Stephen Philips

1/11/2015
Weekly Writing 1
UWRT 1102 044
Holocaust Knowledge
I feel like most students in class do not have that much knowledge of the holocaust and I would
be in the same boat if I didnt take a western culture class last semester. We spent pretty much a
whole month going over World War II. The Holocaust is directly/indirectly the cause of the
Second World War (depends who you talk to). It was a period where Adolf Hitler the leader of
Germany took a ride on the cookoo train and blamed Jewish people for various things including
losing the First World War and the debt that went with it. He responded by initiating the
holocaust which was basically him setting up concentration camps and sending Jews and
Gypsies there to be killed. Concentration camps were pretty much like a prison where people
would have to work long hours in horrible conditions with very little food. If you didnt die of
sickness or starvation they would bring you to a gas chamber and let that be the end of you.
During this rant millions of people lost their lives it was a terrible time that I hope never gets
repeated. In western culture we watched a lot of videos from this era which ranged from the
Nazis capturing the Jewish people to interviews with survivors who were mostly from Poland.
The most interesting part of the Holocaust in my perspective is the fact that nobody stopped
Adolf Hitler? As if nobody in the German decent thought it was wrong at all to kill millions of
people for some backwards reasoning by a guy who was literally insane? I find that sickening to
believe that nobody stopped him before he took his own life. I feel like most people are going to

dread the fact that this class is based mainly on the Holocaust but I think its unique and am
actually kind of excited to see what else I can learn about this era from this class. It was a very
important time in the world and shouldnt be forgotten. One thing that really shocked me was
when Miss Werts Orbaugh told the class that only 11? States require that you teach curriculum
about the holocaust. I find that crazy to believe because what if in a few generations thats never
talked about again? Almost as if it never even happened.
From this class I am hoping to learn more about the holocaust in the actual holocaust aspect. In
the class I took it was focused more on the point of view from the Second World War and how
Hitler expressed cultural nationalism which can be toxic in his case it was and not the actual
holocaust which I want to learn more about. It would be neat to learn about how the Jewish
people were found and convinced to go to these concentration camps? If it was me I would
definitely rebel or flee I wouldnt let them take me alive if I knew I was going into such a place. I
would also like to learn about what went on inside the concentration camps and how exactly they
were ran. Seems like it was a fairly organized place to kill millions of people in that amount of
time. Lastly I would like to learn more about the infamous Adolf Hitler and what in the world
this guy was thinking. Where he stood during the whole unification process and what were the
events that led up to him taking his own life. It seems as if some things finally caught back up to
him and instead of facing reality like a real man he decided to take the easy way out. But thats
just me. Overall I think that the holocaust was a very important event in history and I am grateful
to be able to learn more about it.