Kat - Post #5

During the Holocaust Unit, I was given a new perspective on the events that took place during WWII. I never really comprehended how horrific the Holocaust was. I knew the terrible things that happened during the Holocaust, but while studying the events I was given different personal experiences that really got to me.

Reading Night was definitely the most impactful. Elie Wiesel did such an amazing job writing a novel about his experiences and sharing with the world his struggles. I don’t think I would have ever really been able to acknowledge what all of the targeted people lost, if not for the book. Also, when we watched Life is Beautiful, it showed me that the victims of the Holocaust were regular people before the Holocaust changed them. They lived normal lives, created families, and had jobs. The Holocaust took all of that away from them, and tore them down until they were nothing.

Another thing that really shocked me was visiting the Holocaust Museum. While walking around I was taking in all this information, but what really made me stop and look were the hundreds of shoes piles up behind glass. Seeing the shoes really brought to my attention the people that died. As I looked at the shoes I realized that actual human beings wore those shoes, they lived and worked in those shoes.

After these experiences, I really look at humanity differently. I can’t believe that people would do that to other human beings. I now know that it is up to me and my generation to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, so that we can prevent anything like that from happening again. We also need to stop the terrors that are currently happening now. People need to understand that we are all people, no matter what we look like or what we believe in.

Kat - Poem

Haven

On the horizon, the hellish sun was setting.

The atmosphere was oddly peaceful and reassuring.

I was no longer was afraid.

Shadows around me aroused themselves as if from a deep sleep,

Night had fallen.

The stars were but sparks of immense conflagration,

My wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance.

Soon, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.

Then silence fell again.

There was nothing outside but darkness,

And souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.

Kat - Post #3

A happy family portrait of Perla and Felix Nahmani with their three oldest daughters Diamante, Aimee and Reine before WWII changed their lives.

Kat - Post #2

In Night, an important (and perhaps the most important) theme is faith. Obviously, being targeted for their beliefs was not their fault, but it is what caused them to be hated. Many of the Jews followed their God blindly, until the Holocaust. The Holocaust, being such a traumatic event for all, caused many Jews to lose their faith in the merciless God. An example of this is an excerpt in the novel, when Elie is looking back on his time in the concentration camp. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.” (Pg 34.) When we say lost faith, I disagree with that statement. The Jews might have lost their faith by definition, but in reality it was torn from them by the horrors they witnessed during their time in the concentration camps.

While some Jews chose to stop believing in a god that would allow such inhumane things to take place, others believed that he was testing them. Or that he was punishing them for some sins that they may have done in the past. “Akiba Drumer said: ‘God is testing us. He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if He punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more…’” (Pg. 45.) While there is no right or wrong when it comes to religion, I strongly believe that no God would let something like the Holocaust take place. At first I felt bad that they would blame themselves for what is happening to them, but after analysing this quote I realized that many of them must have struggled to find another answer to the reasoning behind the Holocaust. Just trying to think about how a country could be so cruel to a certain group of people is shocking to me. So, I believe that many of the suffering jews were struggling to come up with a reason other than that they were “paying” for their sins.

After what the Jewish people had to deal with in the Holocaust, there is no doubt that it destroyed lots of people's faith. Even if some still chose to believe in Him, there still must have been question about his goodness and justice.

Kat - Post #1

Night by Elie Wiesel, at first was not a book I was entirely interested in. I was interested in it’s content, but I was worried that it would be like the other non-fiction books I read, in that it would be facts, after facts. Instead, what I read was much different. The part I read was definitely challenging to read because everytime I read something about their hardships, my heart lurched in a terrified way. I am really enjoying this book though, because it is someone’s true experience and it is unlike anything I have ever read before.

In the beginning of the book, there are rumors of people trying to destroy the Jews, most people believe this will never happen, but some have taken the precaution of leaving. Elie too asks to leave:  “I asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave. ‘I am too old my son, he answered…’” (Wiesel pg. 9)  

I was really heartbroken while reading this because I could tell that this was probably one of the many reasons why so many Jews ended up staying in their homes, and eventually ended up being taken. I understood why they would want to stay, especially because in the beginning they saw no real threat from Hitler and couldn’t believe that it would be possible to annihilate an entire race of people. There are two examples from the book that really stood out to me about how they originally thought there was no threat.

Sooner than later, they realize that the threat is real and it is going into effect faster than any of the Jews could have imagined “First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death.” (Wiesel pg. 10) This is a perfect example of how the Nazi’s took away basic human rights from the Jews. They treated them as if they were different from other people, which I have a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around. I literally just don’t understand how one group of people can be so cruel to another. Sure they make up pathetic excuses and try to give reasons why the Jews “deserve” this, but in reality it is insane and my mind hurts trying to come up with any sane backing to it.

The way Elie Wiesel used language to describe these events was really on point. He has an amazing selection of words and I was able to visualize what he was describing. He also was very particular in the formatting of his paragraphs. Each paragraph was supporting detail of a specific event or instance, similar to the format we used when writing our analytical essays in that each paragraph had a subject and support of that subject.