Cole Howard

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103 section 7
January 11, 2016
The Holocaust was an absolutely devastating time in which hundreds
of thousands of Jewish people were mercilessly killed simply for their
heritage. Throughout my time in high school I gained a brief overview
knowledge of this absolutely despicable act but have yet to research the
topic in depth. I am curious to learn more as I have recently watched multiple
movies about the holocaust and have gained a new interest in the event. I
have come to truly feel for this group of people as they have been ridiculed
and oppressed throughout history.

In my time learning about the holocaust, my high school world history

class, I have come to not appreciate but commend Hitler in his use of
propaganda. Hitler used this tool known as the media to broadcast his
message of hate throughout his country and came to preach it to his people.
He cast lies on them and led them to believe that the Jews were not real
people. They regarded them as scum and often referred to them as rats,
creating a stigma that they were below them and disease plagued. In
addition to this, I learned about the labor camps in which so many people
were killed. The conditions in which these people were housed were
absolutely disgusting and they were treated as if they were not even people.
Hitlers rise to power was no easy task but when it finally he happened he
had created such a large committed following nobody could stop him from
projecting his ideas on his people and killing anyone who disagreed. I find

Cole Howard
Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103 section 7
January 11, 2016
Hitlers extreme hate for the Jews interesting as many suspect he had a
Jewish heritage himself and most definitely did not fit the description of his
so called Aryan race. My true interest in the holocaust however, did not come
from the classroom.

I have watched many movies on the holocaust throughout my life and

just having a visual for the true terror of this event put it into perspective for
me. Seeing how these people were treated on a daily basis for in some cases
years, if they survived. The lack of compassion and ability to beat people for
not being able to walk due to starvation really made me realize how brutal
the Nazis were. Seeing the bodies with absolutely no muscle left makes me
cringe and so thankful for my next meal. Knowing that these people starved
for no reason other than their religion makes me sick. Many of these well of
citizens who were bankers and doctors were now being forced to do slave
labor until they dropped dead and sometimes its hard to grasp that idea by
reading a textbook.

I am interested to further my research on Jewish rebels within the labor

camps. I recently watched one movie in particular called Naked among
wolves, in which a Jewish rebel group must hide a baby within the camp and
all the consequences for lying to a German officer. I was curious to see if
such groups were well known in actual history and it turns out there are

Cole Howard
Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103 section 7
January 11, 2016
many accounts of these men who should be considered heroes as many
collaborated with the Americans and helped during the liberation of many of
the biggest labor camps. I am interested to learn more about these brave
men and what feats they went to in order to obtain freedom for not only
them but all those who remained in the camps.

The Holocaust as a milestone in the history of man and is the epitome

of what power in the wrong hands could lead to. It is important to be
educated on such events in order to prevent anything of that sort to happen
in the future. The German people are ashamed of their past and really
embrace this idea to prevent anything from ever happening again. During
my senior year I had the honor of going to school with a transfer student
from Germany named Tom. We had an in depth conversation on the
Holocaust and how they look at such an event today and he told me that
they read many books and have come to accept it in order to move past
such a shameful act.