Reflection:

The Holocaust was the worst period of time in history. I wish I never learned about some of the things that went on during this time. The ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps had people killed or put into horrible living conditions. I don’t understand how someone could kill or hurt anyone. When we watched the movie about the Nuremberg trials that also shocked me because of the effect Hitler had on everyone. Reading the book Night also effected what I think about the Holocaust because I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know before.

The ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps were horrible. During World War 2 ghettos were created by the Nazis to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities in Eastern Europe. The ghettos were walled off and any Jew that tried to leave was shot. The ghettos had crowded living conditions, starvation diets, and little sanitation so thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation. Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration camp. About 2.5 million people had died at Auschwitz. Most of the Jews were killed in gas chambers using Zyklon-B, starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, and medical experiments.

The book Night was a very good book about the Holocaust. In some chapters I wanted to stop reading cause it was disgusting but I couldn’t because it was written in such a good way. It was disgusting how little kids were thrown into fires. Babies were also thrown into the air and were shot at like targets. How could someone kill a little kid? The people that did this obviously didn’t have a heart. Also in the beginning of the book it talked about how Jews were taken and slaughtered and buried in graves that they dug for themselves. how could someone live with themselves after doing this? I couldn’t imagine having to separate myself from my family if this ever happened to me. I would be scared out of my mind. The holocaust was really a war of it’s own. Everyone was fighting for themselves and their lives.

The Nuremberg trials we watched in school also gave me a better understanding of the holocaust. It showed how intense the trials were and how scared people were when they got sentenced to death. One part in the movie someone asked a Nazi if they new what was going on in the concentration camps. They said they didn’t know. How could you not know that 6 million Jews were killed just because of their religion? Every single one of the Nazi’s that killed a Jew was brainwashed b Adolf Hitler. They said they were following his orders to kill the Jews. How can you follow such an order kill an innocent human being?

The Nazi’s didn’t even care that they killed someone innocent. They could of said “no” to Hitler. You did not have to follow his orders. The only thing the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and many others did something supposedly wrong was have a different religion. Without that there would be no diversity in the world. I’m really glad I got to learn about the Holocaust because it gave me a better understanding of what went on back then. I really hope history doesn’t repeat itself. I think that’s why we learn about the things that happen in the past.

- Ashly Arnesen, period 6