Much attention has been paid to the non-Jews, around 20,000, recognized by *Yad Vashem as *Righteous Among the Nations, who risked their lives and, in most cases, the lives of their families and friends to rescue Jews who were fleeing the Nazis and earmarked for extermination. This recognition is correct and appropriate. However, what has been overlooked is that there were thousands and thousands of Jews who also acted during the Holocaust to rescue other Jews and arrange for them to be hidden or smuggled out of the country; or provided them with false identification papers so that they could pass as non-Jews. These efforts were often an organized response. In Bulgaria, Solidarite was active. Thousands of Jews survived thanks to this Jewish organization that found hiding places and arranged for false documents for Jews, many of whom were smuggled out of the country and sent to Palestine. …show more content…
The OSE even went into the French transit camps to take children from their parents just before the family was deported. In Holland, the leaders of the Jewish Council in Enschede, against the advice of the Amsterdam Jewish Council, began urging members of the community to resist the orders of the Germans to go to deportation sites and instead to go into hiding. Because they had financial and other resources to aid their community members, at the end of the war Enschede lost a smaller percentage of their members than the general Jewish population in the Netherlands. Five hundred Jews were
Eleven million individuals were victimized by the Holocaust. Six million of those victims were Jewish, while the other five million were groups targeted by the Nazi’s because they didn’t fit their discriminative criteria. Inhumane practices were used in attempts to purify and unify the German state (Novick, 225). When the Holocaust is discussed, the Jewish victims are usually the main focal point of the massive “genocide.”
Literature helps us remember the Holocaust and how other people tried helping the Jewish. In the text The Grand Mosque of Paris it states ¨Other Muslims also took a stand against the Nazi oppressors by refusing to reveal the whereabouts of the fugitives. Some helped Jews avoid detection by coaching them to speak like a Arabs. In The Diary of Anne Frank it states ¨Ration cards, the kind Miep Gies might have used to get food for the Franks.¨ both explain how other people helped
In Night by Elie Wiesel, he recounts his experiences in the Holocaust and talks about how many of the people involved–those who could be seen as perpetrators, victims and bystanders alike–and how denial played a key role in their actions in the Holocaust. Wiesel writes about denial so much as a warning to the reader, helping us understand that we need to avoid denial in the modern world and whatever crises we may face; if denial hadn’t been so prominent in the Holocaust, much less people would’ve died. This is clear in Wiesel’s retelling of the events.. Many people were involved in the Holocaust, obviously. Some were just innocent people, pushed into the deadly situation for being who they were; others were people seeking to somehow help themselves
Although being a bystander is not always the case for some individuals. Resistance from evil has been in the hearts of many and action has taken place from those with a certain will to help the world on numerous occasions. Such occasions occured in the Germany Holocaust when “Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center” (“Jewish Resistance”). There was also times when Jewish prisoners fought out against the guards to help their people. Another form of resistance was hiding or escaping from the Nazi’s. “In order to save lives, families hid from their persecutors and sometimes escapes occurred. Some sacrificed their own lives for other individuals, whilst others chose to kill themselves, realising that they would inevitably be killed by the Nazis,” (“Background: Resistance”).
Currently America honors those murdered by the Nazis with museums, monuments, and even a remembrance day. However during the Holocaust, under the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, America was reluctant to save the Jews from Europe. Six million Jews were systematically murdered through mass shootings, gas chambers, and in death marches. We might expect that as a model democracy, America would have made a great effort to rescue these Jews but that was sadly not what occurred. Due to America’s tradition of isolationism and a singular focus on achieving military victory, Roosevelt's attention to Jewish refugees in Europe during World War II can most accurately be characterized as a mix of missed opportunities and limited achievements.
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews.
The term “Righteous Gentile” or “Righteous among the Nations” is used to name those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The title is used informally as referring to anyone considered to be a savior of Jews, but it has an official role in the Israeli program of Holocaust remembrance, administered by Yad Vashem. The criteria established by Yad Vashem include the following: — “The rescuer ensured the survival of a Jew or Jews by extending aid to them when they were in danger of being killed or sent to a concentration camp; — The rescuer knew that he was risking his own life, freedom, and safety by acting to save the Jewish life; — The rescuer did not receive and did not expect any
“Half of a million have been killed in the Holocaust and over 4 million have fled.” according to haaretz.com. Its horrible that no one spoke out during this tragic event. People of Europe, the Germans, and any other people should have spoken out during this time but Jews did nothing wrong. They were everyone's scapegoat and the Jews were crucially hurt mentally and physically in the Holocaust by no other than the man Hitler and his men, the Nazis.
During the alienation of Jews during the Holocaust many of human rights were taken away as well as lives. In the beginning these innocent civilians were blind to what was going on. When finally everything made sense to them, their pride and dignity was being taken away from them within a blink of an eye. There was indeed consequences after the Holocaust to protect Jews as well as others; The Declaration of Human
Some survivors survived not by being rescued but by being hidden (Dornsife).“Rescue activities involved seemingly simple acts, such as finding and securing hiding places for families, and more complex activities, such as negotiating with German cadres for prisoner exchanges. ” “While many aid providers were individuals, operating independently, there are numerous examples of organized rescue during the Holocaust. Religious groups, political and resistance groups, and even neighborhoods and villages formed networks that worked together to save Jewish people in their communities” (Dornsife). Many rescue attempts included national embassies, “diplomats in countries throughout Europe helped Jews escape persecution by issuing visas and other travel paperwork that allowed Jewish citizens to flee Nazi-occupied territory” (Dornsife).
While some managed to escape and go into hiding, others were captured and sent to labor camps. While a large quantity of Jews were killed upon arrival, others were evaluated and sent to work. The Jews were starved, beaten, or killed and set on fire to make space for more Jews. All of their valuables had been taken away from them for the Nazi’s greed. They were put in blue striped Joseph Mandrowitz spoke of his journey while travelling to Auschwitz,
They saved Jews from the Nazis Concentration Camps, and death. One example was Varian Fry. Fry was in France during the time the holocaust began. He dislike Hitler and the holocaust. He decided to form the ERC (Emergency Rescue Plan) which was saved 200 refugees (Price 11). Later he made the American Relief Center, which gave refugees money and travel papers. However, the group would be a cover and gave people who were persucated by the nazi’s shelter, false travel papers, and it would help them get out of the country (Price 13). Another was Albert Hirschman who gave people false identity papers who didn’t want to be persecuted and wanted to stay in Europe (Price 14).These are few examples of the many heroes who helped save
Thousands survived the Holocaust as a results of the daring of these rescuers. tho' in total their vary is statistically very little, rescuers were all massive people.
Over six million people died in the Holocaust. Family, friends, and other people with the same ethnicity that they didn't even know were killed left and right. From the crematory to getting hung. Was it best for them to help each other or was it to protect themselves and not care about anyone else? (Prompt 5)
By the end of the war in 1945 6 million Jews were killed and 250,000 were freed from the concentration camps. As news about the holocaust emerged there was widespread sympathy for the Jews especially in the U.S.A. which had a large Jewish population. As a result of this,