“Under A Cruel Star” despite being an excellent book to read was not credible or believable as compared to Kevin McDermott’s scholarly article. Heda Kovaly depicts popular opinion under Communist dictatorship as being controlled by terror of the government. She states that popular opinion no longer comprised morals or humanity, but instead was uttered by fear and doubts of the consequences of their actions and the domination of the government. This significance of life can be explored and tested against details found in secondary sources. “Under A Cruel Star”, a primary source, provides personal experiences through the political difficulties of Jews while secondary source in Kevin McDermott’s article provides accurate facts of events that …show more content…
“A minority explicitly demanded the death penalty; most called for the “strictest punishment” of the “traitors”, “villains”, and “imperialist agents.” As opposed to Heda’s descriptions of the letters to the editors that were proposing the death penalty, McDermott justified that throughout the course of several weeks, the death penalty was the minority of what was claimed by the people sending telegrams and resolutions. Heda made up what happened to make it look like everyone was in favor of the death penalty. Another difference that can be found in both works is the difference between the vindications of how the Czech citizens responded and reacted to the trial. In “Under A Cruel Star”, Heda described how most of the Czech citizens felt that the trial was the right thing to do. The citizens believed that the arrested Communist party members were traitors and that they should suffer for what they had done. They definitely deserved it over the innocent people that were sentenced to death. Heda depicted that she was one of the few that believed the trial was false. In contrast, McDermott justifies that the reactions to the trial of the Czech citizens had mixed feelings. Instead of being in agreement with the trial, most of the people reacted with shock. “Large of number of Czech citizens, communists and noncommunist alike, reacted to Slansky’s arrest and trial with utter dismay and disbelief that he …show more content…
Heda felt a certain way due to her religious and political standing in the Czech society and reacted due to what was done to her. Her involvements tend to differ from proof found in McDermott’s article. There are many similarities that strengthen Heda depiction of popular opinion under Communist dictatorship. When Rudolf, her husband, was arrested, he was forced to admit things that he did not do. Heda analyzed that he must have been drugged because she could tell by the tone and attitude of his voice. “He spoke in such an odd, tense, monotonous voice that, at first, I though he had been drugged.” Heda disclosed how the Communist party would do anything they could to get their way, even if it meant drugging innocent people into announcing that they were guilty for doing something wrong. Why would they do such a thing like that? It was not the best idea because it shows that people were saying lies and that they do not deserve
While we often blame the support of communists, especially high-level communists such as Rudolf Margolius, for the violence that is enacted by the Czech communist party, Kovaly explains that they are also just pawns in the Soviet system. She tells us her husband’s reaction to the arrests where he explains his strong support of communism: “I cannot give up my conviction that my ideal is essentially sound and good, just as I cannot explain why it has failed- as it apparently has…If you’re right, if it really is a fraud, then I’ve been an accomplice in a terrible crime. And if I had to believe that, I could not go on living”. This statement shows us how desperate Rudolf really was, as his communist party was showing its true colors as corrupt and unstable. In lectures, we often heard the terrors pushed by the communists, such as totalitarianism, which is the use of political terror to control every aspect of people’s lives and linked nazism and Soviet communism together.
The trial covered the three main factors of denying the Holocaust. The biggest accusations claim was that there was no proof of the Nazi’s having an organized plan to eliminate Jews, that there was no proof that Hitler ordered the extermination or did not know of the extermination of Jews, and that no Jews were killed with the use of gas chambers. He believed specifically that no Jew was ever murdered by gassing at the Auschwitz extermination camp. The trial began in January of 2000 and ended, with a judgment strongly in favor of Lipstadt and her publisher, in April of that year. The purpose of the trial was for Irving to gain his credibility back.
