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Mind Over Matter - Victor Frankl

2006-10-22T14:43:03-04:00

“Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain, but rather to see meaning in his life.” V. Frankel in Man’s Search for Meaning. Man can not overcome his trials and downfalls without hope, a determining belief in himself, and a belief in his fellow humankind. A person who dwells on the ever-stressful present without looking towards a brighter future can not cope well in an unpredictable anxious world. A strong stable sense of self is another crucial factor in determining a person’s quality of living and desire to live; knowing where one stands in a world full of conflicting views and ideas where one can easily get swept into a state of total confusion. No man is an island onto himself, the saying goes; interdependence is the way of the world, and he who attempts to prove that this does not apply to him will suffer. Victor Frankel was a psychiatrist as well as a Jew living under Nazi Europe and was thus thrust into a world of horrors where he, together with hundreds of thousands of others were stripped of everything but their bodies, branded like cattle, starved, and dehumanized after seeing their entire families and many friends exterminated. It was here that he made the astounding realization that one’s captors can take everything away from you, control your every move and function, but the one thing that can not be taken away or controlled is one’s mind. His attitude to any given set of circumstances is up to him. In the camps this was manifested in hope. He who lost hope was the first to die. His eyes became hopeless and his fellow inmates already knew he was gone. As long as the inmate knew in his heart that the liberation was on its way and that he would one day be able to raise a family, continue on with his routines, and live a comfortable life, he was able to survive. Maintaining a strong belief and faith in something, no matter what it was, was another factor of who was able to live, or even more heroic, who was able to meet their forced death with dignity. This belief and faith pierces through the soul of the individual until it is a part of his very nature and he is thus at peace with himself. He is unconsumed by the whirlwind of evil

Dehumanization vs. Obedience

2005-05-20T19:53:42-04:00

Dehumanization vs. Obedience Dehumanization is the process in which the Nazis considered the Jews as anything but humans. The title of the book is “Night” by Elie Wiesel. The book focuses on Elie’s experiences as a young boy in a concentration camp. In the book the issues of dehumanization and obedience are frequent. What causes these issues are the simple factors of human prejudice, fear, and selfishness. Above all, Nazis obeyed authority and were able to dehumanize because they believed what they were doing was right. Humans have naturally acquired prejudice. This is one of the reasons why Nazis obeyed authority. In one example from the text Elie’s father questions a gypsy officer; and as Elie put it “The gypsy looked him up and down slowly as if he wanted to convince himself that this man addressing him was really a creature of flesh and bone.”(36) Then the gypsy hit him. This quote proves that only because Elie’s father is a Jew, and the gypsy hates Jew’s that’s why he hit him. Maybe there are more personal reasons of the gypsy’s hate but whatever the reason the gypsy believed that hitting Elie’s father was right. Another example is when Elie is put into a work unit with Jewish musicians. Her claims that “Jew’s were not allowed to play germen music” (47) because Germens hated Jews they did not want the Jews to be associated with anything Germen. Therefore by specific prejudice the Nazis obeyed because they felt that they had no reason to disobey. Another reason why Nazis obeyed authority is because they were afraid of a higher power. Elie is worried when the Kapo threatens them if they do not work but his fellow prisoner claims “There’s nothing to be scared of he has to say that because of the meister.”(48) Which means that the only reason why the Kapo was making threats is because he doesn’t want the meister to yell at him for being to nice. Another example of that is when Elie said, “The prisoner in charge of our block was deprived of his office for being considered too humane.” (41) Nazis wanted Jews to fear them. That’s why they were so cruel. They felt if the Jews saw any sign of remorse they would feel less threatened. The last reason for explanation of the Nazis obedience is the simple fact that they were selfish. Not only did the Nazis

The Holocaust (Answers major questions under sub-headings)

