Weekly Writing 1

During World War Two, one of the greatest acts of civil and social injustice known in
modern times was committed, The Holocaust. For the Germans, there was a long-range plan
leading up to the war, where leaders and officials brainwashed their country and its communities
to believe in a perfect and pure race - the Aryan race. This frightening education was
received through books, radios, banners, flags, propaganda, toys, sermons, etc. The German
people were infiltrated with such information that made them believe that if a person did not look
or act a certain way, or were not part of the perfect race, that they were considered inhuman,
savage, unearthly, and equal to nothing - anyone that was different in anyway was considered a
threat to this pure race and needed to be cleansed from the population. The Germans began
treating Jewish people of different populations across Europe with utter hatred and
discrimination - cutting off friendships and business ties, evicting them from their properties,
beating, killing, burning shops and books, raping, making them feel guilty for their own race, etc.
In my education, one of the most impactful events of the beginning of this long term bigotry was
Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, where Nazi soldiers raided Jewish storefronts,
literally breaking the glass of the shop windows, stealing, burning, and mocking the Jewish
people by having them paint Juden on buildings, sidewalks, etc. During this event, many Jews
were arrested and/or put into ghettos, communities walled off to the outside world with minimal
necessities for living. The ghetto life was a way that the Nazis could further weed out what they
believed to be the weakest members of society. When the first trains came to take the Jewish
people to different concentration camps, they were educated to believe that this was going to be
their way to freedom, their way out of such turmoil and evil. The train cars were not a
picturesque perfect ride; they were dark and damp and people were packed in like sardines not
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able to see much, if any, of the outside world. Once arriving at a camp, a person was abruptly
faced with their own demise. All of the belongings were immediately stripped from those who
stepped off the railcars - shoes, wedding bands, luggage, golden teeth pulled, clothing, jewelry,
and even the hair shaved off of their heads - and they were naked, afraid, but still somewhat
determined to survive. Women, children, mentally and physically handicapped, and elderly, were
walked to their deaths upon arrival when they were told they would have to take showers in
massive underground chambers; they had no idea that they were about to be killed by
asphyxiation. The Jewish men, children, and some women who looked as if they were capable
and strong enough, were given minimal clothing and rations and placed into overcrowded
bunkers. The number tattooed on their forearm was their new identity - they were stripped of
their sense of self, they were stripped of everything, all they knew was that number.
As I sit here trying to write about my previous education on the Holocaust, it is difficult
for me to gather all that I have learned because it makes me nauseous to think of such complete
hatred, inequality, and discrimination towards a specific group of people. My first experience
learning about World War Two and the Holocaust was during World History my sophomore
year of high school. That is where I first saw graphic pictures and videos of these emaciated
shells of humans being shoveled into massive pits and my heart broke and cried out for these
souls. I can vividly recall those images to this day and it breaks me more every single time. My
teacher who taught my high school history course was a retired FBI agent and suggested to the
class that if any of us were ever in Washington DC, that it would be beneficial to take some time
to witness the Holocaust museum. Four years later, on a trip to the city during a college break, I
was able to witness the museum for myself - to see this tiny snapshot of the atrocities, to walk in
a rail car, to see the end of a bunker from Auschwitz, to smell the stench of dry air in a room
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filled with collected shoes from a camp, to hearing firsthand accounts of prison survivors. I have
never been so shaken, shattered, broken, and pained. It is a place that I believe everyone needs to
witness in order to grow, to be challenged by, and to learn from. People should know details,
stories, and events of the past in order to make educated decisions for the future. Learning from
history is the only way to grow.

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