And I Said Nothing
In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionist, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
TASK: Write personal reflection on the atrocities of the Holocaust and how it has (or hasn’t) changed the world.
Keep these questions in mind:
• Who is to blame for the Holocaust?
• Could the Holocaust have been stopped?
• How to the "Stages of Isolation" show the gradual persecution leading to the annihilation of the Jews?
• What would you have done if you lived in Germany during the Third Reich?
• How does the passage "And I Said Nothing" portray the actions of the people in Germany during Third Reich? What is the danger in saying or doing "nothing"?
• What lessons must be learned from the Holocaust?
• How do we, as responsible and aware human beings, ensure that an event such as the Holocaust or any type of racial genocide never occurs again?
• Do you think we have “learned our lesson” from the Holocaust, use examples to support your point of view from more recent history
To view some images from the Holocaust click the following links.
http://www.phdn.org/histgen/schmitz/indexeng.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/phototoc.html
24 comments:
I think that the atrocities of the Holocaust were too terrible for anyone not directly involved to even comprehend. It has changed the world because the U.N. is now better suited to deal with any similar events and keeps a tighter watch on countries around the world.
V.B.
The holocaust had a huge effect on the world at the time. new rules were made up and governments swore it would never happen again.But despite these promises, our country still sends away immigrants escaping from their country to claim refugee status here. And although it was the Hitler's officers and soldiers killing the Jews, no other Germans stood up to put a stop to it, either because of fear or ignorance of the Nazi's actions. This puts them to as much fault as the Nazi's because if everybody had stood up together, there most likely would've been a different outcome for the Jewish people.
LB
The Holocaust was a dark and horrible event in human history that should have never happened and should never happen again. I believe that Adolf Hitler was at fault for causing this travesty, he incited millions of people against those of the Jewish faith, and brainwashed his Nazi troops to carry out these horrific actions. I believe that all of the world, including people here in Canada, learned a very valuable lesson from the Holocaust. People know understand that they simply cant "sit back and watch" or "say nothing". Every first world country around the world needs to help those who cant help themselves when their human rights are being brutally abused. It might have been possible to prevent if other country's got involved with Hitler's affairs the instant they realized that he had malicious intentions, but by the time the Holocaust had started it was simply too late for people to do much to help the suffering and mass execution of the Jewish people. Hitler and his Nazis had become too powerful. The rest of the world shouldn't have simply watched Germany take Poland, invade Czekloslovakia, or break their treaties with the USSR. It took another allied country (France) to be attacked before the rest of the world finally decided that Hitler needed to be stopped. I have no way to imagine or comprehend the amount of pain, and suffering that the Jewish people were forced to go through, it is something that no one will ever understand except those that were there. I believe that this horrible event should never be forgotten, but the world must learn from it's mistakes and move on, making sure it never happens again.
RM
Chaos, insanity,fear were what caused the Holocaust. The Nazis were the most to blame for this crime against humanity,but nobody cared. Those campassionless people were not to be blamed; they were all scared, and the Nazis knew this. They knew people would not stand up for others if the people were afraid themselves. This wickness of human's soul was what made the Nazis mad with power.
No nations cared about the Holocaust either; they did not want to spend all the money on an other pointless war; so one after another, those nations fell under Nazi Germany.
The terror of the Holocaust stunned everybody, yet, it did not change anybody. People still don't care about others. Millions of people died due to the genocide in Sudan, nobody said anything. Nobody cared about all the dead Africans because they were not the dead Africans. The big nations did not interfer with the Sudan government because they did not want to waste money and soldiers on a poor country which has no oils or golds.
The holocaust is going to happen again someday. When this happens, it may be you and I who get persecuted because we do not "care".
T.D
P.S: please show us a Russia propaganda cartoon on monday.
If you were to speak up against the Nazis like the person in "And I Said Nothing" should've done you would most likely disappear. But even though he didn't oppose them he still went missing. If he knew he was going to die anyway he would have most likely stood up for what he thought. As for the Stages of Isolation, they could've been easily avoided if everyone stood up against it when it first began. Instead everyone stood by and watched because it wasn't happening to them and they thought it never would.
AP
Hilter and his "mind-washed" Nazis are to blame for the holocaust. The holocaust probably could've been stopped, if earlier action by other countries would've been taken, and they didn't just sit by and watch what was goig on. The annihilation of the Jews is shown through how they had laws made against them, had their businesses boycotted, and were sent to camps. If I lived in Germany during the Third Reich, I would probably get outta the country, because you're either gonna end up as a Nazi, or dead. In the passage "And I Said Nothing," it shows how, in the end, you were either taken away to be killed, or to serve Hitler: there was no other choice. The danger of saying or doing "nothing," is when you need someone to be there for you, they won't be there, because you weren't there for them. Lessons learned: to not just stand-by as innocent people are being killed. I don't truly believe we have "learned our lesson" because sure, Canada interferes with events happening around the world, but when it comes to immigartion, it's still limited.