2004-08-17T11:35:29-04:00

Holocaust Holocaust: great or wholesale destruction of life, esp. by fire. (The Macquarie Dictionary). Where and when did the holocaust occur? There is quite a bit of controversy over exactly when the Holocaust began, some historians date the beginning of the Holocaust to September 1939 when the German army invaded Poland. While others date the beginning of this prolific time to invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Yet many others have many other dates that they claim are the beginning on the Holocaust. The Holocaust occurred in many areas around German Occupied Territory, there were Ghettos in many major cities and towns, and also there were many of the infamous labour and death camps scattered throughout the territory. The holocaust ended when the war ended in 1948, when news of their defeat, the Germans guards deserted, yet many captives died before American soldiers and Aid Workers reached them to help them with food and release them from their prisons. Who was Adolf Hitler? Adolf Hitler was born on the 20th of April, 1889 and was the third child for an Austrian Customs Official. Adolf was never a very academic student, but he excelled in the arts, and thus wanted to be an artist. It was after school during his young adulthood when he was struggling to make money from his passion he began to feel a deep-set resentment towards the Jewish, he saw them as being well off and believed that they were depriving him of wealth as they came into this country only a short time ago and seemed to be well off quickly, while he struggled. He moved to Germany in 1913 and joined the army, this is where Hitler’s patriotism mushroomed, he felt betrayed by his country after their surrender to the allied forces in World War One. Because of his feelings of betrayal he joined the Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party, where he quickly rose to become the leader. In 1924 he was sentenced to a five year prison term for attempting a coup. He only served 9 months of this prison sentence, during which he wrote his book, Mein Kampf. In 1933 the Nazis were ahead in the election polls and when they came to power, as their leader, he almost instantly formed the country into a dictatorship, outlawing any other political party than his own and suppressing any opposition. Hitler died in his bunker in 1948 as

The Holocaust

2001-03-25T14:00:00-04:00

Of all the examples of injustice against humanity in history, the Jewish Holocaust has to be one of the most prominent. In the period of 1933 to 1945, the Nazis waged a vicious war against Jews and other "lesser races". This war came to a head with the "Final Solution" in 1938. One of the end results of the Final Solution was the horrible concentration and death camps of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Nazi-controlled Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, people around the world were shocked by final tallies of human losses, and the people responsible were punished for their inhuman acts. The Holocaust was a dark time in the history of the 20th century. One can trace the beginnings of the Holocaust as far back as 1933, when the Nazi party of Germany, lead by Adolf Hitler, came to power. Hitler's anti-Jew campaign began soon afterward, with the "Nuremberg Laws", which defined the meaning of being Jewish based on ancestry. These laws also forced segregation between Jews and the rest of the public. It was only a dim indication of what the future held for European Jews. Anti-Jewish aggression continued for years after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws. One of these was the "Aryanization" of Jewish property and business. Jews were progressively forced out of the economy of Germany, their assets turned over to the government and the German public. Other forms of degradation were pogroms, or organized demonstrations against Jews. The first, and most infamous, of these pogroms was Krystallnacht, or "The night of broken glass". This pogrom was prompted by the assassination of Ernst von Rath, a German diplomat, by Herschel Grymozpan in Paris on November 7th, 1938. Two days later, an act of retaliation was organized by Joseph Gobbels to attack Jews in Germany. On the nights of November 9th and 10th, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 175 synagogues demolished, nearly 100 Jews had been killed, and thousands more had been injured, all for the assassination of one official by a Jew ("Holocaust, the." Microsoft Encarta 96.) In many ways, this was the first major act of violence to Jews made by the Nazis. Their intentions were now clear. The Nazi's plans for the Jews of Europe were outlined in the "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in 1938. In a meeting of some of Hitler's top officials, the idea of the complete annihilation

