Holocaust Essays (1353 words) - The Holocaust, Esther Hautzig

Holocaust A Terrible Tragedy The human tragedy of the Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II. The adversity of this persecution influenced not only the European arena, but also peoples from all over the globe and their ideas. The impact caused by this ethnic cleansing was enormous. People's lives were drastically changed as they were persecuted and tortured. Families were taken out of their homes and forced to move to distant locations in exile. Their destinations were unknown and their future was also unsettled for they did not know what would await them. That is exactly what happened to Esther Hautzig, the writer of The Endless Steppe, when she was just a little ten-year-old girl. Esther's family, the Rudomins, was wealthy and ran a business in Vilna, Poland. They lived a happy and stable life until they were claimed to be ?capitalists and therefore enemies of the people.? Consequently, they were put on a truck that would send them to the ?Endless Steppe? of Siberia, where they would struggle to survive five long years of starvation and suffering (Hautzig 12). Esther shares her feelings with the readers throughout her book; she tells us what exactly felt like to be in a cattle car full of peasants who seemed to be handling the situation in a much better way than she and her family did. She tells us of when they get to their destination and of how she attempted to gain an education in the conditions they were subjected to. Hautzig's Endless Steppe shows us the reality of the Holocaust; it puts us to think about our matters as very small and insignificant as we read about what the Rudomin Family had to go through and it makes us see how humans can become ?monsters? and performs such horrible and outrageous things such as massive murders. Another book that illustrates the calamity of the Holocaust is Memories of my life in a Polish Village, by T.K. Fluek. In her book, Toby Fluek, a small Jewish girl, describes how her family had to move to a Jewish Ghetto and go into hiding several times to save their lives when World War II began. By the end of the war, only she and her mother had survived. Toby became an artist and presents her story through the use of her own art in paintings and descriptions of them. It is amazing to hear from the people who have actually survived the Holocaust. It shows us how much we still have to learn about the world and the civilizations and how hard it is to understand the reason why we do such things to our fellow human beings. ?By 1945, two out of every three European Jews had been killed and the survivors continued to be oppressed.? (Telles 51) In addition, thousands of political and religious dissidents such as communists, socialists, trade unionists, and Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted for their beliefs and behavior and many of these individuals died as a result of maltreatment. According to the Preface to the Study of Women and the Holocaust, ?every Jew, regardless of gender, was equally a victim in the Holocaust? (Ringelheim 17). Women, men and children were equally threatening to the Nazis. Children were seen as ?the next generation of Jews? and, therefore, would have to be banned too. ?Jewish women and men experienced unrelieved suffering during the Holocaust? and we can understand it better by reading the books that survivors of that horror wrote, sharing with us all they went through (Ringelheim 26). However, understanding should not be enough! We must be aware of all the hardship, misery and pain that the victims of the holocaust had to endure. We have to imagine what it was like and how bad it would be if something of such impact would be happening to us. Only by doing so we can prevent things like this from happening again. For example, the American Slavery and the genocide of Native American Slaves were also events of great anguish that happened in our society and that have some aspects that can be related to the Holocaust, such as the belief of a superior race and so on. In conclusion, I