through art and literature because they could no longer stay silent when reading articles that the Holocaust had never happened.

Eva Mozes Kor even has an original document signed by a Nazi, so if she ever met a revisionist who said the Holocaust did not happen, she could take that document and shove it in their face. She also thanked this Nazi doctor for his willingness to document the gas chamber operation; she did not want to tell anyone about it, because even to her it sounded strange – the letter of forgiveness to Dr. Munch, the most meaningful gift he had ever received.

The Holocaust as a Life Lesson

There have been much genocides since the Holocaust – too much power in too few hands – that could be prevented together if every single human being would not be seen as abstraction. Instead, the one should be looked at as a universe with its own secrets, treasures, sources of anguish and some measure of triumph. The harrowing experience in Nazi concentration camps should never be forgotten, and the history itself should not be repeated. In all interviews, individuals admitted that they survived for some reason and they had to do something with their lives, because someone else could have been saved, so the voices of those who passed away will be spoken by ones who were rescued. To forget the dead would feel like killing them a second time, not only dangerous, but terribly offensive. The sides must be taken – silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented; neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim; sometimes people must interfere when human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant (Wiesel, 2006). Without hope memory would be morbid and sterile, empty with no meaning and, above all, empty of gratitude.

The Holocaust teaches us that everybody has a capacity to be sadistic and horrible to other people, and that the destructiveness exists in all of us. People are born neither good nor bad, and the badness is something that is the way someone is treated as a child. One of the greatest forces in life is the ability to forgive. No one can give this power, and no one can take it way – it is all yours to use in any way you wish. And what is forgiveness? It is an act of self-healing, self-liberation and self-empowerment.

We are alive; we are human beings who tend to make mistakes, with good and bad in us. The new world cannot be created, it has been done already, and now people should learn how to live within those boundaries. All can make a choice of changing nothing, stuck with despair and curse, being evil like enemies, and build a world based on hate. Or all can become immortal through sharing truth and embracing it together with love, tolerance and a desire to heal.

Conclusion

This analytical project focuses on how survivors, after acts of atrocity, extreme violence of war and genocide, extend the memory of those events until it becomes part of a national consciousness in ways that counter more personal narratives. The sources of cultural production such as literature, film, interviews and memorial sites were explored in order to highlight that the absence of the dead and past is remembered through various forms of symbols and metaphors. The disconnection between the political process of reconstruction and more individual view on events gives an idea for the image of the act of violence in ways that promote the building of trust, a rehumanizing of one another so that the communal projects can take place, the existence of cultural production that does not ignite or reignite anger. The memory is so multidisciplinary; it spans fields of psychology, politics, philosophy, literature, film etc. But also represents a global phenomenon, particularly in international relations, including cultural meaning at the politics of reparation, reconciliation or reconstruction.

The genocide of the Jews who lived in Europe by the Nazis caused the death of millions of innocent people. The term used to describe this period in history is The Holocaust. The victims who survived moved to other countries to start a new life. they survived by luck but their lives after the war were affected majorly and they struggled psychologically, socially as well as financially. Throughout the years, many critical works about the holocaust were made, and many literary works have been published by authors from different cultures with different visions and purposes. Literary works such as The Cafeteria by singer also films as “the search” by Fred Zinnemann and “the pawnbroker” demonstrate the lives of holocaust victims who survived. Because of The large numbers of victims in the concentration camps, each one came from a different culture, religion, and different nationality. their experiences and the psychological effect they went through are sometimes described differently yet in some way it is similar. In this essay, I will show that the experiences of the holocaust victims and survivors are diverse, and they go beyond the rational.

Written by I.B. Singer in the early 1960s in New York “The Cafeteria” presents a narrator, Aaron. As part of his routine, he liked to go to a cafeteria to meet the “landslip from Poland, as well as all kinds of literary beginner and readers who knew Yiddish” (singer, p.1) most of the customers he met in the cafeteria were old bachelors, an immigrant from Russia and Poland, etc. they discussed Yiddish literature and politics, also about what happened to them in the Holocaust. Years ago in this cafeteria Aarons meets a woman by the name Esther, nearly thirty years old, she was “short slim with a girlish face, brown hair” in addition she had “a short nose, and dimples in her cheeks”(singer, p.79) she drew the men’s attention and “they all hovered around her”(singer, p.79). Aaron liked Esther and he was interested in her but after he met her the cafeteria burned down. Later it was rebuilt but Esther ran away.