Holocaust

2001-02-25T13:00:00-05:00

Throughout the movie, “The Holocaust”, the phrase, “I just do my job,” was usually the only excuse most people who committed crimes against the Jews could come up with. For example, when Helena and Rudy Weiss were staying in Kiev, the city was bombed. During the bombing, one of the Nazi soldiers, who happened to be Heinz Muller, a friend of Inga’s family, was hit by falling debris. Hesitant, Rudy helped Muller escape from the collapsing building, gave him some water, and asked him why he was taking part in the mistreatment of the Jews. “I obey orders,” Muller replied, unrepentant about what he did. Also, when Bertha Weiss was sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, Dr. Joseph Weiss asked the Kapo what happened to her. The lady bluntly retorted, “Don’t blame me, I just take orders.” Whether to keep a job, remain loyal to their cause, or just because they had no other excuse, everyone used that phrase to justify what they did wrong against the Jews. Anti-Semitism and unfair grudges are two factors that can cause Genocide. During the movie, Eric Dorf claimed he did not feel bad about Kristallnacht or what happened to the Jews, because he said the Jews provoked it. Even though Kristallnacht was the first major pogrom, a government sponsored attack on the Jews, and was terribly destructive, Eric said that they killed Christ and they deserved what they got (The Holocaust). In addition, Heydrich believed that Germans and the Aryan race was superior to the Jewish race and they had to “isolate the germ carriers” (The Holocaust), so he decided to go through with the plan for Jewish ghettos. The ghettos were intended to hold the Jews in a temporary Jewish community until they could be efficiently exterminated. This demonstrates how Anti-Semitism and grudges can produce Genocide. In the video, “Conversations With Oprah: Elie Wiesel”, Wiesel explains that the most important lesson to be learned from what happened during the Holocaust is to not be indifferent, but to still be human in spite of everything that happened. He said he believed that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather indifference, because indifference can not be fought (Conversations). Not being indifferent is important in preventing another Holocaust in the future. “When you have a choice to make and you don’t make it, that in itself is a choice,” William James once said. Judy Meisel’s

My Holocaust Response

2001-01-30T13:00:00-05:00

In a time and place where unity of all persons is taught as an essential for the future of our world, it’s almost unfeasible to grasp the horror of the Holocaust. Our country is sold upon the notion today that all men truly were created equal. Unfortunately there are some people in this world who still believe that to be a mere opinion. However, with today’s teaching and tools, I believe we are effectively working tords eliminating narrow-minded thinking. Learning about the Holocaust has helped me to understand that human beings are capable of unthinkable hate. Although it can be argued that the peoples involvment in the events of the Holocaust were based soley on influenced thinking, I find it hard to belive anyone is

The Holocaust

2000-11-14T13:00:00-05:00

German dictator, Adolf Hitler wanted a new order for Germany and his so-called Aryan race. As apart of achieving his ultimate goal, he would have to eliminate any and all other inferior races. This evil plan later became known as the Holocaust. Hitler, with the aid of the Nazis and concentration camps, brought terror and devastation to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. Anti-Semitism had deep roots in early European history. Hitler’s passionate hatred for Jews began to flourish, as evidence showed in his propagandist attempt to publicly blame Jews for Germany’s failures and economic problems. Beginning in 1933, Nazis passed persecution laws denying Jews the right to obtain any official public office. Later they would be deprived of the rights of German citizenship, to have jobs, and to own property. One infuriated Jewish teen, Herschel Grynszpan, decided to shoot an employee of the German Embassy in Paris after receiving a postcard that his father had been exiled to his homeland in Poland. When the Nazis heard, they decided to attack the Jewish community. Hundreds of Jews were shot and murdered in their own homes. Jewish businesses were ruined, and glass display windows were shattered all over the streets. That is why November 9, 1938 became known as Kristallnacht; “Night of Broken Glass”, and marked the beginning of the worst of what would surely come. Many Jews, realizing that they were in danger, started to flee to other countries for their safety. Those who did not want to move were made to be moved by way of force into emigration. Other countries took over 245,000 Jews into refuge. Getting countries to accept all of these people became a problem for Hitler. His next attempt to exterminate Jews would be to set them aside in small isolated areas called ghettos. While there, Hitler planned to have them deprived of food and hoped that they would catch diseases and die. Families watched each other slowly dwindle, and corpses would be found in the middle of the roads. Despite all of this, the Jewish held strong, and Hitler’s plan of isolation became evidently too slow for him. As a result of Hitler’s impatience with the Jews, he decided to act more directly and come to a “Final Solution”. He developed a plan to totally wipe out the Jewish population, in which he would have them murdered. This program is called genocide. Not only Jews would be

