Descriptive Essay On The Holocaust
The main motive of this photograph is essentially a global history of the Jewish people. It is very specific, sad and instructive. In order to properly clarify this picture, we have to start from the beginning, shed light on the history of the Jewish people, and pay particular attention to the dark times during the Holocaust, and particularly refer to the Jewish understanding of the holiday.
Jewish history tells us about how the Jewish people lived from the time when they appeared up to the present day. The nation is like a big family, and a large family can be compared to a tree. This is the way that the Jewish people formed. It exists for more than three thousand years. They used to have their own country called Eretz Yisrael, in which the …show more content…
whole people spoke one language. Later they were scattered around the world and therefore started speaking different languages depending on the country they were in. But Jews everywhere feel that they are members of the same family, that they are brothers and sisters. (Brink 135 – 137)
The history of the Jewish people
The territory of the "holy land" - holy to all three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) - is one of the most continuously populated parts of the planet Earth, and Jews have lived in it - it is known - since the beginning of the second millennium BC, until the beginning of the first millennium BC. During that time they have established, lost and renewed many kingdoms on that territory. They were exiled and then returned from captivity. "Promised Land” pulled them back like a magnet. (Edmiston, 2006) However, the events of two thousand years ago are located in the heart of the problem that is taking place in the Middle East, mostly between Israel and Palestine. The Roman Empire ruled already ruled this for a hundred years at the time, when Hebrews started a rebellion in year 66 BC. The rebellion ended in year 73BC, but the turning point was in the year 70BC, when Jerusalem was under siege, which ended with the demolition of the temple. All that is left of it today is the Western Wall, the holiest site of Judaism. This war, like the uprising fifty years later, effectively cleansed Jews from the Holly Land: those who were not exiled were killed - some sources speak about half a million dead. (Morrison 181 – 206) The remaining was just a small, insignificant group of the people. For the next two thousand years the rulers of this land kept changing from Rome, its successor Byzantium, Arabs and the Turks, and the British Empire came in year 1917.
New emigration of Jews to Palestine began in the 15th and 16th centurie, when they were positioned in the "four holy cities" - Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron and Safed. However, the first big wave begins only with the development of Zionism as a political movement in the 19th century: the aforementioned ideology called for the return of the nation of Israel to the "promised land" and the establishment of a Jewish state, and was named after Zion the synonym for Jerusalem. Kabala, for example, sees Jerusalem as an external manifestation of Zionism. During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour promised the World Jewish Congress, the State of Palestine, which at that time was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and which in this historical moment, was populated mostly by Palestinian Arabs.
As the persecution of Jews multiplied in Europe, so has accelerated the process of their settlement in Palestine: between 1904 and 1914, 40,000 people arrived, mostly Orthodox. With them also came, the socialists who founded the kibbutz movement, and agricultural cooperatives in which everything is collectively owned. (Beinin and Hajjar, 2014)
The growth of Nazism and anti-Semitism in the Old World has led to a new, huge influx of Jews, which slowly began to concern the Arabs and the Palestinians, and it provoked the uprising against British rule in 1936, which lasted until 1939. It ended with the execution of the Palestinian leaders, so the Palestinian people entered a decisive decade headless. On the other hand, out of the desire to remain on good terms with the Muslims in the Middle East, the British brought the so-called White Paper, which limited the influx of Jews to Palestine.
The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe - the case of Poland
Poland is very important for the topic we need to deal with, because the photo in question was taken during the persecution in Poland, ie. Warsaw. In the picture are the Jews who pray on a big Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur in October 1940.
