Witness In The Holocaust
What is a witness? A Witness is usually someone who sees an event, or action take place. They then recount what they have seen through different mediums. Whether these mediums be orally, or written. When it comes to the Holocaust there are many forms of Witnessing, and of course, many different events that were witnessed by different people. But can you count as a witness without actually experiencing certain events in the Holocaust? Can I be a witness to the horrific events that happened although I am only experiencing these events through text? In the article Mothers, Sisters, Resisters a collection of oral histories by Brana Gurewitsch, the reader sees Brandl Small's retelling of her time before and during Auschwitz. It is difficult to
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This was a turning point in history. Clementis was standing close to Gottwald and Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald’s head. A photograph was taken and this photograph was shared thousands of times, in school books, posters and museums. Yet, four years later, when Clementis was charged with treason and hanged he was vanished from history. The propaganda photograph was photoshopped to remove Clementis. Where he stood there is now only a bare place on the wall, and nothing remains of him except his fur hat on Gottwalds head. This is the reason why we as readers need to become witnesses. Communist Regimes like Kundera talks about, and during the Holocaust want to control memory. If we allow ourselves to forget we are allowing them to control and erase our …show more content…
She first talks about what the Nazi's came looking to take her for the first time and she hid with her child. She writes “That time I saved my child” (87). That quote is chilling and foreshadowing the idea that later down in her time she is going to be unable to save her own child from being killed. Which is true, later in her recount of what happened to her she writes how the child was taken and “She disappeared, I don't know where. My child would be now forty-four years old. She was four when they took her from my arms” (88). As someone who actually experienced this the fact that she has to retell her story of her child being ripped from her arm is such a hard thing to do. And us as readers need to be able to tell her story, to not have her daughter be forgotten and to make sure people know what really happened during this awful
This was a turning point in history. Clementis was standing close to Gottwald and Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald’s head. A photograph was taken and this photograph was shared thousands of times, in school books, posters and museums. Yet, four years later, when Clementis was charged with treason and hanged he was vanished from history. The propaganda photograph was photoshopped to remove Clementis. Where he stood there is now only a bare place on the wall, and nothing remains of him except his fur hat on Gottwalds head. This is the reason why we as readers need to become witnesses. Communist Regimes like Kundera talks about, and during the Holocaust want to control memory. If we allow ourselves to forget we are allowing them to control and erase our …show more content…
She first talks about what the Nazi's came looking to take her for the first time and she hid with her child. She writes “That time I saved my child” (87). That quote is chilling and foreshadowing the idea that later down in her time she is going to be unable to save her own child from being killed. Which is true, later in her recount of what happened to her she writes how the child was taken and “She disappeared, I don't know where. My child would be now forty-four years old. She was four when they took her from my arms” (88). As someone who actually experienced this the fact that she has to retell her story of her child being ripped from her arm is such a hard thing to do. And us as readers need to be able to tell her story, to not have her daughter be forgotten and to make sure people know what really happened during this awful