Holocaust / Hiding Much of Essay

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That was not the case for the five videos selected to review for this paper. The overarching theme of each interview was the warmth and love of the Jewish families and their community. They were close-knit and cared deeply for one another.

It would be simplistic to say their love saved them. It would also be unfair to the millions of Jews who did perish in the Holocaust, as it would suggest that they and their families were somehow lacking and did not love each other strongly enough. Some Jews who had loving families survived, but many who had loving families did not. Survival ultimately came down to an unexplainable combination of fortitude, circumstances, timing, and sheer luck. There is no sufficient explanation that answers the questions about why some survived and why others did not.

Zelizer addresses the one-sidedness of the collective Holocaust memory in a chapter of her book entitled, "Collective Memories, Images, and the Atrocity of War." Zelizer quotes the words of scholar Saul Friedlander when she describes photographs of Holocaust atrocities as an "indelible reference point of the Western imagination" (Zelizer 1). For many people, the photos are all they know about the Holocaust. It is good for successive generations to have this understanding. One could describe emaciated prisoners standing in a miserable cluster after liberation, or the stacks of bodies tossed carelessly aside. Without photographic evidence of these atrocities, it might be easy to think they were not as grievous, or perhaps did not even occur at all. The photos are proof of man's inhumanity to man.

As Zelizer points out, "no single memory reflects all that is known about a given event, personality, or issue" (2) it is for this reason that the stories of the survivors are also important.

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The dead, obviously, cannot speak about what took place. We must rely on the living, the survivors, to fill in the blanks. As horrible as it is to see a pile of bodies, there is something impersonal about it. We know nothing about the empty shells of human beings. We can only guess at who they might have been. The interviews with survivors provide a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people who somehow lived through unimaginably dark times. With each story, we see that, amidst the atrocities, there was humanity and love. It is inspiring to see those attributes survived, despite the Nazi's efforts to eradicate the Jews. The stories of hiding told in this small collection of YouTube videos reflect the grace and dignity of the people who tell them, and of their families who nurtured them when they were young. The interviews provide another way to look at the Holocaust, which is essential if we are to form as complete a picture as possible to pass down to future generations......

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