Antisemitism

It is astonishing how millions of innocent people died from such a horrible tragedy, the holocaust, being something that many around in the world cannot relate but will never forget. Those who have suffered in concentration camps have experience great pain that has affected them emotionally and physically causing changes on their values. Nothing can justify or compensate what these people have lost. Whether it was their religion, their individualism, or their wanting to live all things they are…

During World War II, countries such as Japan and Germany utilized characteristics of totalitarianism such as control of information, persecution, and ideology, which contributed to atrocities including the Rape of Nanking, concentration camps, and the Bataan Death March. During World War II, Japan’s totalitarian trait of control of information contributed to the war atrocity of the Rape of Nanking. Control of information is the indoctrination of the state’s ideology through censorship, control…

Light also creates the emotions in James Ingo Freed’s United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. It may not play as important of a role as in the Jewish Museum but still has some purpose of light and dark qualities to it. “The visitor’s passage through the building is a spatial and emotional journey through open light spaces into damp cramped dark spaces, over ramps and bridges, and through doorways that evoke the ‘selection’ of victims in the camp.” Freed’s idea is to create an…

The Holocaust is one of the most tragic events to have happened and forever changing the lives of millions. Literature involving the event is one of the only ways one can imagine or begin to understand the horrors of the Holocaust and its impact on future generations. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, written by Art Spiegelman, is one of the greatest graphic comics that is also able to depict the horrors and after-struggles of the Holocaust. Art Spiegelman was born on February 15, 1948; A big part of his…

Many accounts have been told about the Holocaust—truly a black mark on the history of mankind. Two that are good resources are Night and Life is Beautiful. Both are from the perspective of a young survivor and detail their experiences while living in their peaceful hometown and finally in concentration camps set up in Nazi occupied Europe. Night, by Elie Wiesel, begins when Elie is 12 years old. It covers the events he and his father went through trying to survive. They are forced to live in a…

A growth in political movements, attempts at social reform and strikes by the population trying to establish a sense of identity contributed to the turmoil that overwhelmed the United States during the Great Depression (1929-1938). Many artists who were infuriated by the events became social activists through their art. Among them, was Ben Shahn (1898-1969), an artist whose Jewish family fled Lithuania in 1906 and settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. In the 1920’s, Shahn became part of the social realism…

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie himself talks about the Holocaust and his experiences in it. The Holocaust was a very rough time for not only Jews, but everyone who was part of the Germans. During this time the Jews abandon their religion and values. Not all the Germans may have liked the Holocaust but, to protect their lives they had to follow the rules or be disciplined. Jewish people were treated unimaginably brutal during this time. The Germans main goal was to make the German race…

How does Polanski convey the theme of adversity on the human spirit in The Pianist? In 2002, Parisian film director Roman Polanski adapted the memoir of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish pianist living in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II. Once a prosperous musician known throughout the country, the film follows his survival of the holocaust. The experience has implications on the emotions of Szpilman, as well as his passion for music and creativity- his spirit as a human. Through the use of…

During the six bloody years of the Holocaust, over one million children and teenagers under eighteen were murdered. However, many of the children who did survive, were only able to do so through their faith. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, Wiesel tells of his experiences during the Holocaust at a young age, mainly exploring his time in Auschwitz. In Night, Wiesel uses Eliezer’s struggle in keeping his faith to show that even the strongest believers could lose their faith in such hard times but…

In World War II, the Nazis committed unspeakable atrocities against the Jewish population, as well as many other groups of individuals deemed unworthy in the eyes of the Nazi party. In Simon Wiesenthal’s memoir “The Sunflower”, Karl, a energetic and enthusiastic member of the SS and previous Hitler’s youth participant who has found himself in a hospital bed, is one such member of the Nazi party who has committed crimes against humanity. Despite his misdeeds against the Jewish population, Karl…