The Holocaust

2000-05-24T14:00:00-04:00

The Holocaust had long lasting affects on Jewish people. There are many types of horrible mistreatment that the Jewish people went through. Hitler's rise to power in 1933 he began persecuting the Jews so bad that businesses were boycotted and vandalized by Nazi supporters. By the year 1939 the Jews were not even regarded as a people they could not attend public schools , their rights to own land had been taken away and one of the most terrible they were not allowed to socialize with non Jewish people thus making them not able to go to public events , parks or museums. After deciding on quarantine to they established "ghettos " where they could keep them away from the general public thus making sure none of their cries for help were heard by any non Nazi followers. The treatment of the Jews would only worsen as the war became longer and the hatred towards these innocent people became more enraged. A people who were used as a "scapegoat" to make the German people angry and ready to fight against anyone that stood in there way of being the one largest power on the entire globe. All this was said to the people under deep depression where they would grasp onto any type of power they could after being mistreated by the Allies after the conclusion of World War 1. Hitler manipulated the minds of the weak and hopeless. He just took advantage of the very poor and why wouldn't they listen if they were in the worst conditions that Germany had ever experienced. Hitler also had the power of a great speaker getting the public behind him actually believing that the Jewish were taking their business and causing their economical crisis. Later on during the war Hitler introduced the idea of using "concentration camps". With these camps he could now round up Jewish ghettos and torture , overwork , remove and execute huge amounts of the Jewish population. There were 3 main camps ; Dachau , Treblinka and Auschwitz. The most important man in these executions and experiments was Mengele. In Dachau was where most of these strange and horrible experiments were carried out. Some of the experiments consisted of putting Jews in freezing cold water until death or putting them into air tight rooms timing until the time of suffocation. Auschwitz was the most horrific camp of them all

The Holocaust: Buchenwald

1999-12-15T13:00:00-05:00

Introduction The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirables" was through the use of concentration camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials, the 'final solution' was decided". The Jewish population was to be eliminated. In this paper I will discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the worst one prior to World War II, Buchenwald. Concentration Camps The first concentration camps were set up in 1933. In the early days of Hitler's regime, concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody. Victims for protective custody included those who were either physically or mentally ill, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and anyone against the Nazi regime. "Gypsies were classified as people with at least two gypsy great grandparents." By the end of 1933 there were at least fifty concentration camps throughout occupied Europe. "At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the SS, Hitler's personal security force, were ordered, by Hitler, to control the camps." Camps were set up for several different purposes. Some for forced labor, others for medical experiments and, later on, for death/extermination. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps. "Henrick Himmler, chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps would provide an economic base for the soldiers." This did not happen. The work force was poorly organized and working conditions were inhumane. Therefore, productivity was minimal. Camps were set up along railroad lines, so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers kept telling the Jews to have hope. When the camps were finally opened, most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated. Often, the transports mirrored what went on in the camps; cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, fetid and unsanitary conditions on the trains. "On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water