Another literary work about the holocaust is “the Pawnbroker” an American film made in 1964 based on a novel. It narrates the life of Sol Nazerman, a holocaust survivor who lost his wife and children in the genocide then he moved to upper midtown Manhattan. His job was to run a pawnshop at Harlem with the help of a young man named Jesus Ortiz, whom he hired but could not befriend. Later on Ortiz and the social worker Marilyn Birchfield try to break Sol’s coldness and bitterness. In the film, Ortiz was murdered and Sol was affected by it.

Different from the previous adult holocaust survivors, in the previous literary works, the character of Karel Malik, another holocaust survivor in a film called “the search” is a young ten years old blonde boy with big blue eyes. In a camp in Germany UNRRA took the responsibility to look after the children who survived the holocaust and Karel survived Auschwitz, a concentration camp. Karel was determined to search for his mother after he was separated from her and in an attempt to continue his search he runs away and later in the film an American soldier finds him and takes him back to his home.

The negative effect of the holocaust on victims enabled them to merge into society properly and relocate themselves. The character of Esther in the cafeteria is an example of a character who feels displaced. Esther “had spent some time in the camps in Germany before she obtained a visa for the United States.”(singer, p.79) this visa was her ticket to a new life, yet in New Jersey, she worked in a factory for buttons although she could have found a better job. As a lively beautiful young woman “[Esther] did not fit into the group of elderly has-beens” (singer, p.79) Similarly, to ester, Sol another character from “the pawnbroker” feels displaced in the New York society even when he worked in the pawnshop. Harlem at that time was dominated by the black group in society and Jews had a hard time fitting and maintaining a business. Sol was dealing with various customers and there was a moment in the film when he was beaten up.

Holocaust survivors could not forget about the past and the death of the individuals they loved affected them negatively, as their imaginations and fantasies about the holocaust continued to haunt them. The character of Sol suffered from flashbacks, the flashbacks in the film imply the guilt and the pain Sol kept inside him and could not forget. He would have a flashback about his son slipped from his hands in the railroad car or another inmate who threw himself at an electric fence. Similarly, Esther’s experience about the holocaust haunted her in a form of hallucination, one night she could not sleep and “some power commanded [her] to get dressed and go out” (singer, p.91) at three o’clock in the morning and when she arrived at the cafeteria “There was a pale glow inside…The tables were shoved together and around them sat men in white robes, like doctors or orderlies, all with swastikas on their sleeves. At the head sat Hitler.” (singer, p.91) The cafeteria was burned down the next morning. Frightened by such an experience Esther believed Hitler arranged for it to be burned.

Holocaust victims block out emotions, as well as they lack the ability to express sympathy towards others because of the horrors they experienced. for example, in the film, Sol was not able to show emotions to his partner in work neither to his cheerful neighbor Marilyn Birchfield. Sol showed no emotion and he cared little about his business or the world he lived in. His assistant was an enthusiastic young man full of energy who attempted to get close to Sol by asking him to learn the business, but his attempts failed and led to the violent accident and he was shot. Only then at the end of the film after this accident Sol suddenly cries and feels sorrow and love for Jesus. As similar, Karel a character in the film “the search”, trusted no one and he did not speak, scream, cry or express his emotions during the film when he was captured neither when he was taken care of. Although nearly at the end he expressed his emotions after he learned to speak English and when he remembered his mother.

