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| Hitler and Stalin are pictured above. |
Genocide was a term that, prior to this week’s assignments, I would have first associated with the destruction, loss of life, and devastation that comes along with the oppression and extermination of a group. To denote the term genocide to an “individual,” and rightly so, is to force oneself to acknowledge the loss that just one person experiences. Thinking of even just one, victimized Ukrainian that was shown in the documentary, Soviet Story, one realizes the devastation that death brought to a family and their friends multiplied times the millions of other people that were affected in the same manner. The devastation is endless.
Elie Wiesel’s journey that he shares through his testimonial account of what it was like to go through holocaust brings an awareness of the damaging effects that this time of devastation has on the victims. He is captured at a young age, yet by the end of the testimony, we see that his whole life seems to have been destroyed by what he has just experienced. The text states, “I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me (Wiesel 115).” Here, the reader is shown that Wiesel sees himself as dead on the inside, yet the image of his eyes gazing at him seems to offer the hope that Wiesel’s life later becomes to be—a living testimony to what he has gone through in order to make sure the abusers and the continuations of these crimes against humanity cease to be acceptable and so widespread. When reading Wiesel’s acceptance speech, he discusses the importance of the world not remaining silent and opposing neutrality at times such as that.
Towards the end of his journey, the Nazis decide to evacuate his camp due to the advancement of the Russians. He makes a fifty-mile journey to another concentration camp with his father, and the language Elie expresses here makes it clear that he is beginning to lose hope for his situation. Early on in the film Conspiracy, the generals not only discuss the preliminary thought process to exterminating the Jews, but they also address the “problem” of Jews in occupied territories. The Wannsee Conference is conducted like any other form of normal business, accept the topic at hand is grueling. All of the generals show their approval by banging the table when the notion of having the Jews build their own death traps and gas chambers is brought up. How the Jews labor shouldn't not be used at its finest. Overall, they feel there is a great demand to get the Jews out because they are imposing of what is meant to be a great expansion and take over of Europe, and the Jews do not fall into their Marxist idea that Jews do not fall into an acceptable, salvageable category. The major states, "We do not need to surrender our prerogative to answer any Jewish questions, needs, or concerns." This brings back the idea of the “individual” in Elie Wiesel’s novel. Not only has he survived and endured the death of all of his family, but, essentially, he has “made the cut.” What must it be like to look at yourself after enduring such experiences and realize that you were, at some point, classified as completely undesirable to a nation? To realize you were deemed undesirable via Marxist ideology?
In the documentary the Soviet Story, there is debate between the ideals of the Nazis and the Soviet Union. The Soviets claimed they were not like the Nazis, but clearly this was not the case. The term “war of classes” is brought up, which is the idea that peace could only be achieved if you killed off certain groups of people. Stalin, for example, killed off the Ukrainians in inhumane ways because there was a difference of class in his eyes. In 1933, 7,000,000 Ukrainians were starved, which is one of the biggest mass exterminations to ever take place in such a short amount of time. At this point in the documentary, several images are shown that closely represent, on a smaller but similar scale, the images in Night, when 12 of 100 Jews show up alive after the cargo ride to Buchenwald.
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| Images at Buchenwald |
I found Soviet Story to be the most powerful documentary. They discuss how the Germans and Soviets advertised themselves as attacking fascist, Polish individuals, yet how powerful that dynamic was because the world did not realize these two men had schemed to attack all of Europe. We see Norway, Finland, France, and other countries fight to resist the force and brutality that these powers brought to their country, and how several other countries must get involved starting World War II. This lead to the term coined as “industrial killing,” as mentioned in the film. The documentary by exposing the brutality and remnants of the Holocaust that still exist in Moscow as they mock the deaths of the targeted Ukrainians, Jews, etc. and accept this behavior as a form of “cleansing” society. This notion seems to be the key piece that unites Night, Conspiracy, and Soviet Story—the idea that multiple government powers should collaborate to work towards the ultimate, Marxist cleansing of Europe despite the millions of lives that would be lost. Each does their greatest to show how “death is the most reliable form of sterilization and extermination (quoted in Conspiracy)” and how the world could possibly let this mass execution get so carried away.
"What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs." -Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
"What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs." -Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
Lauren, your discussion of Conspiracy and Soviet Story actually informs the text of Night. That is very important. Good job. Your concluding with the Nobel Prize speech is very focusing as well. It is also interesting that, while Hitler purged communists in his own country and throughout Europe and while Stalin returned German communists to Hitler to be exterminated, the two powers did have the same goals in mind--purging dissent, purging Jews, and creating a monolithic state. One wonders why the Allies welcomed them with open arms--tactical necessity I suppose. We will use them to win the war.
ReplyDeleteKerr Comment 2, Week 1: I like your in-depth discussion of the effects of genocide on the individual. I agree that when one thinks of the terms associated with the Holocaust—mass murder, genocide, extermination one thinks in terms of the masses and not the individual. One of the most important revelations from the book Night as well as the discussion of the Nuremberg laws in Conspiracy is the concept of individuality. Elie loses his sense of individuality as he is forced to focus on survival. The Nazi’s deliberately stripped their victims of the sense of individuality by removing their most basic rights and “dehumanizing” them. In my blog post I spoke about Elie’s descent into existentialism as he slowly loses his belief in God. He also attempts to maintain some semblance of human dignity in his relationship with his father, but is tempted at the bitter end to keep his dying father’s rations for himself. The Nuremberg laws left the idea of who was to be considered a Jew up to deliberation. Instead of individual assessments, the Nazi’s attempted to group all cases together by dissolving marriages between Jews and Germans and creating sub-categories of people based on the percentage of Jewish blood in the family. Even these so-called “special” cases were not treated on an individual basis. I also liked how your discussion of the Marxist categories. These categories, and the very basis of Hitler’s ideology, simply did not allow for individualism.
ReplyDeleteLauren, you brought up the point of the relationship between family and the individual. The central unit of society, in the view of the Catholic Church, is the family. It is from our family where we acquire our ability to act justly or unjustly in situations, our way of life, and our tastes in food and other cultural practices. Most importantly, these and many other variables collectively make up our individuality. By ripping families apart, a large portion of one’s individuality is taken as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I find it quite interesting how we talk about the loss of individuality and how the Nazis wanted to wipe the notion of the individual off the planet. I feel that by having the Jews build their own death traps, a sense of individuality is put into the death trap. Thus, the Jew dies with a sense of valor and pride of sorts. Nonetheless, I really liked the point about family.