Monday, February 8, 2010
Blog #3: February 8, 2010 -February 14, 2010
Following our visit to the Museum of Tolerance analyze the human dynamics of bias, exclusion and oppression and examine the consequences of social and political injustice by looking at contemporary and historical examples, particularly the Holocaust. Simply, comment on what you learned at the museum regarding bias, exclusion, oppression, social or political injustice. Reflect on something that you saw or heard at the Museum.
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I learned that the more power a dictator receives, the more brutal he becomes to his people. Hitler became very powerful in Germany and he brutally used his powers against the Jews. He was the cause of millions dying during the holocaust. I watched children getting thrown out of the window down into a truck which was depressing. I am happy that I went and learned more about history.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mrs. Heukrodt
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Overall, i noticed a common theme that was talked about through the different stories and videos we heard and watched. The power of words is a very powerful thing. It all revolved around Hitler saying absurd profanities to persuade the mass to think a certain way. The media portrayed Jews as greedy and harmful. Also, because of this one man, they were excluded from daily life and, eventually, brutally killed. There is obvious injustice in this. The part that bothers me the most is that no one even bothered to get the opinion of the Jewish community. This can be seen, in a much less obvious way, when a high schooler does not like another person for no reason. Maybe, if they got to know them, they would feel completely different. The part that most effected me was the gas chambers because we got to experience the feeling, although not to the extend of death, what it was like to be in the chamber with friends and family. I was very happy i went and feel as if it was a a small enlightenment to not judge before i know every detail. Only then i can make a decision how i feel about someone/something.
ReplyDeleteI already knew things about the Holocaust, but not as much as I do now. Hitler was a very powerful man and was the cause of the millions who died during the Holocaust. The sight of the gunshots directed at the young children and all of the people in the concentration camps was very depressing and hard to watch. It makes me feel very grateful that I did not have to experience any of the suffering that had been done. I liked hearing about our guide, Gloria's experience and what she had went through. She gave us her perspective on everything that she had accomplished. She said "If I survived the Holocaust, Imagine what you all can do." I was able to learn so much in just a few short hours.
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ReplyDeleteDisappointed. Shocked. Amazed. Ashamed. There are countless expressions for what we feel about the Holocaust. And this is just one example; it’s so ridiculous how far we human beings can go just for hatred. Why do we hate so much anyways? Prejudice is an amazing tool that can lead to hatred. When someone is different from us in some way, whether by race, religion, appearance, etc., I think we tend to feel threatened. People get made fun of and killed for the stupidest and most unreasonable reasons. Why does the world have to be this way? Why can’t everyone just be accepted for who they are? I believe everyone has both good and evil in them, and the ability to restrain yourself is vital.
The world is insane. You would think, even the most evil person in the world would have a slight bit of sympathy and sadness as he threw a Jewish baby out the window... as he brutally killed women and children in the most violent way possible. But sadly, that is not the truth. These half-hypnotized people were mesmerized with Hitler’s words mixed with their own hatred and fear. They were apathetic, robotic… they laughed as they saw babies get killed right before their eyes. It is scary, really, to be living in a world so brutal and hateful.
Hitler was not popular from the beginning. However, as the Great Depression came about, there came a great opportunity for him to take over. His hatred for Jews was so big that he wanted everyone to share his view. He wrote a book called Mein Kampf based on anti-Semitism while in prison. He used the radio and films for propaganda; Jews were compared to rats! As Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Goebbels said, you can only repeat a lie so many times that people start to believe it. Obviously, these were all biased, but the helpless people could only look to a dictator at such a hard time like this. We selfish beings were so blinded by our own helplessness to see the truly evil person Hitler is and was. Hitler claimed that the Aryan race was the superior race- fair-skinned, blue eyes, blonde hair. However, he himself was not any of these. He was not even a German citizen! He had dropped out of middle school. And yet these people chose to listen to him. In one of the videos shown at the Museum of Tolerance, it showed Hitler riding through Berlin with all these people surrounding him and praising him. Among them were women and children. I thought, if only that little girl knew what was really going on… it really was a tragic thought.