The portrayal of the holocaust victims as relatable characters aimed to gain the sympathy of the American audience. In order to gain sympathy, it was believed that a victim would look a certain way that could reach the hearts of the audience. For example, the character of Karel Malik, as a lost child in a search for his home, his identity, and his mother was portrayed as a blonde Czech boy with big blue eyes. With a small Jewish traditional hat that his mother sewed for him. In addition, his clothes were ripped, and the other children as well were portrayed as innocent little children whom the war destroyed. Unlike Karel, Sol and Esther are adults. Their characters might be difficult to sympathize with because they could digest the horrors of the past and learn to move forward unlike a child. But, in order for their character to be relatable to the audience their unseen scars and their pain were shown as hallucinations and flashbacks, their appearances, and other characters’ view of them.

In conclusion, The Holocaust was a critical part of human history thus Many books and movies about the Holocaust victims and survivors were published. In each literary work, the victims and survivors were portrayed in multiple ways that had a purpose. The horrors of the holocaust experience continued to affect these survivors’ post-war lives such as their psychological health and the emotional burden, plus their attempts to fit into a new society. In addition in order to gain the American society’s sympathy and in an attempt to reach the audience around the globe, the victims of such a genocide, the live ones and the dead were portrayed in a specific way.

From 1939 to 1945, a great war known as World War II raged in Europe. A German man by the name of Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and then the dictator of Germany, fighting to gain control of all of Europe and exterminate anyone whom he considered to not be an “Aryan” German, a member of the so-called “master race” he fabricated, which he believed to be superior to all other races in Europe. While this was happening, two Jewish families in Holland, the Franks and the Van Daans, were hiding in the attic of a building in Amsterdam from the Nazis, the Germans working under Hitler and his officials in government. The reason they were hiding was that the Nazis were persecuting Jews, separating them from the rest of society, sending them to concentration camps and work camps, working them to death, and killing them using poison gas if they still survived. To avoid this, the Franks and Van Daans hid in the attic, never coming out, and receiving help from those outside who were willing to help them. This “family” stayed in those attic rooms for about 3 years, and during that time, the relationships between them grew tense. In The Diary of Anne Frank, Acts I and II, the family comes to the Secret Annex, as the attic is referred to, and learns what they have to do while living in the Annex: stay completely silent while there are people below the attic working, and do their normal activities while there are no other people in the building. As the play unfolds, the close-quarters quality of the Annex causes those inside to go on edge, and as more events take place, the characters truly begin to show how the stay has affected them psychologically. At the middle and final parts of the play, they begin to suspect that someone is going to disclose their whereabouts, and at the end of the play, the Green Police, the Nazi police force, finds them and takes them to concentration camps, where all except Mr. Frank, the head of the Frank family, die. This story shows the tragic tale of a family during World War II and the Holocaust and shows how cruel the Nazis really were.

Between the two acts of The Diary of Anne Frank, the plot, or set of events in a story, changes. This is because in Act I, the tension continues to rise gradually as each scene passes by, whereas in Act II, the tension rises it until reaches its apex, at which point the tension abruptly stops to end the story. For example, the dialogue in Act I starts off as clear statements such as this—“While the men are in the building below, we must have complete quiet. Every sound can be heard down there, not only in the workrooms, but in the offices too,” which is stated by Mr. Frank and which refers to how during the day, everyone in the Secret Annex must stay quiet so as to not reveal that people are living in the attic rooms—and turns into nervous exchanges such as this—“Someone knows we’re [in the Annex], yes. But who is this someone? A thief! A thief! . . . You think a thief is going to go to the Green Police and say, ‘I was robbing a place the other night and I heard a noise up over my head’? You think a thief is going to do that? . . . Yes, I think he will . . . You’re crazy! . . . Father, let’s get out of here! We can’t stay here now. Let’s go . . . Go! Where? . . . Yes, where?” in which Mrs. Van Daan, Dussel, Mrs. Van Daan, Anne, Mr. Van Daan, and Mrs. Frank speak, respectively, which occurs in Scene 5 of Act I, and in which the people in the Annex believe their cover has been blown, hence the short, nervous sentences. In Act II, however, the dialogue does show tensions rising, but they reach their peak near the end of the story and then briskly stop. For example, at the end of Act II, Scene 4, the Green Police, the Nazis’ police force, find the Annex and try to get in to take the family. It is when this happens that Anne tells the peak and end of the tension when she says, “[S]o it seems our stay here is over. They are waiting for us now. They’ve allowed us five minutes to get our things. We can each take a bag and whatever it can hold of clothing. Nothing else. So, dear diary, this means I must leave you behind. Good-bye for a while. P.S. Please, please, Miep, or Mr. Kraler, or anyone else, if you should find this diary, will you please keep it safe for me, because someday I hope…” and then it ends. Therefore, the plot changes throughout the play from Act I to Act II because in Act I, the tension but increases throughout the act, whereas in Act II, the tension rises until it reaches its highest point and then abruptly stops.