The Holocaust and Aushwitz

1999-12-12T13:00:00-05:00

INTRODUCTION The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirable" was through the use of concentration camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials the 'final solution' was decided". Jews were to be eliminated from the population. Auschwitz was the concentration camp that carried out Hitler's "final solution" in greater numbers than any other. In this paper I will discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the most well-known one, Auschwitz. CONCENTRATION CAMPS The first concentration camps were set up in 1933. In the early days of Hitler, concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody. Victims for protective custody included those who were both physically and mentally ill, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and anyone against the Nazi regime. "Gypsies were classified as people with atleast two gypsy great grandparents." By the end of 1933 there were atleast fifty concentration camps throughout occupied Europe. "At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the S.S. (Hitler's personal security force) were ordered, by Hitler, to control the camps." Camps were set up for different purposes. Some for forced labor, others for medical experiments and, later on, for death/ extermination. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps. "Henrick Himmler, chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps would provide an economic base for the soldiers." This did not happen. The work force was poorly organized and working conditions were inhumane. Therefore, productivity was minimal. Camps were set up along railroad lines, so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers kept telling the Jews to have hope. When the camps were finally opened, most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated. Often, the transports were a sampling of what went on in the camps, cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, fetid and unsanitary conditions on the trains. "On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water for days. Many people did not survive the ride to

Holocaust

1999-12-03T13:00:00-05:00

I've thought, and thought about resistance in the Holocaust and I've come to this realization: No words or poem or detailed description can describe the level of terror and oppression that took place. I am simply going to try my best to understand a fraction of the pain that many people went through, and the lessons we can learn from what happened. If the people that died in the Holocaust had one thing to say, I think that they would say, "Life is a gift, and you're lucky to have it, don't waste it, because before you even know it, it won't be a free gift anymore." The oppressed Jews went to their physical and mental limit just to avoid death. Therefore, if we do not live our lives to the most passionate way we know how, then we are wasting the extremely valuable gift of life. I don't think it's fair to waste our life, because many people worked a lot harder than us to have life, while they were not able to have it. So by not living our lives to the fullest we are cheating them. Our lives are very short, and refusing to live them to the fullest makes them even shorter. Furthermore, we as a society must do our best, to keep people from stealing other people's lives. If life is not protected than we are giving in to death, which is the very thing the Jews fought to avoid. By not taking a stand against those who cheat others out of their life we are in fact causing death. I don't remember who said it, but I'll always remember the quote, "Whoever forgets the past, is doomed to repeat it." If our society does not remember the suffering of the Jews, we could be sentencing ourselves to the same pain. Finally, I know that the only way to fully live life is to have life eternally through Jesus Christ. Holocaust is defined as, "the wholesale destruction and loss of life." Ultimately we will all face our own holocaust, because I know that I will someday die. Yet just as Americans came to the rescue of the Jews, Jesus Christ came to rescue me when he died for me. He lived through his own holocaust so that I won't have to.

The Holocaust

1999-07-02T14:00:00-04:00

The Holocaust was the extermination of the Jews and other people whom Hitler considered inferior. It took place from 1933 to 1945. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany led this effort. About 12 million people were murdered, half of them being Jews. When Hitler took over control of Germany, everything changed. Hitler had a very strong prejudice against the Jews. He wanted to create the perfect race of blonde haired blue eyed Germans. His followers, who were the soldiers in the camps, were called Nazis. They enforced all killing that Hitler wanted done. Also, there were many other people involved in this massive genocide. Different people were leading the killing and different groups of people were being killed, not only Jews. For instance, there were many doctors who ran tests on people, but didn't care if the patients were hurt or even killed, which they usually were. All surgeries were performed without any anesthetic. These are just a couple general things that happened during the Holocaust. There are so many things that happened in this time period that are impossible to imagine or just are too horrible to think about. The things about the Holocaust that I find the most unnerving are the torture and pain they put the Jews and other groups through. The two main topics I feel are most serious or crucial are the medical experiments and their results and reactions on the patients. Also, the different camps, their strong points and general methods for killing used there. There are three camps that are familiar to me and I hear mentioned the most. They are Dachau, Treblinka, and of course, Auschwitz. The doctor who was most infamous for carrying out horrible experiments was Mengele. Dachau, Treblinka, and Auschwitz were three of the six concentration camps that were used for execution of Jews and other groups considered inferior. At Treblinka, 700,000 to over 1,000,000 people were killed. The gassings at Dachau never went past the experimental stage. They were in no way used as the gas chambers in Auschwitz were. Also, at Dachau, they performed Intense Cooling experiments. A summary of what they did was they'd dress the subject in certain clothes and either put their whole body, to include the brain stem, or only up to the brain stem in water which was from 2.5 to 12 degrees Centigrade. Fatalities only occurred when the brain stem

