What I Learned from the Holocaust

Over the course of this unit, there has been a lot of emotionally powerful and gruesome stuff thrown at us from all different angles, but everyone takes it very differently. I for one, don't feel that anything deep down inside me has changed, but at the same time, I had some very powerful emotional moments when reading night. “I woke up at dawn on January 29. On my father’s cot there lay another sick person,” (112, Night by Elie Wiesel). When Elie lost his father, I had to take a break from reading. I don't usually empathize with characters in a book very well, but this was one of the rare moments where I could perfectly feel what Elie felt. My father is very very dear to me, and losing him would scar me forever. This reliability between me and Elie in that moment caused me to experience what he felt.

As far as my thoughts on humanity goes, I left with more questions than I came with. I have, for the most part, always believed that humans are generally terrible beings. After all, we pollute the environment, we kill animals for sport, we war with our own kind, I mean, what would not make us terrible people! That’s the mindset that I entered this unit with, and for the most part, my thoughts were confirmed. I saw the horrid atrocities that the Nazis put Jews through in concentration camps. I saw the same for the Armenians and the Turks too. “I put my hand in the dirt, grazing the ground, and came up with hard white pieces. ‘Our ancestors are here,’ I muttered,” (Bones by Peter Balakian). However, when I look at Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, I see a man who wants what happened to him to never happen again. “ Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon,” (Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech). The torture that Elie has gone through has opened his eyes to the suffering of those everywhere, and now that he can see that, he will do everything in his power to help them.

In the end, I will take a lot away from this unit. I will take away the emotions I felt and the empathy I gained from Elie’s story. I will take away questions of the human psyche, like: Why do people do bad things? Are people who do bad things bad? Are good people any different than bad people? And I will (at least try to) take away Elie’s power of sensing the plight of those he has no connection to, who are on the other side of the earth.