One character, Mr. Frank, has similarities in both Acts I and II. One example is that in both acts, Mr. Frank is the person to try to calm the people in the Annex when tensions arise and to try to keep the family united when divisions come about. For example, in Act I, Scene 5, after the people in the Annex hear a sound below them in the offices, possibly caused by a person, which makes them very tense and scared and which makes some of them want to move somewhere else, Mr. Frank says, “Have we lost all faith? All courage? A moment ago we thought that [the Nazi police had] come for us. We were sure it was the end. But it wasn’t the end. We’re alive, safe,” and then all in the Annex calm down and proceed to sing the song of Hanukkah, showing that Mr. Frank tries to calm those in the Annex when tensions arise. Similarly, in Act II, Scene 3, after the people in the Annex discover that Mr. Van Daan had been eating the little amount of food that there was and after Mrs. Frank loses all self-control and demands that Mr. Van Daan leave the Annex, Mr. Frank says, “For two long years we have lived here, side by side. We have respected each other’s rights . . . we have managed to live in peace. Are we going to throw it all away? I know this will never happen again, will it, Mr. Van Daan?”, which shows that Mr. Frank always tried to keep the family united when divisions came about. Therefore, Mr. Frank is similar in both Acts I and II because he, in both acts, tried to calm everyone in the Annex down and tried to keep the family united when tensions arose and divisions came about.

Mr. Frank also has a difference between Acts I and II. That difference is that in Act I, he is able to endure the tension arising in the family without the tension affecting him, whereas in Act II, he begins to show that the tension is in fact starting to affect him. For example, in Act I, Scene 5, after the family heard the intruder and became hysterical, Mr. Frank says, “Have we lost all faith? All courage? A moment ago we thought they’d come for us. We were sure it was the end. But it wasn’t the end. We’re alive, safe,” showing that the tension had not at this point begun to affect him and he still was able to try to keep the family calm in the face of tension. In Act II, Scene 3, however, when the family discovered that Mr. Van Daan had been stealing the little food there was left and when Mrs. Frank lost all restraint and began to verbally attack Mr. Van Daan, Mr. Frank says, “Edith, I’ve never seen you like this before. I don’t know you,” and says, “Edith!” every time Mrs. Frank attacks Mr. Van Daan, showing that the tension, especially what the tension is doing to the others, is in fact affecting Mr. Frank. In summary, Mr. Frank changes between Acts I and II because as the story progresses between Acts I and II, the tension arising between the members of the family is in fact starting to affect him, despite the fact that in the earlier parts of the story, the tension seems to not be having an effect on him.

The Diary of Anne Frank, Acts I and II is a play that revolves around the Franks and the Van Dans, two German Jewish families in Holland hiding from the Nazis during World War II. The plot changes between Acts I and II because the tension in the story only rises in Act I, whereas the tension rises in Act II until it reaches its apex, after which it quickly relieves itself until the story abruptly stops shortly afterward. Mr. Frank, a character in the play, has both similarities and differences between his selves of both acts. He is similar in both acts because when tensions arose between the characters in the story, Mr. Frank tried to relieve the tension as best he could. He is different between both acts because in Act I, the tension between the characters does not have a visible effect on Mr. Frank, whereas in Act II, the tension does seem to have an effect on him. This story shows the dramatic and ultimately heartrending tale of two families during the Holocaust, and is a great showing of how this great tragedy of the human race affected the lives of individual people.