Reflection On My Knowledge Of The Holocaust

Prior to entering this class, my knowledge of the Holocaust was limited to only certain major points of the Holocaust. My knowledge was more based on the concentration camps and the gas chambers. One major point that I had learned about in history class was that Hitler came to power in 1933. I was not taught that he had come into power legally. The ways that the teacher taught it was that Hitler had friends in Parliament and those friends were the ones that helped him become chancellor. So I assumed that it was illegally. The teachers also never went into detail of Hitler’s life. For example, that he had been in charge of the Nazi Party and his party was once thought as foolish or that he had been imprisoned for a coup d’état which is where …show more content…
I decided to swap this two because the one with the Jews waiting in line plays more of an impact to the Holocaust. When people ask why the Jews did not just leave Germany when it first started discriminating against them, the image shows that they did attempt to leave. However, the Jews had to go through the police, who were the instigators. Others had had lived in Germany for many years and the idea of leaving was unfathomable (Bergen 60). I would take out the three children because it was probably assumed that Germany was a normal society with the Jews integrated in their society. Nonetheless, this image cannot represent the entire history of the Jewish people in Europe. The second picture I would take out is the murder of the disabled. Even though the picture itself could be considered effective, without the caption, the smoke coming out could be seen as normal. Just like to the people around the building could not have an idea of what was actually going on. For the photo to mean something, the viewer has to have more knowledge of how the disabled were the first ones to get executed. This is a major point that is often …show more content…
Even by choosing to narrate the Holocaust using unlimited number of photos, there is still the potential that the whole story could not be told accurately. Also photos can interpret differently by different groups. The story of the Holocaust would be told several different ways which will affect the true story. Two photos that I would have wanted to include would be the Nazi Party Congress in September 1938 and Adolf Hitler shaking hands with President Paul von Hindenburg. I would include these two photos because it reveals that the public was supportive of Hitler and thought that he was what was best for the country. The take way from this assignment is that photos and testimonies are an effective way to recount the Holocaust because sometimes emotion is more powerful than