The epidemic of Nazism firstly spread on countries where the soil was convenient. Poland has proven to be the country most susceptible to become infected: anti-Semitism, which is propagated by the Polish National Democratic Party, raged even before the arrival of Hitler. Even the party of Marshal Pilsudski, then in power, was no exception. The Marshal himself, in recent years, was more and more turned away from the liberal principles. Among the heads of European states he was the first to be make a non-aggression pact with Hitler, and this at a time when the libertarian world is horrified of the crimes performed by the "brown shirts". At the same time, Poland has decided to cancel the League of Nations Treaty on the Protection of National Minorities, which was signed during the Conference in 1919. (Barbaro et all 55 – 60)
At that time in Polish public opinion a plan was conceived for the solution of the Jewish question by means of partial or complete migration of the Jewish population abroad. There were different opinions on how to boycott Jewish shops and even different opinions on how to terrorize the Jewish population. The Democratic Party of the late Marshal gave primacy to the "legitimate" means: limiting the civil rights of Jews, boycott propaganda and its legalization.
A month after the death of Pilsudski, in June 1935 the first persecution of Jews took place in Grodno. The court that is supposed to judge the perpetrators of this violence, handed down severe punishment to the Jews who were defending themselves from looters. (Ibid) Since then, Poland has introduced a wave of persecutions which were apparently managed by a powerful organization. Year 1936 was particularly full of temptations. The peasants, encouraged by national -democrats, attacked Jews in the markets, in their shops, and in their homes. The police were turning a blind eye, and the courts have continued to severely punish those who resisted the attackers. Jewish students were abused in almost all universities. Special benches were placed for them and they had to endure the worst indignities. They were roughly beaten, and sometimes severely wounded.
In year 1936 the alliance between Hitler's Germany and fascist Italy, ruled by Mussolini, strengthened Nazism and made it even bolder. (Ibid) The Nazis are no longer satisfied just with cruel persecution of the Jewish population of Germany, but they created a network of anti-Semitic propaganda all over the world. Germany as a new military force and its growing political influence and activities of its innumerable agents everywhere just fed all anti-Semitic tendencies. Hitler became the spiritual leader of the world’s anti-Semitism.
Warsaw ghetto
At the end of the year 1940, the German occupation authorities began the so-called ghettoization of the Jewish population in Poland, which at the time numbered more than three million people. Ghettos are formed in all major Polish cities, and were extremely crowded. In the largest of them, the Warsaw ghetto, a little less than 400,000 people lived on only 3.3 square kilometers. Pre mass deportations to concentration camps (mainly Treblinka), thousands of Jews died of hunger and disease, mainly typhus. The deportation of Jews from the ghetto, called "big action" was carried out by units of the SS under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Hoefle. Shortly before the start of deportations, Hoefle requested from Adam Czerniaków, the leader of the Jewish community in Warsaw, "to provide 7,000 Jews a day for resettlement to the East". When he realized that the so-called "resettlement to the East" means the deportation and death of Polish Jews, Czerniaków committed suicide by a cyanide capsule, leaving his wife a suicide note in which he wrote: "They require me to kill Jewish children with my own hands. I am left with nothing but to die. “Over the next two months, during the deportations, nearly 300,000 inhabitants of the ghetto - Jews were deported to death. (Winick, 2005)
At the beginning of the deportation members of the Jewish resistance movement decided not to do anything, believing that the Jews were really taken to labor camps rather than death camps.
At the end of 1942, realizing what deportation really is, they decided to resist.
Two of the most famous photographs related to the Holocaust, are associated with the Warsaw ghetto. Boy with the razed hands (recorded at the end of the uprising in the ghetto) and German Chancellor Willy Brandt pictured kneeling in front of the monument to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto. This is perhaps the third most important photo related to the Warsaw Ghetto, connecting the spiritual and social tone of the Jewish people.
