Reflection:

When I first heard about the Holocaust I couldn’t believe that one person could have so much

control and influence so many people. He manipulated people’s thoughts to what he wanted them to do. I couldn’t imagine how many people that had died from the Nazi’s during the Holocaust. I don’t know how they didn’t do anything to be in that position and had no chance to change the Nazi’s or Hitler’s way of thinking. Also that they were born into their death. They had no idea what they were if for. They had no clue that they would be endanger just for being born a Jew or anyone else that Hitler killed.

When I started to learn more and more about the Holocaust I couldn’t even stand how one person could torture and/or kill another person of their own kind. It just disgusted me thinking about being in their position, and having to be separated from my own family. Also having no clue what is going on or what is going to happen to myself and family.

When I first started reading Night I read about what Elie Wiesel’s teacher went through and saw what I can’t imagine it. Or what I would do if I was in his situation. When he said that the “babies were thrown into the air and that machine gunners used them as targets,” my jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe it. It was nauseating. Also how the Gestapo stopped the train full of deportees and took charge of them. Then all of a sudden they were brought to the concentration camp and they were separated from their family. They had no clue what was going on and most of them were killed. That was just disgusting, how people could do that to other human beings.

When we were watching the movie in class of the trial that German officers had to go to because of the war crimes. When they asked them if they felt bad for what they did to the people in the concentration camps, and they all just said no because they got an order to do that and they didn’t want to disobey their orders. I couldn’t believe that they said that. In my head I was thinking FREEDOM OF SPEECH! If all of the officers and Nazi’s just said no to Hitler, the population would be higher right now. Also we wouldn’t even have to think about the past and all of the people that suffered and died during the Holocaust. When the German officers said that it wasn’t really their fault it actually was.

When I think about the Holocaust I don’t think of happy, happy, joy, joy! I think of death, depression, sadness, torture, hatred, and disgust. Doing this project on the Holocaust just opened my mind and gave me a better idea about the Holocaust. It made me think about how lucky I am to not be living back then and having to go through seeing and hearing of what was actually happening right there and then. There would be no where to escape because the whole world was in a huge war. All of my feelings toward the Holocaust would have to be disappointment, disgust, and sympathy. I don’t know how people who went through the Holocaust could ever live life like it never happened and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was a Nazi doing anything like that to anyone.

-Michelle Scanlon Pd.3