The Holocaust

1999-01-22T13:00:00-05:00

Of all the examples of injustice against humanity in history, the Jewish Holocaust has to be one of the most prominent. In the period of 1933 to 1945, the Nazis waged a vicious war against Jews and other "lesser races". This war came to a head with the "Final Solution" in 1938. One of the end results of the Final Solution was the horrible concentration and death camps of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Nazi-controlled Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, people around the world were shocked by final tallies of human losses, and the people responsible were punished for their inhuman acts. The Holocaust was a dark time in the history of the 20th century. One can trace the beginnings of the Holocaust as far back as 1933, when the Nazi party of Germany, lead by Adolf Hitler, came to power. Hitler's anti-Jew campaign began soon afterward, with the "Nuremberg Laws", which defined the meaning of being Jewish based on ancestry. These laws also forced segregation between Jews and the rest of the public. It was only a dim indication of what the future held for European Jews. Anti-Jewish aggression continued for years after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws. One of these was the "Aryanization" of Jewish property and business. Jews were progressively forced out of the economy of Germany, their assets turned over to the government and the German public. Other forms of degradation were pogroms, or organized demonstrations against Jews. The first, and most infamous, of these pogroms was Krystallnacht, or "The night of broken glass". This pogrom was prompted by the assassination of Ernst von Rath, a German diplomat, by Herschel Grymozpan in Paris on November 7th, 1938. Two days later, an act of retaliation was organized by Joseph Gobbels to attack Jews in Germany. On the nights of November 9th and 10th, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed, 175 synagogues demolished, nearly 100 Jews had been killed, and thousands more had been injured, all for the assassination of one official by a Jew ("Holocaust, the." Microsoft Encarta 96). In many ways, this was the first major act of violence to Jews made by the Nazis. Their intentions were now clear. The Nazi's plans for the Jews of Europe were outlined in the "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in 1938. In a meeting of some of Hitler's top officials, the idea of the complete annihilation

The Holocaust

1999-01-22T13:00:00-05:00

For twelve years following 1933 the Jews were persecuted by the Nazi's. Jewish businesses were boycotted and vandalized. By 1939, Jews were no longer citizens,could not attend public schools,engage in practically any business or profession, own any land, associate with any non-Jew or visit public places such as parks and museums. The victories of the German armies in the early years of World War II brought the majority of European Jewry under the Nazis. The Jews were deprived of human rights. The Jewish people were forced to live in Ghetto's which were separated from the main city. Hitler's plan of genocide was carried out with efficiency. The total number of Jews exterminated has been calculated at around 5,750,000. In Warsaw ,where approximately 400,000 Jews had once been concentrated,was reduced to a population of 60,000. They,virtually unarmed, resisted the German deportation order and had held back the regular German troops equipped with flame throwers,armoured cards, and tanks for nearly a month. This heroism was similar to the revolt which took place around 165BC. This uprising was led by the Maccabees, a provincial priestly family (also called Hasmoneans). They recaptured the Temple and rededicated it to the God of Israel. The Maccabees made there last stand on a mountain and was able to hold back the syrians for more then a month. There is a distinct similarity between the two stories and that is possibly why they are both recognised as holidays in the Jewish faith. These horrific events of the holocaust have let to some consequences which are beneficial and some are unfortunate to the Jewish people. The population of the followers has greatly declined. Also the Jewish people after the war still had problems finding jobs. They had to essentially start there life over. Most of them lost a close relative or at least knew someone who died in the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. This has put a psychological strain on Jewish survivors or no longer having family and friends with them for support. This event has awaken the world up to the needs of the Jewish people. It has given them political power and a justification for some of their actions. On May recognised,1945 ,the end of World War II was seen. Organized Jewry in the European continent was damaged beyond repair. The Jews concentrated on the preservation of Israel and on the bringing of Nazi war