Germans entered the ghetto on April 19, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Many of the remaining Jews, knowing that death is certainly waiting, decided to fight "to the last". Hundreds of inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto, many among whom were children, prepared for the fight. Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of the uprising, said that "the Rebels numbered around 220 members, and the Nazis had 2000 soldiers. '' The Germans had aviation, artillery, armored vehicles, and mortars. Every Rebel had a gun, five-flammable and five hand grenades. Each part of the ghetto had three carbines, and the whole ghetto had 2 mines and one automatic pistol. “Jewish fighters were able to provide the resistance that will save their lives. They were fighting for the honor of the Jewish people but also to protest the silence of world public. (Edelman 38 –
77)
SS units were planned to complete the operation in three days. After the losses incurred on the first day, the commanding officer was dismissed. Jurgen Stroop took over the management of the operations, which slowed down the action with the aim of minimal losses. Germans flamethrowers burned house by house. The uprising lasted for about a month. It is estimated that 16 SS soldiers were killed and about 7,000 Jews, inhabitants of the ghetto. Around 42,000 remaining Jews were deported to concentration camps. The move was completed on 16 May with the demolition of the Great Synagogue in Warsaw. (Ibid)
The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur
To make the photograph in question clearer say we need to say a few words about the history of the holiday Yom Kippur, because on the photograph we see people gathered for a prayer on this holiday.
Yom Kippur is a holiday of reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness. It is celebrated the tenth day of the seventh month tissri (October) and is carried out in the temple, in prayer and fasting. On this day every believer carries in itself the laws of the Torah, mercy and lofty sense of unity with all people. Yom Kippur is the climax and completion of the ten-day period of repentance that begins on Ros-asana. (Peretz 33 – 44)
Basic thoughts on Yom Kippur are regret, moral optimism and widely compassion for human suffering in general, especially for the suffering of the Jews. The idea of repentance is considered one of the brightest lessons of Judaism. The man would be most unfortunate being if he were not able to atone for his sins. Optimistic spirit of the Jews cannot stand the idea that a man should always have to despair and lose faith in himself. No one can sink so deeply into sin that he could not repent. Prayers for Yom Kippur express the thought of brotherhood and mutual forgiveness and remind us that there is no sinless human being. Confessions are stylized in the first person plural, which tends to emphasize the responsibility of the entire community and for those offenses made by individuals. Prayers move with an upward motion, from feelings of guilt to cheerfulness and confidence in God's grace. The entire human activity is reflected in these prayers and poetic compositions, some of which are literary masterpieces, to show how human faults and weaknesses deviate from perfect order infinite universe. (Graubart 1 – 3)
Jewish history tells us about how the Jewish people lived from the time when they appeared up to the present day. The nation is like a big family, and a large family can be compared to a tree. This is the way that the Jewish people formed. It exists for more than three thousand years. They used to have their own country called Eretz Yisrael, in which the …show more content…
whole people spoke one language. Later they were scattered around the world and therefore started speaking different languages depending on the country they were in. But Jews everywhere feel that they are members of the same family, that they are brothers and sisters. (Brink 135 – 137)
The history of the Jewish people
The territory of the "holy land" - holy to all three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) - is one of the most continuously populated parts of the planet Earth, and Jews have lived in it - it is known - since the beginning of the second millennium BC, until the beginning of the first millennium BC. During that time they have established, lost and renewed many kingdoms on that territory. They were exiled and then returned from captivity. "Promised Land” pulled them back like a magnet. (Edmiston, 2006) However, the events of two thousand years ago are located in the heart of the problem that is taking place in the Middle East, mostly between Israel and Palestine. The Roman Empire ruled already ruled this for a hundred years at the time, when Hebrews started a rebellion in year 66 BC. The rebellion ended in year 73BC, but the turning point was in the year 70BC, when Jerusalem was under siege, which ended with the demolition of the temple. All that is left of it today is the Western Wall, the holiest site of Judaism. This war, like the uprising fifty years later, effectively cleansed Jews from the Holly Land: those who were not exiled were killed - some sources speak about half a million dead. (Morrison 181 – 206) The remaining was just a small, insignificant group of the people. For the next two thousand years the rulers of this land kept changing from Rome, its successor Byzantium, Arabs and the Turks, and the British Empire came in year 1917.
