Holocaust Bystander Effect Essay

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“Heil Hitler!” Used as a motto, a command, and the words of a bad dream. Whether we have learned of the Holocaust through school, family, museums, art, or by our own curiosity we conclude that this event should always be remembered throughout the history of the entire world. We usually never hear about how the rest of the world reacted to the Holocaust and how inhumane other countries were while this disaster was happening. Everyone should know how to deal with upcoming situations relating to the Holocaust even if these events are not as serious as the Holocaust itself and especially the governments that cause these situations to happen. These governments need to learn how they can get their countries to be on the good side of history instead of the bad. For example, Germany has a horrible reputation even though the residents there now are not responsible for the Holocaust and all that happened in it, this is the situation that made Germany be placed in world history, not an enlightened age or a revolution of the people, they are remembered for the Holocaust. To start, I believe the most significant lesson to be passed down is the lesson of how to not be a bystander which is formally called the “bystander effect.” Many countries including America just let the Holocaust happen even when they knew of the genocide and all of the terrible things that were happening to the Jewish in these countries. …show more content…
America, Palestine, Cuba and Britain stopped Jews into entering their country leaving hundreds of thousands of Jews abandoned and without a secure government. The U.S was probably the worst bystander of this event, the country at first did not know at all what was happening in Germany because America was fighting against the Axis to keep America safe but then the government found that many Jews were coming to America from Europe which made our selfish government policies disgusting to look back to today. Because of the devastation that the Great Depression was creating in America with the economy the American government decided to refuse to grant temporary refuge in their country so the people who were already arriving in America and all of the families that were hoping to come to America for a better life were refused entry and they had to go back to a place where they were not wanted. They did this because they did not want to make another enemy while fighting the Axis at the same time, so they stood aside as many Jews were killed in the masses and the government did not decide to go against Germany until Britain and Russia started to fight against them. Another vital lesson that always needs to be passed down and is even abused today is that the discrimination of a certain person of color, religion, sex or sexual orientation should be demolished immediately and it is neither moral nor brave. Gladly today we do not have so many physical events of discrimination as we did but now people use their words to hurt a certain person or group of people and some people may say it’s not the same as killing a individual or group but the effect this takes on people is almost as bad as these violent actions themselves. We have people today like Donald Trump that make their harsh opinions public and what he exclaims is that there should be a ban on all muslim people from america… sounds familiar doesn’t it? We also have people like pastors who believe that all Homosexuals should be killed and governments like the Sudan government that has killed 450,000 people since 2003, so these kinds of motives and events are nothing to think of as in the past. Of course many of these people always have some sort of authority so they believe that they can share these opinions with people and are not able to become lessened because they believe they are more powerful than the average person’s morals. Therefore because these people are in power they are able to get like-minded people or people without power who have these same opinions as them and then they become radical and the leaders usually believe that they are able

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