These sources were extremely overwhelming. The fact that so many people were willing to inflict atrocities on other innocent people is astonishing and disturbing. This was not even close to 100 years ago. Reading the 8 Steps to Genocide article really made an impact on me in terms of how close America has gotten to some of those early stages, (and in some ways, are currently still present). Just the idea of 'us' and 'them' and stereotyping different races or cultures is something we see all the time in our own lives. The way a section of Americans view homosexuals/transexuals or anyone who does not fall into the binary gendered heterosexual 'boy' or 'girl' category...this is something categorized in Stage 1. America's past with slavery and extreme racial discrimination against Blacks, Japanese, and numerous other cultures... Japanese people were even taken into camps and excluded from the rest of the public, which borders Stage 6. Although, the government never organized any murders of the Japanese, the public segregation of these innocent people was rampant.
Watching the liberation of Buchenwald was horrific. I visited that camp when I was about 7. That was the first time I had ever heard of the Holocaust and as a child it was completely bewildering to me how that could happen. It still is. The way the Nazis treated the Jews as objects and killed them in such inhumane ways, along with experimenting on them, is terrifying.
The Walk Through Auschwitz was very impacting in showing how the camps looked seemingly normal from the outside. The red brick buildings and green grass look like they could be schoolhouses or hospitals or apartments. I found it astonishing how while a majority of the prisoners were Jewish, so many of them were just different races. The Nazis just rounded up people who were not 'Aryan' and murdered them thoughtlessly.
Well done Clara, i really liked how you described America as almost performing acts of genocide, but its strange because you never would hear it as that way. Usually it is a different country doing it, but now that i reflect on some of the things that we did as a nation, it is scary. I also completely agree with you on how the building at Auschwitz looked like school houses or apartment, that what i thought when i first looked that them, but once you see inside, you see the real intention and horror.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's amazing how the concentration camps looked like normal places. I think that adds to how most people living near the camps had no idea what was going on because if they were green and generally happy looking I'm sure people gladly went around with no idea what was happening inside. Another point I totally agree with in your reflection is what you said about the Japanese internment camps bordering stage six on the eight stages to genocide, not only did the Japanese internment camps discriminate but also there has been a lot of racial and sexual discrimination in America even today. I think people should take a real consideration when studying the Holocaust in how people are discriminating in our lives in the present.
ReplyDelete