- BP
I believe that the Holocaust could have been stopped if the allies would have opposed Hitler sooner. The Holocaust changed the world because everybody is now aware of the horrible things that went on during it and nobody wants that to happen to anybody ever again. There were just so many horrid things that happened during the Holocaust, its no wonder why Hitler committed suicide. I think the world has learned their lesson at the cost of 6 million Jews. To ensure that this type of genocide never happens again we just have to be conscious of what is going on in the world. If i lived in Germany during the Reich I probably would have done the same thing and just went on with my life. I don't understand how anybody could do such things to other human beings, even though they were told that the Jews were not human. How could you consciously kill groups of 1000's of little children at once. Hitler is fully responsible for his actions in killing the Jews.
B.L.
The Holocaust is a time in history that no matter how hard one might try, one can never forget. The Holocaust was not only brought forth by Hitler, but kept around from the bystanders everywhere. Although everyone knew how terrifying and gruesome this time was, no one could put themselves forth to stop the happenings. Everyone chose to "turn a blind eye". After a certain length of time I don't believe the Holocaust could have been completely stopped as the Nazis already had so much power. But that's my opinion based on the fact that no one tried to stop Hitler, so I don't have that knowledge. The world seemed to do nothing while Hitler took over Europe. Hitler broke treaties without a thought and this had a tremendous effect on Jewish people everywhere. I'm not sure if we've completely learned our lesson from the Holocaust. Yes, nothing to that extent has happened again thus far, but who are we to deport immigrants or not even let them come over to our country when they've done nothing wrong. Us as citizens everywhere should focus on making sure an unbelievably horrific event such as the Holocaust, cannot happen again and learn from the mistakes we made in the past.
MT
I dont know who is to blame for the Holocaust, its hard to just pick one side to be good or bad. Hitler is the first person i would blame forcausing all of this but I kind of want to blame eveyone else too because someone should have had the guts to stand up and do something about this if they knew that all of this was happening to people. I know it would have caused problems for them as well but maybe no as many people wont have died if someone else had done something to try to stop Hitler and the Nazis. I think if the Allies and other countries join together to stop it, it could have been done instead of just ignoring it because they thought they had bigger problems to deal with. The "Stages of Isolation" showed the gradual leading to the annihilation of the Jews because Hitler was trying dehumanize them to the rest of the Germans and other and saying that they were nothing and if they werent around everything would be better. It would have been obvious to anyone that he was planning to wiped them out of the world just by the way he talked about them. If I had lived in Germany during the Third Reich, I personally would have done something like stand up against the crowd and not have listened to Hitler. I would have rather died than live there and watch what he was doing to the Jews, but thats just who I am, I stand up for what i believe in. The Germans at the time who werent doing the actual killing and stuff just turned away and pretended that it wasnt happening because they thought that if it wasnt happening to them and they did nothing about it they would be fine and nothing bad would become of them, but now all of Germany even today feels guilty and is trying to make everyone aware that it was so wrong. To prevent anything like the Holocaust from ever happening again, we have to make everyone aware that no matter what ethnic background anyone else is everyone is equal as being humans and that no human or group of the same people ever has the right to be treated like that ever again. I dont think we have "learned our lesson" fully from the Holocaust because their are still incidents that have been going on since then even if they are as huge as the Holocaust. An example is that we knew what was happening in Rawanda where approximate 800,000 people were murdered and we didnt do anything about that.
jc
Learning about the Holocaust is beyond comprehension for me. I cannot understand how anybody could commit such terrible crimes and not be suffering from unbearable amounts of guilt. Hitler is the main man who people easily brush the fault onto, but truly it was more than just him. Surely he implanted the ideas, but anyone who supported him, or ignored him, were also responsible for the millions of Jewish lives lost. When Hitler first started taking land he could have been stopped. Places like Britain and France who were simple appeasing him never should have let him violate any of the terms of the Paris Peace Conference. If Hitler was unable to take so much land, he would not have been powerful or influential enough to have his morbid plans listened to. Though surrounding countries were not looking for a fight, that fight would have been much less brutal than the resulting battles of World War II. Personally, I am not sure of what I would have done if I lived in Germany at this time. Most likely, I would have tried to flee to another country and attempted to convince their leader how horrible Hitler's actions were, and persuade them to step in. There are many lessons that we should have learned from the Holocaust. The most important being that people are people, regardless of race, religion, or anything of the sort, and they all deserve equal treatment. Also, the world cannot ignore people who are trying to gain power because they may have deeper intentions than what simply meets the eye. The Holocaust changed the world because now people know to be careful of these events. I am not quite sure whether or not we learned our lesson from the Holocaust. Today there is hardly any racism but countries still aren't as open to immigrants as they probably should be.
cs.