New emigration of Jews to Palestine began in the 15th and 16th centurie, when they were positioned in the "four holy cities" - Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron and Safed. However, the first big wave begins only with the development of Zionism as a political movement in the 19th century: the aforementioned ideology called for the return of the nation of Israel to the "promised land" and the establishment of a Jewish state, and was named after Zion the synonym for Jerusalem. Kabala, for example, sees Jerusalem as an external manifestation of Zionism. During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour promised the World Jewish Congress, the State of Palestine, which at that time was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and which in this historical moment, was populated mostly by Palestinian Arabs.
As the persecution of Jews multiplied in Europe, so has accelerated the process of their settlement in Palestine: between 1904 and 1914, 40,000 people arrived, mostly Orthodox. With them also came, the socialists who founded the kibbutz movement, and agricultural cooperatives in which everything is collectively owned. (Beinin and Hajjar, 2014)
The growth of Nazism and anti-Semitism in the Old World has led to a new, huge influx of Jews, which slowly began to concern the Arabs and the Palestinians, and it provoked the uprising against British rule in 1936, which lasted until 1939. It ended with the execution of the Palestinian leaders, so the Palestinian people entered a decisive decade headless. On the other hand, out of the desire to remain on good terms with the Muslims in the Middle East, the British brought the so-called White Paper, which limited the influx of Jews to Palestine.
The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe - the case of Poland
Poland is very important for the topic we need to deal with, because the photo in question was taken during the persecution in Poland, ie. Warsaw. In the picture are the Jews who pray on a big Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur in October 1940.
The epidemic of Nazism firstly spread on countries where the soil was convenient. Poland has proven to be the country most susceptible to become infected: anti-Semitism, which is propagated by the Polish National Democratic Party, raged even before the arrival of Hitler. Even the party of Marshal Pilsudski, then in power, was no exception. The Marshal himself, in recent years, was more and more turned away from the liberal principles. Among the heads of European states he was the first to be make a non-aggression pact with Hitler, and this at a time when the libertarian world is horrified of the crimes performed by the "brown shirts". At the same time, Poland has decided to cancel the League of Nations Treaty on the Protection of National Minorities, which was signed during the Conference in 1919. (Barbaro et all 55 – 60)
At that time in Polish public opinion a plan was conceived for the solution of the Jewish question by means of partial or complete migration of the Jewish population abroad. There were different opinions on how to boycott Jewish shops and even different opinions on how to terrorize the Jewish population. The Democratic Party of the late Marshal gave primacy to the "legitimate" means: limiting the civil rights of Jews, boycott propaganda and its legalization.
A month after the death of Pilsudski, in June 1935 the first persecution of Jews took place in Grodno. The court that is supposed to judge the perpetrators of this violence, handed down severe punishment to the Jews who were defending themselves from looters. (Ibid) Since then, Poland has introduced a wave of persecutions which were apparently managed by a powerful organization. Year 1936 was particularly full of temptations. The peasants, encouraged by national -democrats, attacked Jews in the markets, in their shops, and in their homes. The police were turning a blind eye, and the courts have continued to severely punish those who resisted the attackers. Jewish students were abused in almost all universities. Special benches were placed for them and they had to endure the worst indignities. They were roughly beaten, and sometimes severely wounded.
In year 1936 the alliance between Hitler's Germany and fascist Italy, ruled by Mussolini, strengthened Nazism and made it even bolder. (Ibid) The Nazis are no longer satisfied just with cruel persecution of the Jewish population of Germany, but they created a network of anti-Semitic propaganda all over the world. Germany as a new military force and its growing political influence and activities of its innumerable agents everywhere just fed all anti-Semitic tendencies. Hitler became the spiritual leader of the world’s anti-Semitism.