Many organizations from other European countries joined Hitler and the Nazis. They treated this mass murder as a game. A human life is not a game! How could they gamble with precious lives… it is really shocking. In one meeting about the 11 million Jews that were left, the generals thought of different ways to kill them and called it a competition! Nearly 6 million Jews all over Europe were massacred. They died from starvation, heat exhaustion, freezing weather, gas chambers, guns, knives, being burned, and even being thrown out of buildings- in any way possible. Not only were Jews killed, but teachers, the disabled, dissidents, etc. Jews were taken in trains not knowing that this was their path towards death. They were separated from friends and family. The Germans played around with them; as teenage boys were trying to reach the wooden box, they laughed and killed them. It is horrible to even think about walking through the streets and seeing ruins on both sides and corpses in the middle of the road. It is amazing to realize that all these killers were once just ordinary citizens. There was nothing special or different about them; they once had feelings of love, but hatred, pride, and revenge overpowered every other emotion that they carried. In the MOT, there was also a section where we could listen to the conversations of these ordinary people in the beginning of Hitler’s rule. There were people who agreed and others who were definitely against him. I found the German and Jew couple especially touching because they chose death over separation. Another sickening thing is that when these Jews were so desperate to be rescued, no one wanted them. The US, Australia… these countries had an opportunity to save the lives of thousands of Jews; but they rejected them.
ReplyDeleteJust like every time I visit a place like this, I realize how fortunate I am and that I should be thankful that I don’t have to be going mad every second of my life in fear. What Hitler did, though not to his extent, happens daily in our lives. Racism still exists; people still judge others on outward appearances. We learn and know of these things and yet we do not portray this knowledge in our actions. I am always disappointed in myself for feeling a certain way but not doing anything about it. It’s as if there is a holy boundary inside the MOT (or wherever else) and as soon as we get out we return to our normal, selfish selves. History can always repeat itself; however, we learn of these things so that we can prevent it from happening in the future. There have been several genocides in the world already, and it is the duty of our generation to spread the word and do something about it so that we can leave a better world for the future generations.
I learned many things when we went to the museum. I heard many things that i have never heard about before, and realized that when other people talked about the Holocaust is sounded terrible, but now that i actually got a tour and lesson about everything that went on there, I can't believe Hitler did everything he did. He was a very powerful man, but yet how did he get all that power? Why did everybody listen to him? I believe it was a good trip to go on, and to really realize how lucky we are to this day to be able to have everything we have, and be able to go to classes and get an education no matter what we look like, and no matter who we are.
ReplyDeleteThere were many things at the Museum of Tolerance. Some sad, some unbelievable. The best part of the museum in my opinion was Gloria. Gloria was our tour guide, but she was also much more. She was a surviver of the Holocaust and was an inmate at Auswitch. The stories she told us were sad, terrifying, and inpiring. She told us that if she can make it, all of us could...One thing I thought about while at the Museum was while listening to Martin Luther King Jr. famous speech I Have A Dream. I was thinking that if I was alive during that time, would I be rasict. It was sad to thing that I might, but the sad truth is that I probably would be. Then I thought it is amazing how far our country has come, for me to be born and not be rasict, or prejudice, or anti-semitist. Hopefully soon it will all be gone and everyone will be treated equally!
ReplyDeleteAt the Museum I learned a lot of things. I thought it was a really good experince and I really liked learning about Gloria's personal experience. I think its terrible how Hitler used propaganda to persuade all the Germans to kill the Jews. Can you believe that just one man made all of that happen? I didnt really belive it all at first but when Gloria shared her real life experience I realized how real it really was. I learned that all around the world hate crimes are happening even if its just bullying someone at school. I think we need to make a change and the we will control the future.
ReplyDelete-Sarah
We are all different,like u and I for example. we might have to completely different beliefs like USC or Arizona. But we do have the right to be ourselves, and not be bullied or picked cause we believe that way. At the museum in the Point of View Diner, I learned hands on what bullying was all about. The girl dressed a little different and wasnt like everyone else, so she got bullied. Thats just not right.
ReplyDeleteHaving heard stories from my two grandparents, survivors of the Holocaust, and having been to several museums not only here in the states but in Israel, there was not a lot of shocking information to be found at the Museum of Tolerance. Though my experience may not have been an eye-opening experience, it served as a reminder of the genocide and atrocities against my ancestors, and a reminder that it is our job to change the world. Our tour guide told us that our generation must repair the world that his and past generations have poisoned, and so far I have only begun to be involved with world issues such as the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. By doing things such as these, I hope by the end of my life i will have made a difference in making the world a better place for my children and grandchildren to live in.
ReplyDeletefor the most part i didnt really learn anything because i already knew most of the thing he was teaching. It was horrible what hittler did to the jews. I did Learn that poland had 3,000,000 jews kills though. The one thing that got to me was that we cannot let it happen again and we have to do everything on our power to stop it. Its our genration that has to do it. History always repeats itself so we have to sop it at the begining and the u.s needs to get involoved earlier this time
ReplyDeleteAt the Tolerance Museum, i learned that in economic crisis, it's easy for the population to focus their blame on someone else. Apparently, Hitler gave them this "scape-goat" in order to reach power through his own prejudice. What still confuses me about the situation was the people's ability to be persuaded by such ridiculous propaganda. While anti-semitism should of course be highly looked down upon, their definition of the Jew was incredibly false. I didn't and still don't understand humanity's ignorant nature to not even think about what's being proposed throughout their country. Being jewish is a religion, not a race. How did people not even realize what was going on? Didn't they analyze the true information rather than just what they were being told? Can't we as a society function on our own logistics and not those of others? The Holocaust is an upfront example of not just the immense pain prejudice can cause, but also our ignorance in judgement. Situations like these don't even become evident in the eyes of the population's until it reaches the zenith in tragedy. We need to open our eyes to modern situations happening today and take the Holocaust as a learning experience. We have to recognize that genocide is still happening today, like in Africa. And not only that, other small steps to be taken in preventing these situations is fighting prejudice in your own community.
ReplyDeleteI already knew alot of the stuff they said at the museum but after seeing those videos i could tell how he treated jewish people like dirt. The videos were very sad and showed me little girls getting their hair cut off and then put into a gas chamber, and there bodies were thrown into pits to rot. I think its wrong how people could do that to another human being.
ReplyDeleteIn the museum i learned how horrible humans are capable of treating other humans and that being racist is the worst of all evils. What i really got out of the museum was to not let any thing like the holocaust happen again, by speaking up when we feel something is unjust.
ReplyDeleteMohandas Gandhi preached his "doctrine of nonviolent resistance to British rule in every village" he passed. "Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen." Explain why you agree or disagree with Gandhi's statement. Structure your ideas in a logical fashion and defend your position with relevant evidence and logical reasoning!
ReplyDeletehi mrs. heukrodt this is the blog for period 5 like u asked me to do.
i agree with it, but there has to be a point when enough is enough. ya you can sit there and protest and not take any physical, violent action(civil), but you have to know when top stop before some one gets hurt or dies. for example in 1919 the "civil" protests in Amritsar led to hundreds of deaths at the hands of the british, and got Gandhi several years in prison. If someone wants to protest a tree getting cut down civilly they can stand in front of the tractor, but if it continue to drives at them the should move. its like that asian guy who stood in front of all of those tanks. im not quite sure what happened, but im pretty sure they didnt run him over. so i agree with the idea of civil disobedience, but there has to be a point where you draw the line i think.
i already knew how bad the Holocaust was but going to the museum was a better way for me to interact and learn more about it.I learned the more powerful a persons words are the more powerful that person becomes. It upsets me to have to see what real people have had to gone through just because of what they believed in. Hopefully we are smart enough to not let this get by us and have this happen again and we can speak out before its too late.
ReplyDeleteI did not go to the museum but I will go next weekend, when I go to the meusum I feel that I will be very depressed about the horrible things I will hear and see, but also very lucky that I can have a free happy life.
ReplyDeleteBefore visiting the museum, I thought that the sole purpose of the museum was to teach people of the Holocaust and what happened there. After visiting, I learned that "tolerance" is a topic that covers much more than just the Holocaust. It includes, racial injustice, sexism, religious in-differences and much more. The museum taught me that throughout the world, almost every type of person, religion, race or belief is or has been discriminated against. I found it disturbing that people even go so far as to physically harm a person just for their own advantages.
ReplyDeleteThis trip taught me that the world does not work with so much intolerance to one another, and it is a good thing that The Museum of Tolerance is here to teach us of this and how we need to fix it.
Before the museum, I thought I knew the most important parts about the Holocaust. However, after I went there, my entire prospective on it changed. I learned that the museum isn't just about what happened during the Holocaust. It's also there to help teach us about its cause and how it is still just as strong today. The intolerance for people who are different exists today just as it did during Hitler's time. While back then it was expressed strongly in the form of genocide, today people are more subtle about it, but it is still just as wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhen we arrived at the museum, our guide told us about all the different types of intolerance, and showed us how they are all present today. He told us about how even the smallest of things can be influenced by prejudice without our even realizing it. I'm glad I went to the museum, because it taught how to become a better person.