Escape From Sobibor: A Psychological Analysis

During the Holocaust, the Nazi Party was able to successfully convince all the Germans of the idea of eliminating all Jews. The mass murder of the Jews requires lots of strategic manipulation by the Nazis, in order for the Jews to be eliminated without much protest. In the reading Night , we have a glimpse of the both physical and psychological techniques used by the Nazis to influence the Jew 's behavior and reasoning, while they were imprisoned in Auschwitz. Ultimately, the Nazis wanted to have total control over the Jews and attempted various techniques to achieve this goal. However, these techniques were only effective in controlling the Jews ' behavior because controlling their minds was impossible. One major reason why the Nazis were able to control the Jews’ behavior was simply because they had the weapons and the power to harm the Jews; this cause fear among the Jews. Having these resources available creates hysteria among the Jews, which is one of the techniques that the Nazis used. In Night, we have a glimpse of how the SS guard terrorizes the Jews once they …show more content…
For example, a psychological technique that was used on Jews was playing cheerful music for Jews to prevent them from resisting. The film Escape From Sobibor, shows various of scenes where the Germans play joyful music for the Jews on a daily basis, like during work. Although some Jews danced to the songs, the film shows scenes where the Jews were discretely discussing their escape of the camp. This type of action shows how the Jews were only faking their emotions to appear controlled by the Nazis. In reality, the Jews were rebelling and were refusing to accept the way they were being treated. In other words, the psychological technique of playing cheerful music wasn 't effective on the Jews because the Jews still rebelled and refused to be beaten by attempting to escape