In my opinion, the horrific event that was the Holocaust could easily have been prevented. If people could have put aside their flawed beliefs that some people are better than others, the entire event would never have happened. Even if Hitler and his morbid ideas continued to exist in this hypothetical situation, the world would still be full of able-bodied people that could easily have stopped the tragedies that ensued. Despite the many possible solutions, those "what-ifs" don't change history. Because the Holocaust did occur, the world is a very different place than it might have otherwise been. It was the Holocaust that started to teach the ever-important lesson of helping the helpless. The world is now more aware of the difference interference can make. As the author of "And I Said Nothing" explains, everyone is in danger when no one is willing to speak up. I believe the world has only begun to learn this lesson. There are many people - many countries, even - that need the help of others who are unwilling to give it. When the people of the world are willing to take the initiative to help others in need and to speak up against injustice, the lesson of the Holocaust will truly have been learned.
KLH
Everyone has different views on the Holocaust and the impact it had on society. I think it both did and didn't change the world. It did because when people think of Hitler and facism they think of the horrible and gruesome things he did to the Jews and that they never ever want a leader like that. This has made us aware that crazy people like that are out there and measures, be it by government or our own vote, need to be taken to ensure racial genocide doesn't happen again. We learned that letting a leader get away with minor things can escalate and that certain rules need to be stuck to and others need to be broken to protect individuals and society. The Holocaust and maybe even WWII could've been avoided if we didn't allow Hitler to take over small neighbouring lands and if better watch was taken to not let him assemble an army and supplies. However, nobody would've ever predicted the bad that letting these small things go led to. In that sense we didn't learn much because anything can happen in the future, but we can help prevent it. Racial genocide actually is happening in some places and the world continues to turn a cold shoulder to it. Who knows, maybe one of those small scale issues could escalate and bring about another Holocaust. The people it didn't affect in the time did nothing about it, how could they? Hitler instilled such fear in them that they could be killed if they tried to assemble against him. If I lived in Germany at the time I'd like to think I would've tried to help the Jews even in the smallest way, but I can't really judge it properly because I don't know exactly how much and the kind of terror and fear they went through. In recent history, the world only really reacts to situations in other countries if it impacts them. We only have support sent to Libya and in there beacuse of the shipping areas and gas and oil spots are at risk of being cut off. So in this way we didn't learn our lesson. Although we can't tell if another Holocaust will happen in the future, we can help prevent it and hopefully react appropriately.
CK
The tragic Holocaust has definitely had an impact in shaping our world the way it is today. Racism has always been an issue in the world, but was extremely prevalent in the 1940s. Hitler took nationalism to a whole new level in wanting to "cleanse" the Aryan race of its "impurities".
I feel like the Holocaust could have easily been stopped a lot earlier on if the other world powers had just decided to speak up for the rights of humanity and try to save these innocent people. Because these horrific events were happening so far away and they were not directly involved, countries figured that it wasn't their problem. There were many warning signs as the isolation occured, a huge on being the landing of the St.Louis and everyone just turned their heads and let these people die. They wouldn't even reach out and save them.
The passage "And I Said Nothing" seems to fairly accurately represent the feelings of most countries during the Holocaust. They weren't aware of the extent of these racist persecutions, but they knew that something was happening and they did not become involved. They did not show any humanitarian compassion for the people who were being abused because it all seemed so far away.
I think what we have to learn from the Holocaust is that people are people, now matter where or of what race. We are all citizens of Earth and we are responsible for what happens on our planet while we are living. We cannot leave it up to others to solve and pretend it's not our problem; it's everyone's problem. Racism has not become extinct so we can probably expect something similar to happen again, but hopefully we have learnt our lesson and will take responsibility for our world citizens.
SD
Looking at these images makes me wonder how these events could happen. It is hard to imagine the level of insanity a person must have to commit such crimes of hatred. I will never understand how any Nazi could kill an innocent person just because they were not an "aryan". I also can't understand how some of the German people believed the lies that Hitler told them, and how many of them participated in the persecution of the Jews. I believe Hitler should have been stopped, not by Britain or America but by his own country. Hitler should not have gained the power that he abused because Germany should have stood up to him, we see right now in the middle east that dictators can be deafeated by their own citizens, who is to say the same could not be done to Hitler. I know that the German people feared what may happen to them if they spoke up but I think a resistance could have easily gained enough support to stop the Nazis.
