The Tragedies Of The Armenian Genocide And The Jewish Holocaust

The Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust were two of the biggest tragedies of the 20th century. These genocides just over a decade apart resulted in millions of people losing their lives and millions being displaced. Throughout history one of the biggest questions has always been how could have this happened. In 1909, after the rise of the Young Turks, Armenians were celebrating that they would finally be equal to the Turkish citizens in the Ottoman Empire; however, the rise of the Young Turks would eventually lead to the persecution and genocide of the Armenians (Peter Balakian 241-242). After the Jewish Holocaust, many German Jews would go on to express their disbelief and write “’we were so German,’ ‘we were so assimilated’” (Marion …show more content…
Ida Fink tells the story of a Jewish family with a young child whose livelihood depended on the child’s ability to lie. Every night after dinner the family plays “The Key Game”. The mother pretends as if she is not home and the doorbell rings, the child then starts running around pretending to look for a key while his father hides. After opening the door the child has to say that his mother is working and that his father is dead. This situation puts a lot of stress on the entire filmily, but especially the mother. Not only does she have to support her family, but she also has to ensure the wellbeing of both her child and husband. Throughout the story the mother has to split herself between making sure that her child knows he is doing a good job so her husband has enough time to hide and ensuring the mental wellbeing of a child who had to pretend his father is dead. “’Say something to him,’ the woman whispered. ‘You did a good job, little one a good job,’ he said mechanically. ‘That’s right,” the woman said, ‘you’re doing a wonderful job’” (Ida Fink 243). Similar to the women during the Holocaust, Armenian women were often also separated from their husbands and were left to care for their children. After being separated from the men, the soldiers would mislead the women into believing that they and their children were about to join their husbands. When …show more content…
Throughout both genocides women had similar experiences and very different as well. Women had to watch the lives of their children get destroyed and often watch their children die. However, there were also many different experiences some Jewish women had the chance to save their children through a program called Kindertransport whereas Armenian women did not. Women who were not Jewish had very different experiences in Nazi Germany. Most were able to send their children to school without any fear and enjoyed the same rights as they always had even under a ruthless