Creative Writing: The Holocaust

Everyone’s experience during the Holocaust is one of a kind. All of their experiences have things in common and things that make them unique. For example, we can use an excerpt from Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night and “Roll Call,” by Charlotte Delbo. To show the things that make their experience unique and similar.

Elie Wiesel’s short memoir Night recounts his experience surviving the concentration camps during the Holocaust. In the third chapter of the book, he focuses on describing what it was like to arrive at the first concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the process the men had to go through to transform from men into prisoners. In addition to lying about his age and occupation, Wiesel lost his hair, his clothing, his mother and sisters, his name, and most importantly, his faith. Elie Wiesel's use of imagery and diction in Night makes readers understand the true atrocities of the Holocaust.

My father had already been taken away to Auschwitz, so when I saw my mom being pushed away I knew I was completely alone. August 3, 1942 Dear diary, I met a girl named Rachel, and we quickly became friends. Rachel is realistic, so she knows that we’re probably never going back to our parents. It’s been a few nights since our parents were taken away and I’ve been trying to help the little kids out.

We stood stunned, petrified. Could this be just a nightmare?” (Wiesel? ).An unimaginable nightmare. Families were separated as soon as they entered the camp.

The next few moments of my life after my arrival to Auschwitz happened in rapid succession and yet I know if I live a hundred years I will never forget a single second. Although I don’t know if I will live. We didn’t know the place to which we came, but I know only too well what it is

The Jews are transported from Birkenau to Auschwitz. “In the afternoon, they made [us] line up… [We were] told to roll up their left sleeves and file past the table.the three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, [tattooed] numbers on their left arms. [I became] A-7713. From then on, [I had] no other name”(pg.42).

The SS surprised us at the edge of town. German soldiers were running from house to house, smashing windows and doors, tearing children from their mothers' arms, loading everything they could onto trucks" (Wiesel 77). The brutality shown in this quote shows the guards increased dehumanization, as they systematically disrupt and destroy the lives of innocent civilians. The rampant violence becomes a routine part of the guard's actions, reinforcing the normalization of cruelty within the camp. The dehumanization process not only robs the prisoners of their humanity but also erodes the guard's moral compass, leading

“At Auschwitz dying was so easy,” Eva Mozes Kor mentioned in her book, Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz. An estimated number of 1,500 sets of twins went into the “Angel of Death’s” trap, but only 100 sets of twins made it out of this excruciating experience. Experiments after surgery, after shots, and after measurements was no match to the mind set of Eva and Miriam. Despite this tragedy, the twins managed to survive the evil Dr. Josef Mengele. The medical experiments, the liberation, and the life after escaping Auschwitz was a difficult but an eye-opening journey for the Mozes twins.

The Germans in charge of coming up with a sufficient means of transportation had a heavy sense of superiority in that their prisoners were lower than animals. They had only tried to maintain the cheapest, most efficient method of transit of the Jews to their concentration camp. The deportees who survived were left with a scarring imprint of this trip, as it was the first branch of their torture, for most, the rest of their lives. After two interviews with two different survivors, it is inferred that the same approach was used for all the prisoners being transported to their destination of their demise. The people who were forced to endure this dehumanizing means of transit underwent a complete stripping of humanity that foreshadowed their ultimate

The rain was relentless. It turned blue skies to a bleak, wretched grey. The soldiers too, had once smiled like the sun, proud to be serving their country. Now, they could only see bullets in their future, striking through their body and leaving them to fall as a dead weight. Their fate had already been decided: six feet under in a wooden box.

Eva Schloss, a Jew, was frequently struggling to remind herself to stay hopeful in the depressing time of the Holocaust. After years of hiding, she was placed in an extremely harsh concentration camp called Auschwitz. For Eva and the other Jews of Europe during this time, along with anyone under Nazi hate, staying alive was their biggest obstacle, but it was very difficult for them to escape the Nazis. Modern literature and media about the Holocaust shows other various challenges that can be connected to this time in Europe. Overcoming obstacles like facing the passing of loved ones, spreading awareness or resolving frustrations is an important subject in real life and in stories.

On December 13, 1943, a twenty four year old, Jewish-Italian man’s life was changed forever. This Jewish-Italian man’s name is Primo Levi. Survival In Auschwitz, a book written by Primo Levi, portrays the horrific experience Levi lived through. Levi was captured by the Fascist Militia who forced Levi, along with hundreds of others, into wagons where they would be transported to a holding camp until they were taken to Auschwitz. There were 12 wagons that would transport all of the six hundred and fifty captured men to the camp of Auschwitz in Poland. Immediately upon their arrival to the camp, they were asked simple questions, such as “healthy or ill?’. Depending on the response they would give, they would be sent in two different directions. The book describes this process to take no longer than

When learning about the Holocaust, most are deprived of being able to understand the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of the millions of Jews; however, Elie Wiesel gives this opportunity through the telling of his personal experience. After ten years of silence, Elie Wiesel recounts his personal experiences of the Holocaust and retells the horrific details of the events he witnessed in his honest, eye-opening memoir Night. Taken at a young age, Elie Wiesel is transported to Auschwitz; at this concentration camp, Wiesel is separated from his mother and younger sister, whom he would never see again. During his years in the concentration camp, Wiesel and his father worked long exhausting hours every day. After a forty-two mile trip from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz in the snow and bitter cold, Elie Wiesel watches the slow death of his father by malnutrition and a harsh beating from the Nazis. Three months later American forces liberate the camp, freeing Wiesel. One of the most important memoirs one can read and a true inspiration, Night deserves to be read by everyone.

“We’ll be fine honey… don't give up we'll see eachother again I promise”, my mother said as they pulled us apart into different rooms. Her voice was shaken, we had been been sent to Auschwitz and during the trip here she cried and pleaded the entire time. As if they would suddenly have sympathy for us… during our entire time here there was not one commander that at least seemed to have any sympathy or remorse for us… they actually seemed to be enjoying our suffering. My mother was gone now and I, along with a few other dozen of us were escorted to another room. We had just been examined by the doctors and the people who I was with were mainly young girls. Many with their mothers… they all looked at me as if I was some lost puppy. I could

The kitchen table had names barely keeping the legs on, trying to savor it long enough to get through the war. I rise and look through the bare cabinets for something for us to eat, but we had nothing. I was going to have to find my way to the neighbors house to ask for food. I sigh and grab my coat before slipping my boots on. I walk outside, where the guns shooting gets louder, I knew I was going to have to make it there as fast as I could.