Genocide: Causes And Effects Of The Holocaust

Improved Essays
The destructive effects of genocide impact the lives of its victims and survivors further than others often understand. During the Holocaust, the entire memory of the Jewish people’s cultural and religious values were intended to perish along with the collapse of their population. Today, we remember the lives of the Jewish people to honor their continued presence among us and to ensure that their culture overcomes the multi-generational desecration that the Holocaust caused. According to Dr. Michael Reid Trice, the Assistant Dean for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue in the school of Theology and Ministry here at Seattle University, acts of genocide remain a threat to the existence of various ethnic and religious groups in today’s society. “Unfortunately and tragically, genocidal activity happens regularly enough that it is like a tear in the fabric of human history,” said Dr. Trice. “Its effects include the loss of life, the loss of the living memory of a people in its …show more content…
From personal and professional experience, in friendships and professional relationships, the lasting impact of genocidal activity is undeniable,” said Dr. Trice, “Of course, there are stories of courage, heroism, and especially simple noncompliance. Communities can be valiant, creative amidst suffering, and unquenchable reminders of the strength of the human spirit.” Each year, Seattle University’s Campus Ministry and School of Theology and Ministry, in collaboration with the Jewish Student Union, organize the Holocaust & Genocide Remembrance Day, an event that recognizes Holocaust survivors and their experiences from the tragedy. This year, speaker Bob Herschkowitz will share his insightful story of surviving through the largest concentration camp in France during World War II. The event will also feature the artwork of Aqiva Segan that conveys the revival of respect for the memory of those who suffered through the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There is no brightness in the Holocaust. It is nothing more than an arrangement of deep, saddening works ranging from memoirs to novels to any other form of expression. But there is always the same feeling attached to the words and pictures surrounding World War II. The burning question of ‘how’. How can the human race be so cruel?…

    • 153 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction Throughout history, attempts of genocide aggressors have initiated, due to vulnerable countries and opportunists with radical thoughts, leaving victims with no liberation. The historic event known as the Holocaust left many traumatized from the murderous events. In the book Branded by the Pink Triangle (2014) by Ken Setterington, needed awareness is brought to light. Before the Holocaust, Hitler developed an intricate plan to accomplish genocide.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Holocaust. The mass genocide of entire cultures and peoples. Who could have imagined anything this horrifying were to ever exist? Regretfully, it did exist, and the sickening images, ideas, and feelings behind it will never be forgotten. Let's describe these images, ideas, and feelings in more detail in order to ascertain the magnitude of the Holocaust's impact on history even today.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Holocaust was a tragic time in our past that many people would like to forget. Many people who lived through it have now passed away, but there are still a few survivors left in the world. Josiane Traum was living with her family at the time of the Holocaust in Belgium and was only three when the Nazi’s began to invade. After the Nazi invaded everyone needed an ID card that said your religion on it. Traum’s mother put her into a convent to avoid capture by the Nazi’s, but a little while after being put into the convent Traum’s mother and father were captured by the Nazi.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Elie Wiesel's (1958), Night book, paints a vivid picture of the horror and inhumane actions against the Jews and other minorities during the Holocaust. Elie provides an account of the horrific atrocities that were bestowed upon him, love ones and many others. Throughout the reading of the Night, the idea that people could inflict such demoralizing and horrific acts upon another human being became difficult to grasp. In the camp, the Jews are subject to beatings and repeated humiliations (Elie, 1958). Pondering on the notion that human genocides have been part of history and that this horrific part of history has repeated itself throughout the world several times frightens me.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Relieved to enter the air conditioned museum on a humid August day, we walked through security, regular occurrence after perusing the multitude of other museums on the National Mall that day. Though I previously visited the Holocaust Museum on the Dake Washington DC trip, two friends accompanied me who showed no interest in the contents of this memorial practicing their speed walking skills more than the information on the plaques. Tourists filled the atrium. My mom and her friend, Laurie, stood in line to get our tickets, while the four of us teenagers plus a French exchange student walked through an exhibit called “Daniel’s Story” targeted towards a younger audience. Once our time came to enter the museum, the museum attendants hoarded…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In sharp contrast to the relatively impersonal nature of the Crimes Against Humanity course material, Tommy Dick’s Getting Out Alive depicts, with a bone-chilling clarity, the emotions spawned by genocide; the humiliation brought on by being publically classified as inferior, the anguish borne out of being persecuted for another’s gain and the eventual transcendence of emotion, barring the fear of death. Through the analyzation of Dick’s critically acclaimed memoir, it is revealed that, not only was the Holocaust the height of discriminatory classification, but also that surviving any genocide occurs either out of extraordinary luck and bravery. The ten months spent on studying the mere statistics and ramifications of famous genocides throughout…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The troublesome events of the Holocaust instilled a…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Discrimination In Night