People’s views of Sacco and Vanzetti were very polarized, meaning that they were either on one side or the other. There was essentially no middle ground. The Sacco-Vanzetti case lacked several pieces of key evidence, but somehow the men were sentenced to death. Although Sacco and Vanzetti were wrongfully executed, they have left a very controversial argument
The book describes the history that Heidnik had with his first child, which may have caused him to go into a state of mourning. Years prior to the abduction of his first captive, Josefina Rivera, Heidnik met a woman in the mental hospital, whom he brought home without proper approval and got her pregnant. Upon the medical center finding out that Heidnik committed these acts, he was sent to prison and his child was placed in foster care. This may have emotionally affected Heidnik, as he later abducted women that resembled the woman from the mental hospital physically and
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established to protect fundamental laws, liberty, and pursuit of contentment. Yet after it was imprinted into life, power lust and war craving societies still violates the document that holds the existence of every individual. A memoir Night written by Eliezer Wiesel proves this accusation by elucidating the Jew’s hardship at the concentration camps of 1944-1945. German’s violating, millions suffering, the novel defends that the superior race (Adolf Hitler’s supporters) corrupted articles two, four, and nine of the proclamation.
The Hungarian police were screaming. That was when I began to hate them . . . They were our first oppressors. They were our first faces of hell and death.” (pg. 19,
There is immense pressure to report anything the goes against the Socialist Party’s principles, no matter the person. For example, Thomas turns his father in for defending his Jewish colleagues thus insulting Hitler, and is essentially the cause of his death. However, Peter is asked to spy on his boss at the bookstore, but after finding incriminating items he keeps it to himself. These contrasting reactions is an example of how Nazi persuasion is testing loyalties and driving friends apart.
Joseph Stalin instilled a totalitarian government into Ukraine’s society. Moreover, Stalin tried to cut any threats that would affect his plan in making Russia a communist utopia, by using the secret police. (document 1) But, the Ukrainians were independent, rebellious people who believed strongly in their culture and
Therefore, despite the horrors of Stalin’s regime, one could argue that the socialist realism paintings could ‘mould the consciousness of the people’ into believing that Stalin was a great and wise leader, a kind and humble man, and the father of all Soviet people, thus reinforcing his cult of personality that tries to portray him in that light. However, while art might have the power to do this, one must not forget about other visual representations of life such as photographs and posters. Their relative power and influence will be discussed later in the
The Russian government treated the working class terribly, leading to several protests and boycotts. S.I. Somov was a Russian Soviet who shared his emotions on his overwhelming experience in the demanding Soviet working class. At a protest, he wrote that there was a “...mystical, religious ecstasy...” that peppered the angry workers who fought for their freedom from the exhausting chains of overwhelming labor and inhumane working conditions (Document 4). He added that the working class was deprived of a lively human soul, and their bitterness and dissatisfaction had “overflowed.” Somov was a worker himself, who first hand experienced the cruelty described and developed his own reasonable emotions towards the topic.
Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.
In this part, Yanek wanted to fight the nazis, he thought if all the prisoners fought them they would take them over. One day, one of the prisoners had the same thought. He started fighting the Nazi, until the Nazi shot him. “And this man,’ the commandant said, pointing into the crowd.
I was born in Russia before the revolution. I was born in Tula province and my name then was not Mikhail, or even Misha, as I am known here in America. No, my real name–the one given to me at birth–was Leonid Sednyov, and I was known as Leonka” (12). His identity is stated clearly and he goes on to state his position in the Ipatiev House, “What I wish to confess is that I was the kitchen boy in the Ipatiev house where the Tsar and Tsaritsa, Nikolai and Aleksandra, were imprisoned” (12). It is made unmistakably evident that he worked as a kitchen boy in the Ipatiev House.
In the village of Holcomb, Kansas a wealthy family, the Clutters, was murdered on November 14, 1959. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were convicted of these murders and received the death penalty. In Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, the audience receives different viewpoints on why Dick and Perry either deserved the death penalty or not. Though the decision to sentence someone to death should be based on the truth, the truth is not always easy to define; Capote shows this through his depiction of the controversial executions of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Criminal punishment is an immensely ongoing controversial and societal issue in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world.
Analyzing Hoss’ childhood to his time in prison is very important because it shows how Hoss was shaped into obeying orders from higher authority and how he developed a sense of duty and devotion to protecting Germany. Hannah Arendt, the author of Origins of Totalitarianism, explains that National Socialism was a totalitarian ideology that built itself on the idea that higher authority from Himmler and Hitler was never to be judged whether they were right or wrong because by following these orders