Hitler is known by most people as the evil leader of Germany who wanted to annihilate the Jewish race. He allowed the steps to his goal made possible with the building of concentration camps and then extermination camps. I am really interested in WWII and what Hitler did because I lived in Germany for three years. While I lived there I went to some of the concentration camps and Hitler's house. The visit to the concentration camps did sink in with me until I actually got there. I was only about eleven years old, but being in that place changed my life. My experience was even furthered when there was a survivor who told us of his time at Auschwitz.
I began to have many questions and my parents could not answer them. I wanted to know how and why people would do this to other people? My father said that Hitler had blamed the Jews for everything wrong in Germany and thought that the only way to fix this was to get rid of them all together. I could not believe this and it never really sunk in the logic behind his decision. I have taken a Holocaust class and now this class that discussed WWII and it's hardships. I still cannot give a good answer as to why these things happened and I probably never will.
The act of genocide that Hitler committed can be related to the genocide in Somalia, other pasts of Africa, and maybe even Bosnia. The hatred that some people have towards others cannot be fully explained nor can the ability to murder those other people. The thought that mass murder will solve whatever issue a race has with another will never be fully understood by me.
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I also lived in Germany, and was affected by my visits to concentration camps and other historical sites. I still question how something like that could ever happen, and why did the people of Germany allow it to happen? I was disturbed by what I felt was a somewhat hesitant acknowledgement by German society, concerning all of the atrocitities of WWII. I didn't find many Germans willing to talk about it, especially without glossing it over to an extent. Like you mentioned, other cultures and societies have used genocide as a strategy since WWII. I find it all the more disturbing, especially in this age of globalization, that we don't do more to stop it.
ReplyDeleteI think just like there are two sides to any coin, there are two sides to the human race. There's the good side-when we help out our fellow man and help support each other in times of need (hurricane or earthquake relief for instance). And then there's the bad side-when things like the holocaust and other periods of genocide happen. I'm with you Jeff, I've never understood how you can look someone in the eye and deem that "their people" need to be pushed off the face of the earth. And my experiences are similar to Ed's, the few German people I've talked to about the holocaust seem pretty embarrassed by the whole thing (not that I would blame them), and they would love to avoid it. It's almost like that crazy aunt of the family everyone just doesn't want to acknowledge. Personally, I think as long as there's greed and superiority complexes we're going to encounter the threat of genocide across the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you. After our discussion today in class I feel like everyone can agree that the reason we can't seem to understand how these people could do this is because we look at the situation after the fact. Like the example used in class of 9/11 you can never imagine something until it happens and the Jews as well as the German citizens never thought it was going to get as bad as it did. However I still do think that the German citizens should take some responsibility and not lay it all on Hitler.
ReplyDeleteTrying to understand the Holocaust is difficult and frustrating process that requires a great deal of research and a willingness to meld together a variety of perspectives. I am not sure that I myself have a satisfactory understanding of it yet but I do have a few thoughts for you. First, as I said in class, I think that the Holocaust has to be understood both in terms of the war and of 'modernity' in its systematic and distancing characteristics. Second, I do not believe that it is solely the result of Anti-Semitism or that all Germans were just waiting for a chance to act on these feelings. As far as how Germans have coped with their historical guilt and legacy, I would suggest Jeffrey Herf's Divided Memory, a truly excellent look at how the politics of the two Germanies shaped Holocaust memory.
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