Humans, out of hate and spite, have repeatedly acted in a harmful manner towards others. The atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, however, are arguably one of the worst. They sent Jews en masse to concentration camps, where they would be worked, starved, gassed, and burnt to death. The Nazis were still capable of worse. For example, some of their experimenters, in an attempt to create conjoined twins, stitched children together, who died of gangrene after days of suffering. Daniel, who was a boy in the midst of all this extreme discrimination, saw many of these kinds of barbarities with his own eyes. In Daniel’s Story, by Carol Makas, the experiences that have the greatest impact on Daniel are the ones that show the inhumanity
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The officer who had just gotten back from taking a picture with his “model family”, where he stood affectionately next to his wife and children, remorselessly ends the life of one of another’s. Daniel is shaken that someone capable of such love is able to manifest such hate, and was “trembling with both anger and fear” (108). He knows that he could very well be next, since the officer has a gun in his hand and has no qualms about killing Jewish kids, and that one was just doing his job, which was sweeping the street. His very rational reaction to this is being scared for his life. What also shocks him is the emotions shown in the man. In his eyes, what he was doing was right. He was just simply ridding the earth of an inferior race. When the SS officer shot and killed the boy, and the fact that that he thought it was a good thing, made Daniel sick to his stomach.
The immorality of the Nazis’ actions during the death march and the shooting of the boy make a huge impression on Daniel. It is hard for Daniel to watch when they bring the Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers, and he cannot save them. Also, he breaks down when he sees a Jewish boy getting shot in cold blood by an SS officer. In the end, these experiences taught Daniel that hate can very easily result in these implacable
The officer who had just gotten back from taking a picture with his “model family”, where he stood affectionately next to his wife and children, remorselessly ends the life of one of another’s. Daniel is shaken that someone capable of such love is able to manifest such hate, and was “trembling with both anger and fear” (108). He knows that he could very well be next, since the officer has a gun in his hand and has no qualms about killing Jewish kids, and that one was just doing his job, which was sweeping the street. His very rational reaction to this is being scared for his life. What also shocks him is the emotions shown in the man. In his eyes, what he was doing was right. He was just simply ridding the earth of an inferior race. When the SS officer shot and killed the boy, and the fact that that he thought it was a good thing, made Daniel sick to his stomach.
The immorality of the Nazis’ actions during the death march and the shooting of the boy make a huge impression on Daniel. It is hard for Daniel to watch when they bring the Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers, and he cannot save them. Also, he breaks down when he sees a Jewish boy getting shot in cold blood by an SS officer. In the end, these experiences taught Daniel that hate can very easily result in these implacable