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Many Jews and other minorities victimized by the Holocaust may be emotionally traumatized by what they’ve witnessed and experienced; Wiesel shares his feelings towards the Holocaust when he gazes into a hospital mirror after being saved by the Americans: “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” (Wiesel 115). By witnessing the atrocities of the concentration camps as well as watching his friends and family disappear, Wiesel does not express gratitude for his survival like many other survivors but is determined to write about his experiences to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust. Related to the impact of the Holocaust on its victims, the Tutsis who had witnessed what atrocities arose during the Rwandan genocide were physically, emotionally, and psychologically affected by their experiences; it was measured that “nearly 100,000 children were orphaned, abducted or abandoned” (“The Rwandan Genocide”) and that “twenty-six percent of the Rwandan population still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder” (“The Rwandan Genocide”) in the genocide’s aftermath. Though the United Nations does make an effort to bring perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide to justice, it is not enough to wipe away the murders of loved ones…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One might say I’ve experienced my share of fright, heartache, and disappointment in life. Born in 1940 in Berlin, Germany to a very strict Jewish family, it seemed as though my life was destined to be like any other European Jew at that time: deathly persecution by the ever-present population of anti-semites in Europe. Shortly after the Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, my parents, older sister, and I fled to live with my great aunt in Barcelona, Spain. Looking back on that event, I consider myself greatly blessed to have fled from the evil and persecution of the Nazis, for many Jews didn’t have that privilege. Even at a young age while living in Spain, I often felt feelings of guilt, for many of my fellow Jews were being killed by the thousands each day.…

    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There were a few nights that I suffered emotional challenges while digging deeper into my research on the Holocaust. Theoretically knowing that genocide is inhumane is incomparable to the actual knowledge learned about the inhumanity. Unquestionably, the further you investigate genocide’s, the more undeniable truths surfaces. During the Holocaust, there was a magnitude of barbaric experimentations that occurred amongst the Jews during their imprisonment at concentration camps. These callous acts on humanity were very tough to swallow when conducting my research. However, I have learned that one of the best ways to stop history from reoccurring is through education and awareness.…

    • 171 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Holocaust Research Paper

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages

    If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience. Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. From the American responses during the Holocaust and the Japanese Americans being put in concentration camps to what is currently happening with the Syrian refugees. Now fear and anxiety about whether to admit many refugees or turn them away has put the attention on the many regretful decisions made by U.S. officials before, during and now after World War ll. The Holocaust was one of the most horrific time periods from 1933- 1945 where the mass murder of some 6 million Jews along with homosexuals and gypsies by the order of Adolf Hitler.…

    • 1222 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Holocaust, which was the systematic persecution and murder of over six million Jews during World War II, is often cited as one of the worst atrocities committed in the history of human civilization. People speak of it in hushed, mournful voices as they wonder at how the German Nazis could be so malevolent as to annihilate a whole generation of Jews. Hundreds of eminent scholars have eloquently explained the horrific nature of the Holocaust and its effects on the modern world (Gerstenfeld). Yet, it can be said that emphasis should be placed on understanding why Adolf Hitler decided to exterminate so many Jews. Only by looking through the perspective of the Nazis can one begin to understand that the Nazi Party and its leader, Hitler, brutally…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many centuries ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero, a roman philosopher, emphasized that “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living”, revealing just how important memory is. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, and Maus, by Art Spiegelman, memory serves a very important purpose in telling the stories of the Holocaust. Memory is an innate human ability that provides for a plethora of uses. It is extremely useful in genocide, which is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially people of a specific ethnic group. When this occurs, the culture and identity of that ethnicity is put in danger of being lost forever.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ruth Kluger’s memoir, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, documents the author’s experience surviving the Holocaust as well as the shocking antisemitism that preceded it. In her blunt, straightforward manner, Kluger guides the reader through her childhood—a trying time in her life which she refuses to idealize—to her present situation in America. In addition to the historical accounts of the Holocaust, Kluger’s memoir reveals several dimensions of her relationship with Judaism and her Jewish heritage. Kluger’s perception of Judaism is influenced not only by her experience as a Jew during the Holocaust but also through her own personal view of what it means to be Jewish. Nazis perceived Judaism as strictly racial, regarding the religious aspect as irrelevant and attributing negative stereotypes about Jewish appearance and behavior to an inescapable, predetermined heritage.…

    • 1313 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays