Reflection Paper-On the Holocaust

The Holocaust was an event that marked history as the most devastating moment especially for the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disable, and anyone who wasn’t Hitler’s perfect race. They were put into concentration camps in order to be annihilated and tortured, all due to one person’s ideology, Adolf Hitler. I went to the Holocaust Museum on September 15,2004 with a Holocaust survivor named Rubin Sztajer to learn more information about the Holocaust and the attempts Adolf Hitler made upon the Jews and other victims.

My classmates and I were waiting for the elevator doors to open, so we could enter the exhibit. I felt anxious and scared as we were waiting. The elevator doors opened, and everyone started pushing one another in trying to get in before the door closed. As my body was feeling uplifted, I felt claustrophobic, and considered that was how Jews and other victims felt when pushed in box carts, like cattle to be shipped to die.

The main entrance of the exhibit was horrible. It seemed as if the image of Hell existed on earth. The first thing I saw was a picture of piled dead bodies, burning in flames. I realized how cruel the world was. The Nazis for an example ruined lives of mothers, fathers, children, teenagers, and the elderly. I couldn’t understand how one person could influence an entire society to hate and victimize a group of people because they were different. I can’t imagine teenagers living a lifestyle without freedom and having the ability to have fun. I also, can’t imagine children growing-up without having a childhood memory of good times, instead of the bad.

The influence of Adolf Hitler was very powerful. He made sure all political parties were dismissed in order to make sure that Hitler was the one and only Führer. In a picture at the museum, books and other educated materials were burn so that history could be erased and not be foretold; including books on Helen Keller, and other scientists and historians. Even German children were involved in the Nazi party, as known as “Hitlerjugend” or “Hitler’s Youth; where they solute and honor Hitler at all times at an early age. If no one were to participate, they were to be criticized or be arrested for not honoring the Führer.

At the museum, everyone received a passport of a Holocaust victim, dead or alive. In each passport, there was information about each victim. I had Gerda Weissman. She was born to a Jewish middle-class family in Poland. Between the years of 1940 to 1945, Gerda moved to a ghetto, and was deported to do textile work in Bolkenhain, Silesia. Gerda had a German supervisor who saved her life when she passed out. Gerda was liberated by the American Army in May 1945, and immigrated to the United States in 1946. The story of Gerda was touching when I saw her speak on a public viewed screen. I was surprised, and thought that my person on my passport didn’t make it. I sat and watched Gerda spoke about her experiences in the camp, and how the American soldier who liberated her was now her husband; which enlightened my heart with joy.

When I went into the children exhibit called, “Daniel Story,” I was amazed how everything was realistic. In one of Daniel’s dairy entries of how his family had to move in the ghettos, the air was very cold and the paintings on the wall were dark; to show how the Jews had nothing since the Nazis took away their lives and destroyed it with unhappiness.

After the defeat of Adolf Hitler and the end of WWII, the Nazis murdered between five million and six million Jews: two-thirds of European Jewry and about one-third of the entire Jewish population. Rubin Sztajer, a Holocaust Survivor mentioned that the number of murders meant nothing; it just showed pride on what the persecutors had accomplished.

Bibliography:

1) Marrus, Michael R. The Holocaust in History. New York: New American Library. 1987

2) Sztajer, Rubin. Personal interview. 15 Sept. 2004.

3) Hoffmeister, Gerhart , and Frederic C. Tubach. German 2000 Years . Vol.
3. New York: The Continuum Company, 1992. 1-65.