The Psychological Affects of the Holocaust

1999-01-22T13:00:00-05:00

The Holocaust was a tragic point in history which many people believe never happened. Others who survived it thought it should never have been. Not only did this affect the people who lived through it, it also affected everyone who was connected to those fortunate individuals who survived. The survivors were lucky to have made it but there are times when their memories and flashbacks have made them wish they were the ones who died instead of living with the horrible aftermath. The psychological effects of the Holocaust on people from different parts such as survivors of Israel and survivors of the ghettos and camps vary in some ways yet in others are profoundly similar. The vast number of prisoners of various nationalities and religions in the camps made such differences inevitable. Many contrasting opinions have been published about the victims and survivors of the holocaust based on the writers' different cultural backrounds, personal experiences and intelectual traditions. Therefore, the opinions of the authors of such books and entries of human behavior and survival in the concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe are very diverse. The Survivors of the Holocaust: General Survey Because the traumatization of the Holocaust was both individual and collective, most individuals made efforts to create a "new family" to replace the nuclear family that had been lost. In order for the victims to resist dehumanization and regression and to find support, the members of such groups shared stories about the past, fantasies of the future and joint prayers as well as poetry and expressions of personal and general human aspirations for hope and love. Imagination was an important means of liberation from the frustrating reality by opening an outlet for the formulation of plans for the distant future, and by spurring to immediate actions. Looking at the history of the Jewish survivors, from the beginning of the Nazi occupation until the liquidation of the ghettos shows that there are common features and simmilar psychophysiological patterns in their responses to the persecutions. The survivors often experienced several phases of psychosocial response, including attempts to actively master the traumatic situation, cohesive affiliative actions with intense emotional links, and finally, passive compliance with the persecutors. These phases must be understood as the development of special mechanisms to cope with the tensions and dangers of the surrounding horrifying reality of the Holocaust. There were many speculations that survivors of the Holocaust suffered from a static

Did the Western World do enough for the Jews in the Holocaust?

1999-01-22T13:00:00-05:00

"When they came for the gypsies, I did not speak, for I am not a gypsy. When they came for the Jews, I did not speak, because I wasn't a Jew. When they came for the Catholics, I did not speak, for I am not a Catholic. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak." On the Wall at the Holocaust Museum in Washington It is impossible to learn about the Holocaust and the Second World War without the question of how it possibly could have happened arising, and along with that question comes another. The question of whether or not the Western World did enough to help the Jews in Europe. What was their reaction to the campaign of systematic persecution, robbery and murder the Third Reich inflicted upon the Jewish people? During the time leading up to the outbreak of World War II, the Western Press consistently carried numerous reports of the German's anti-Jewish policies and their purposeful victimization of the Jews living in Nazi Germany as well as the annexed territories. The general public cannot claim that they did not know what was going on, that they were uninformed. Whether or not they chose to believe it however, is a completely different story. The public were indeed outraged in many of the cases but the governments of the major European democracies felt that it was not for them to intervene for they felt that the Jewish problem classified as an internal affair within a sovereign state. The truth behind this is simply that the governments were anxious to establish cordial relations with Germany and didn't want to cause any hostility. Thus they stood idly by and remained silent as Hitler went from denying the Jews of their civil rights to denying them of their means of earning their daily bread. As much as they wanted to remain neutral, the countries of the Western World were finally forced to take a stand on the issue of emigration of Jews from the Reich who were seeking refuge. The United States maintained strict immigration quotas which severely limited the number of Central and Eastern Europeans admitted to the country each year. Even under such extreme circumstances, the US insisted on adhering to these policies and refused to modify them even slightly. Great Britain proved to be merciless as they blocked entry into Palestine and limited the amount