Warsaw ghetto
At the end of the year 1940, the German occupation authorities began the so-called ghettoization of the Jewish population in Poland, which at the time numbered more than three million people. Ghettos are formed in all major Polish cities, and were extremely crowded. In the largest of them, the Warsaw ghetto, a little less than 400,000 people lived on only 3.3 square kilometers. Pre mass deportations to concentration camps (mainly Treblinka), thousands of Jews died of hunger and disease, mainly typhus. The deportation of Jews from the ghetto, called "big action" was carried out by units of the SS under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Hoefle. Shortly before the start of deportations, Hoefle requested from Adam Czerniaków, the leader of the Jewish community in Warsaw, "to provide 7,000 Jews a day for resettlement to the East". When he realized that the so-called "resettlement to the East" means the deportation and death of Polish Jews, Czerniaków committed suicide by a cyanide capsule, leaving his wife a suicide note in which he wrote: "They require me to kill Jewish children with my own hands. I am left with nothing but to die. “Over the next two months, during the deportations, nearly 300,000 inhabitants of the ghetto - Jews were deported to death. (Winick, 2005)
At the beginning of the deportation members of the Jewish resistance movement decided not to do anything, believing that the Jews were really taken to labor camps rather than death camps.
At the end of 1942, realizing what deportation really is, they decided to resist.
Two of the most famous photographs related to the Holocaust, are associated with the Warsaw ghetto. Boy with the razed hands (recorded at the end of the uprising in the ghetto) and German Chancellor Willy Brandt pictured kneeling in front of the monument to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto. This is perhaps the third most important photo related to the Warsaw Ghetto, connecting the spiritual and social tone of the Jewish people.
Germans entered the ghetto on April 19, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Many of the remaining Jews, knowing that death is certainly waiting, decided to fight "to the last". Hundreds of inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto, many among whom were children, prepared for the fight. Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of the uprising, said that "the Rebels numbered around 220 members, and the Nazis had 2000 soldiers. '' The Germans had aviation, artillery, armored vehicles, and mortars. Every Rebel had a gun, five-flammable and five hand grenades. Each part of the ghetto had three carbines, and the whole ghetto had 2 mines and one automatic pistol. “Jewish fighters were able to provide the resistance that will save their lives. They were fighting for the honor of the Jewish people but also to protest the silence of world public. (Edelman 38 –
77)
SS units were planned to complete the operation in three days. After the losses incurred on the first day, the commanding officer was dismissed. Jurgen Stroop took over the management of the operations, which slowed down the action with the aim of minimal losses. Germans flamethrowers burned house by house. The uprising lasted for about a month. It is estimated that 16 SS soldiers were killed and about 7,000 Jews, inhabitants of the ghetto. Around 42,000 remaining Jews were deported to concentration camps. The move was completed on 16 May with the demolition of the Great Synagogue in Warsaw. (Ibid)
The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur
To make the photograph in question clearer say we need to say a few words about the history of the holiday Yom Kippur, because on the photograph we see people gathered for a prayer on this holiday.
Yom Kippur is a holiday of reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness. It is celebrated the tenth day of the seventh month tissri (October) and is carried out in the temple, in prayer and fasting. On this day every believer carries in itself the laws of the Torah, mercy and lofty sense of unity with all people. Yom Kippur is the climax and completion of the ten-day period of repentance that begins on Ros-asana. (Peretz 33 – 44)
Basic thoughts on Yom Kippur are regret, moral optimism and widely compassion for human suffering in general, especially for the suffering of the Jews. The idea of repentance is considered one of the brightest lessons of Judaism. The man would be most unfortunate being if he were not able to atone for his sins. Optimistic spirit of the Jews cannot stand the idea that a man should always have to despair and lose faith in himself. No one can sink so deeply into sin that he could not repent. Prayers for Yom Kippur express the thought of brotherhood and mutual forgiveness and remind us that there is no sinless human being. Confessions are stylized in the first person plural, which tends to emphasize the responsibility of the entire community and for those offenses made by individuals. Prayers move with an upward motion, from feelings of guilt to cheerfulness and confidence in God's grace. The entire human activity is reflected in these prayers and poetic compositions, some of which are literary masterpieces, to show how human faults and weaknesses deviate from perfect order infinite universe. (Graubart 1 – 3)