You are about to go to sleep. You are in bed, just about to drift off, but then you hear a scream: Please help! He's hurting me! What would you do in this situation? Some might aid, while others will not intervene. This was a dilemma many Germans may have witnessed during World War Two. Sadly, crimes are still committed to this day, and bystanders are forced into a difficult decision just as Germans in the Holocaust were: To speak out against these injustices and risk their lives, or to not step in. Considering different views and sources, when bystanders witness a crime, they have a responsibility to help. Others who do not agree with this claim may say onlookers should remain neutral and not risk their lives. In the poem "Hangman", after somebody speaks out against the injustices, the Hangman says,”‘Do you hold,’ said he, ‘with him that was meant for the gallows tree.' (Ogden), insinuating he may be killed for saying anything. While it is logical to not wish to hinder a crime for your own safety, you do not have to necessarily risk your own safety. For …show more content…
In the poem "Hangman", the antagonist (the Hangman), who kills people says to the narrator, 'I did no more than you let me do' (Ogden). When the Hangman says this, he means that if everyone together had interfered, the death toll would be lower. Since everyone was weak in protesting in this metaphorical town, all the townspeople were wiped out. Second, in Night, when a train carting the Jews passes through a German town, Wiesel describes the scene as, “German laborers were going to work. They would stop and look at us without surprise" (Wiesel 100). These German citizens had the opportunity to protest, or question the Nazi officials before the war got too bad. But now, all they could do was watch these injustices. In conclusion, people must interfere against those in control to stop injustices from
In the 1930's, Germany was overruled by an a tyrannical regime known as the Nazis. The Nazis believed solely in the racial superiority of Normadic-Germans, and used control over the flow of information through the country to keep these harmful views relevant and accepted. They did this by limiting allowed media intake and censoring any non-propaganda content. Anyone who spoke out against them or their philosophies was captured and killed or tortured. Despite rejecting these intentions, many citizens of Germany were forced to stay quiet for these reasons.
Usually, reporter will always record tragedy or someone in danger and doesn’t go help, it shows that they didn’t fulfill ethical responsibility. This author illustrates “ Rolf threw down his knapsack and the rest of his equipment and waded into the quagmire, commenting for his assistant 's microphone that it was cold and that one could begin to smell the stench of corpses.” This state that Rolf had fulfill his ethical responsibility because he threw down his equipment, hurriedly ran over to the girl and tried to save her. I believe that others reporter would not of taken actions like he did, instead, they will stand recording the situation. Based on the given statement, I think that Rolf is not an oblivious person, instead, he have altruism.
The two situations mentioned above in Night and the Reign of Terror are very similar to our group in Sector 1 because we, the countries around Germany, and the First and Second Estates did not help the suffering and innocent
Bystanders have the most power in the word. In The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, a boy named Jerry Renault is told by the vigils to not sell the chocolates for ten days. After the ten days, he decides to not sell the chocolates. The events of The Chocolate War were similar to Nazi Germany because the people watch people were targeted for having different beliefs, children were taught to harm people based on who they thought that they were, and anyone who stood up against the vigils or the Nazis were threatened and tortured. One way that the events of The Chocolate War were similar to Nazi Germany was that the people watch people were targeted for having different beliefs.
The strategical bombing of Germany’s most populated cities such as Hamburg, Hannover and Berlin caused civil devastation. Over the 2nd and 3rd of October nearly 200,000 people lost their homes in Hannover. The Allies thought that if they bombed the cities of Germany and caused civil unrest it would lead to unrest between the German public and questioning of the Nazi party. People in Germany were terrified and recent research has shown although there was not a lot of active resistance against the Nazis during the war, after several years of bombing there was a decrease in public statements in favour of the regime. The public were terrified and were more concerned with staying alive rather than revolting against the Nazis.
Remaining silent can save a person or it can be his destruction. People during World War II stayed silent in front of Hitler’s atrocities for fear that something was going to happen to their families, but was it really the best thing they could do, since by remaining silent 6 million Jews and got killed. Many people could have said something to save and protect the persecuted groups. One of the people that thought that the Germans, or anyone else, were complicit by not saying a word against Hitler, was Martin Niemöller. He was a famous social activist during World War II that survived miraculously to the concentration camps, after seven years of imprisonment (USHMM).
With the change in power, one can imagine how many citizens immediately revolted and were taken away. Due to the fact that they were such a minority in the overall casualties of the Holocaust, German communists and other victims are often
(Paragraph 13-15). Actively resisting avoids shame, guilt, and the humiliation of being helpless and sitting and watching your people die. On the flip side, others may argue that music, art, paintings, etc. was enough to protest. The flaw to that argument is that those would only be discovered after the war and only if the allies had won, by however actively arming yourself, killing Nazi’s and, sabotoging supplies the impact would be immediately felt, presenting a better chance of winning. When slavery was still a big problem, many of the slaves still ran away which was still resisting.
He says, “It would be fitting for us Germans to remain silent face of what was the greatest crime in the history of mankind” (Schröder speech). The “crime” they committed gives them no privilege to have an opinion about the war. Their opinion, even if benefits the targets in the Holocaust, does not reflect the millions of people that died during the holocaust. Their opinion is irrelevant because most likely they had no family die in the war unless in battle. Lives were stripped piece by piece by German soldiers.
Wiesel’s speech shows how he worked to keep the memory of those people alive because he knows that people will continue to be guilty, to be accomplices if they forget. Furthermore, Wiesel knows that keeping the memory of those poor, innocent will avoid the repetition of the atrocity done in the future. The stories and experiences of Wiesel allowed for people to see the true horrors of what occurs when people who keep silence become “accomplices” of those who inflict pain towards humans. To conclude, Wiesel chose to use parallelism in his speech to emphasize the fault people had for keeping silence and allowing the torture of innocent
People can best respond to conflict by passively resisting because they wanted to keep their family and friends safe, maintain hope to ensure survival, and they had little or no access to weapons, no ability to move about freely, and most of the people were not interested in resisting the Nazi power.
Many Germans, during WWII had started to take on the ideology of Hitler – that Jewish citizens in Germany were the cause of their poverty and misfortune. Of course, many knew that this was merely a form of scapegoating, and although they disagreed with the majority of Germany’s citizens, many would not speak up for fear of isolation (Boone,
The film shows many ways in which resistance could be seen against the Germans. Much of this came in a form of armed resistance
In 1947, Martin Niemöller’s short poem became an iconic reminder of the consequences of the Holocaust. In his poem, First they came… , Niemöller exposes his unwillingness to help the victims of the Holocaust and the guilt he carries along with his actions. Niemöller blames himself for his inability to speak against this evil and warns the reader of a similar fate. His poem also relates to the works, Night by Elie Wiesel and Hangman by Maurice Ogden. All three have the same theme; that it is one’s solemn duty to stand against injustice.
World War II was a horrific time in history. Millions of innocent civilians and soldiers died. During the war, Germany invaded and took over many other countries like France, Yugoslavia, and parts of Russia. In all of these countries, citizens joined Resistances or took part in illegal activities such as reading illegal newspapers. A resistance is “a group of people organized to work clandestinely against an oppressor,” (Richardson).