Holocaust: Going Through the Hell
“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
“Holocaust” hides Greek and biblical roots that mean “completely burnt” or “burnt offering.” It is a term considered by the Zionist propaganda as the systematic destruction of all Jews by a predetermined plan of the Germans and their allies during the Second World War. Holocaust theory states that generally 6 million Jews were slaughtered. Most of them (nearly, 3/4) were murdered in stationary (diesel) and mobile gas chambers with followed cremation in the camps of death by burning at a stake (mainly in numerous pits). In modern English the word “Holocaust” with a capital letter should be interpreted as the extermination of Jews by the Nazis. However, the term “holocaust” with a lower-case includes assassinations of people on different grounds (racial origin, area of residence, nationality, health status, etc.). Holocaust is a terrible tragedy of humankind that must be explored for preventing such horrors in the future.
Brutality of the Nazi Regime
Before considering the history of the Holocaust in the details, we need to examine the whole picture of the Nazi regime. Alain Resnais’ movie Night and Fog created in 1955 is a clear demonstration of terrors that covered Europe during the Second World War. The very name resonates with Adolf Hitler’s directive of December 7, 1941, signed and implemented by Chief of the German Armed Forces Wilhelm Keitel. That directive allowed the kidnapping of anti-Nazi political activists throughout the territory occupied by Germans during World War II.
The film can be divided into two parts: a chronicle of the war with the direct participants and description of times when the movie was created. The territories of the concentration camps remain a grim reminder of the inhuman attitude, lust for power, intolerance, and violence. Picture of what was happening in the concentration camps including the total dehumanization of society and the countless victims formed the face of German fascism.
Holocaust in the Eyes of Its Victims
The Last Conversion to God of Yosl Rakover
Talks to God (Kolitz) as a “letter” written in 1943 by a Jewish resident of the Warsaw Ghetto is a prime example of adult’s vision of the terrifying reality. This document focuses on such serious issues as comparing the animals’ nature and a human face; occupiers’ crimes’; and a life when the whole family is murdered. It also emphasizes such themes as treatment of God, who “has hidden His face from the world and delivered mankind”; causes of thousands of people death, and how to accept the own one. The story is autobiographical one pierced by personal depths. Rakover describes his unsuccessful attempts to escape with his wife and six children. Death overtook each one in his / her turn, leaving the author alone with his heartbreaking grief.
The Jew stresses that he respects the animals in a forest, and the occupants are not like them. Hitler, in his opinion, is just a human, generated by humankind that has given him unlimited power, because Hitler “is the direct, unfeigned expression of mankind’s innermost, deepest-hidden urges”.
Rakover dies, along with other fellows “under raging artillery fire,” when the ghetto was destroyed. Emaciated, destitute, with a significant desire to avenge, Rakover continues to believe in the Lord and to love him sincerely. He remains proud because of his roots and Jewish origin, nationality, considering it exceptional. The author suggests that God decided to punish the Jews for their sins, but he still cannot find a satisfactory answer, thus tries to accept reality as it is. Rakover perceives death as a deliverance from suffering and an opportunity to reunite with the lost family.
Violent World through the Child’s Vision of Elie Wiesel
Adults grieved trying to overcome a pain of loss. However, there was also a world of children, where defenseless members of society could not resist the infernal system. They could only silently watch the death of the parents and other adults who were supposed to protect them.
Night is a terrible story about people and nonhumans written on the ruins of the old world by Nobel laureate who has passed through hell in his 15 years. It is only one of more than thirty Wiesel’s books, which he writes about the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jewry. This work is autobiographical.
From the Night, reader can learn that in the spring of 1944 Wiesel, his parents, and three sisters were deported together with other Jews in Auschwitz. His mother Sarah and younger sister Tzipora were killed in the gas chambers. Elie’s father, Chlomo Wiesel, died of exhaustion and dysentery in Buchenwald in early spring 1945. Wesel writes about prisoners’ lust for life, and their undying hope through the horrors of reality. His first night in camp has turned his life. It was like a nightmare in which he saw: “small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky”.
The story is remarkable in the context of reasoning about God and his “guilt” for what has been happening. The author recalls an inmate appeal: “You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head”. Such attempts to raise the spirits have had their effect and helped many people to pass terrible ordeals. With great pain, Wiesel focuses on child executions: “I saw it - saw it with my own eyes ... those children in the flames”.
