Reflecting on Nazi and Turkish Rule, Haley

As I sit back and reflect on our unit about the Holocaust, I am overwhelmed with different images and emotions. The Holocaust museum had many different effects on me. While the information and images that covered the walls interested me, they also made me hurt inside. It was difficult for me to look at the images and try to understand what the Jews had been through. The images of people being burned alive and charred to death struck me and angered me that anyone would ever have to experience that pain. All the artifacts and images in the museum seemed so surreal as if it was not possible for someone to be treated with such brutality. As I continued through the floors of the museum, the stories and images became more and more real, as though I was there with the suffering people. I was also upset that so many people's lives had been taken away for a piece of who they were that they could not control. Through reading the memoir, Night, and watching videos, I was able to develop a new understanding of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. I learned a lot about how I personally react to tragedy and what emotions fill me as I gain knowledge of these events. Both events involved so much tragedy and hardship that they were very difficult to learn about. Many times I found myself angry and confused about how anyone would ever do that to another person. One of the most difficult pieces for me to hear was when families were separated by the Nazis and Turks, like Elie and his father, who were taken from his mother and sister, or in, Life is Beautiful, when Jonah and his father are taken from his mother. The fact that these families were ripped apart, could never see each other again, and never  learned what happened to their family members is very hard for me to grasp. Learning about genocide over the past few weeks has changed me by giving me a greater appreciation and sorrow for those who had to live through the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide. Learning about genocide has also changed me in the way that I now look at the Jewish people’s and Armenian people’s pasts. Before our unit on the Holocaust, I knew the Jewish people had gone through a terrible situation, but I did not know the details of what happened. Now, after our unit, I look at their pasts and what they have overcome in a different way. I now perceive history differently and now when I hear the words genocide, Holocaust or Nazis, I will hear them in a different tone. Before our unit, hearing those words did not affect me as much as they do now, because I had no background of the stories or people whose lives had been taken away. I now know what the Nazis and Turks did to the Jews and Armenians. The words Holocaust, genocide and Nazi are no longer only words in history to me, now they have stories behind them, people's lives behind them. Those words now cause me deeper and more powerful emotions than before. What will I take away from this unit? I will take away the fact that millions of people's lives were taken not because of their personality, but on a factor they grew up with, in some cases their race. I will never judge someone based on their race or religion because I know what harm that can do to someone. I also am taking away the fact that we can never forget what the Nazis and Turks did. Elie Wiesel states, ”Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices” (118), in his Nobel Prize speech. We can never forget what happened, because then we are ignoring that it ever happened. Also, we must learn from what we did wrong so we do not do it again. Even though what the Nazis and some Turkish people did was horrific, we must continue to learn the stories of what happened and make sure we never forget.