What I Know and Want to Know About the Holocaust

Thursday,

March 1, 2012

Dear Diary,

Star of David - All Jews were forced to wear
 it on their clothes

  
       The depth of my knowledge about the Holocaust is pretty rooted. I know that the cause of the Holocaust was a German man by the name of Adlof Hitler. Adolf Hitler believed that all Jews were inferior and that Aryans were the superior. Due to his "extremist", maybe even beyond extremist, beliefs, when he gained power as the chancellor of Germany he ordered both the imprisonment and killing of Jews in Germany. Eventually his perverse ideals and his influence spread to other countries in Eastern Europe, and that part of the world become a nightmare zone.

Adolph Hitler

   Imagine living in an environment where, no matter where you turned you'd be in danger. An environment where trusting anyone could be a mistake. Where you'd have to hide a part of you that you held in a high respect? Many, if not all Jews during the Holocaust went into hiding to escape danger,death. There were few people they could trust, beacuse at any moment that very person could turn you in to avoid trouble for themselves.

   Jews, or people, that were caught assisting Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps, which were camps where they would be forced to do hard labor. They condition in these camps were absolutely terrifying. Disease spread like wild fire from one person to the next because they all lived in such close quarters. They all suffered from malnutrition because of the scarcity of food. Dead bodies wouldn't be discovered until, maybe days later when the body was already decomposing.

   Death camps were even more horrifying. each day there's be thousands of deaths. Each one more cruel than the last.

   

German Nazi Soldiers marching through Germany.

   I want to know so much more of the Holocaust. I think I want to know mainly from the point of view of a Nazi soldier. How did he feel when he had to kill a four month old baby. Or kill a young kid's parent right in front of his eyes. What did they all feel like seeing these horribly wronged people stripped of all their right as a human being and suffering from lack of food and water or even  clothes. I also want to know how the Nazi men were treated after the Holocaust. Was it really anyone's fault besides Hitler's? I want to know where Nazi men stood in society's view at that time. If they were seen as scum I'd like to know why also, and not the obvious reason, I want to know why they couldn't be forgiven if they were treated like trash. I'd also like to know more about the Nazi soldier they found in America that had Cancer. I heard they let him die. I want to know why. As doctors I thought they'd see past his past affiliation and help the sick patient suffering from cancer. Can hatred of a group extend to a generation that never felt the past's pain? Where does that hatred come from? Why couldn't they forgive him after seeing him in that state? Did they think he deserved it? Is that how humans are?

   I also want to know how many survivors there were of the concentration camps and if they wrote books. I want to read them. The Holocaust reminds me very much of Slavery. They relate quite similarly. Learning about the Holocaust brought up more emotion than I thought it would. How can history learned in a class move a person so much? What's learned in a classroom of those Horrors the jews faced can't compare to what they actually faced and dealt with and, some, survived through. Even so, I'm unsettled, for the Jews and the ex-Nazi's and I's like to know more.

                        

                  Love,

                             Aaleah ^.^