The author discusses life in the struggle for the extra grams of bread; a surplus spoonful of soup; and “drinking” of snow instead of water. He also depicts how people were thankful for the dirt, which can hide shoes that could be taken by the old-timers. Furthermore, Wiesel portrays dehumanization and man’s indifference. It is a story about human cruelty and thirst for violence, which by sheer luck has not broken the protagonist. He survived thanks to the strength of will and the simple fluke that has saved him from an ordinary death befell many others.
Background of Holocaust
Hitler Philosophy of Intolerance
The obvious cruelty of the Holocaust as a consequence of politics, however, does not respond to the core question. For understanding the reasons for the atrocities of the early twentieth century, it is demanded to begin the countdown from 1918. The First World War ended and Germany was forced to pay exorbitant reparations to allies. Pressing on the civilian population of the former enemy, avenging the aggressor, they could not even imagine what kind of distress their actions would cause upon the world 21 years later.
Hitler came to power in 1933 on a wave of revenge. Power-mad fanatic, he was the ideologist of the theory of pure blood. Postulates were enshrined in the “Bible” of Nazi Germany Mein Kampf. Eleventh chapter Nation and Race is devoted to the validation of Hitler’s views of vital importance to get rid of the weak lower races. Hitler gave an opportunity to the millions of Germans feel special “founders and barriers of culture,” God’s chosen Aryans. The peace is allowed only after the fight for eradicating those, who destroy the culture and a triumph of the German nation formed by the Aryan race. Moreover, it is discussed in Mein Kampf that the key qualities of the Aryans are readiness to sacrifice for a higher purpose and follow the debt. Jews, according to Hitler, are the most disgusting people who adapt to the conditions of life, deprived of their own culture. Their intellectual achievements are possible only thanks to an influence of other (superior) races.
It should be noted that the very hypocrisy of this idea lies in the fact that the appearance of Hitler was far from ideal Aryan man. Moreover, his family, probably, included members of different nationalities. Despite this, the fact remains. Hitler’s coming to power and widespread support of his theory of racial superiority combined in one of the principal causes of the Holocaust.
Mechanism of Black Propaganda
Another reason for strengthening the Holocaust policy is to launch a propaganda machine. The movie The Eternal Jew is an example of a typical black PR aimed to arouse inside viewer a feeling of deep aversion to the Jewish nation. The authors are achieving this goal by demonstrating separate elements of life and traditions of Jews in Germany, the United States, Poland, and Palestine. The film refers to the negative impact of the Jews on culture, art, and science. It shows a history of the Jews’ settlement around the world as well as their role in the international financial world in terms of the National Socialists. Particularly, it is discussed that Baron Rothschild’s sons have been sent to different countries of Europe. Nathan has been sent to London, Jacob - to Paris, Solomon - to Vienna, Carlo - to Naples, and Amschel has remained in Frankfurt. Thus, they have founded the banks and earned revenue from international traffic during the war.
Jews are called parasites of society; life scenes taken out of daily life are context vilified. The only thing that awakens within us a sincere rejection is the final scenes of slaughtering of cows and sheep according to the Jewish tradition. It really looks quite cruel. However, the Nazis offered no less violent way to solve the “Jewish problem” as we know from the history.
The Holocaust is a terrible worldwide tragedy depicted in numerous documentary chronicles, world literature and works of art. Hate and intolerance towards Jews due to the specifics of their nation, the attitude of the Third Reich elite (including Hitler’s personal abhorrence), and activity of black propaganda made them prime targets for executions. Among all the peoples who suffered because of German policies of inferior race’s destruction, the Jews perished probably the most of the others.
The documents and writings reviewed clearly traced two types of conflict. Firstly, it is an internal conflict of the disadvantaged person who is waiting for death, desiring to live, and trying not to lose faith in God. Secondly, social conflict characterized by a violence of one nation over another, complete dehumanization, and contempt exists.
Today, there are those who deny the evidence of the Holocaust, citing unreliable data and exaggerations of facts. However, the Holocaust really existed. For this reason, keeping it in our memory, we strive to protect our future from the repetition of that terrible page of history. Holocaust denial is unacceptable from a moral standpoint because it is an existential threat to the world.