MZ
The holocaust is one the most devastating things in our history in my opinion as we knew what was happening but no one cared. The person who i think is to blame for this is most Defiantly Hitler as he started this movement for killing the Jews. Anyone could of stopped the Holocaust if they spoke out and got together and brought it to a end. But in The Germany The Germans were eased into hating the Jews as their rights were slowly removed and they were easy identifiable. If i was living in the Third Reich i would of probably done nothing to help the Jews as i would of not want to be killed for my own thoughts. The passage Represents Germans views on How they care about one another, they only cared about their well being and no one else as long as it wasn't them they wouldn't be hurt. The lesson that must be learned from the Holocaust are that everyone should speak out against discrimination and no one should ever have to face this ever again. The world should Defiantly try to prevent another event like this ever happening, this should never happen again as it was a horrible event that no one would want to endure. Overall i do not think we have learned our lesson from this Event as We still let this happen in Third world countries where we do not want to start a conflict.
RH
The Holocaust was an extreme example of racial discrimination and bigotry.
In the past, present, and future there will always be discrimination. However the Holocaust is an event that future generations would try to prevent.
Even though the holocaust could not have been stopped because Antisemitism was strong in Germany,numerous of lives could have been saved if countries have not been silent. Now, countries would have a better response to stop 'history from repeating itself'.
LP
The holocaust was a horrific mass killing of millions of people (mostly jews) who did not qualify as people according to the Nazis. To most people it is obvious that the Nazis are at fault for the slaughtereing of the millions of people during the holocaust. The Nazis committed the crime; therefore, they are at fault. But what about the rest of the world? For a long time we ignorantly ignored the persecution of the Jews. We stood by and did nothing. By not interfering right away we condemned millions of people to death. We did not directly harm them and we could not have completely stopped the holocaust, but we could have saved many of the lives that were lost.we are guilty of doing nothing; we are also at fault.
The reason Hitler and the Nazis got away with so much before we finally stepped in was becasue people were more concerned with their well-being than the well-being of others. We were selfish. If Hitler wasn't out to get us it really didn't matter what he was doing. If Hitler had more opposition earlier on it likely would have saved many of lives.
Sadly I don't think that everyone has learned from our mistakes. I feel that our governments still only take action if it truly benefits themselves or our country. It is true that we eventually did the right thing by standing agaist Hitler; but by the time we did, many lives had already been lost. There are many conflicts happening in our world where persecuted people's plees for help continue to go unanswered.
I don't think we will ever allow something of the same magnitude as the holocaust to happen again, but our selfish nature still remains. If we truly believe humans are all equal we would help eachother right away when we are in need. Idealy this is what true equality would be like.
J.H.
The Holocaust has without a doubt changed the world. It was a devastating event that we now constantly work on to not allow to happen again. The holocaust opened our eyes to the explotation of certain people and how we cannot let humans treat other humans like that again. We must speak out and try to stop mistreatment not just as an individual but as a socail movement. We have learned to not turn down a cry of help, but sadly we still do. The holocaust has changed the way we look at others and how others look at us but we still need to work harder since we let hate crimes happen to groups aruond us.
C.O.
The horrific even “the holocaust” could have easily been prevented. When Hitler was on his rise to dictatorship power there were signs that he was mentally insane and had serious problems. He took the Jewish people and de huminalized them as if they were just animals, like seriously he made them eat grass off a field like goats. Sure ya you can hate them but seriously he should find a better solution, and the other side of the coin this was able to occur was because they were in depression and little by little he would take away the Jewish people rights “night of broken glass” for an example. If Hitler said that Jewish people were not able to work that made more jobs open up for other people so it sounded good but I feel as if I were there in the past even if I were to get shoot or kill I would have taken a stand because if you can’t take a stand for them who will take a stand for you.
JP
Well I’m not totally against the holocaust, but not with it either, what most of what they did was totally wrong, inhuman, and monstrous. Not supporting the idea of racial genocide either, but the annihilation of people will and always will be the favorite activity of the world. Eliminating human rights and picking them off while separating their beliefs into a fear is genius, Hitler is one of my favorite historic characters. Manipulating the minds of others and whole groups of organizations and bending them to his will of voice is utterly spectacular. However unfair methods of warfare are never really cool but sometimes necessary to the current goal; don’t see why he just didn’t use gas to kill his enemies rather than his “pests”. Gas chambers could’ve just been used against the allies, but he’d rather alienate the Jewish and work them to death, or just kill them without even the slightest idea they were going to die. The holocaust was a near-unstoppable event, Hitler gained his momentum slowly, accumulating at a slow and steady rate till it blew up and everyone was shocked by his totalitarian ideals. Separate the Jews from everyone was his first goal, make it so that they know who is a Jew i.e.: the yellow Star of David worn by all Jews, once the Jews were separated he then began his plan to destroy them. To be utmost honest and truthful I would have joined Hitler as a Nazi, probably as a commander or adviser or a military officer.
JTF
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