The Importance Of Hitler's Perception Of The Holocaust

It had been late January in 1933, Adolf Hitler had begun his new position as Chancellor of Germany and has continuously preached about exterminating the Jews. Hitler would continue to rule for the next 12 years, and keeping true to his threat, he would spend 4 years of his rule secretly pulling off the biggest mass genocide in history. His plans would lead to over 6 million deaths and an overall count of 17 million victims. The reason his plans had been majorly successful was due to the secrecy of the death and torture by using propaganda and concentration camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Buchenwald. To get to the camps, German officers would ‘evacuate’ families and send them by train or cattle car, after reaching the nearest camp families

Food could be easily accessible and was used wastefully, like during holidays and celebrations,”We drank, we ate..”(10). They had the luxury of not worrying about where their next meal was and were not bothered by the thought to “spend the day without food...we were not really hungry”(17). Eliezer’s perception of food and his hunger change whilst on the train,the women had prepared food for the said trip, but in the end there wasn’t really “enough to satisfy our hunger”(23). They had all continued like that for the next few days until arriving in a new strange place, where they all learned the true intent of the Nazi’s. Eliezer learns his place quickly and established that he can’t skip meals,“I was terribly hungry and I swallowed my ration on the spot”(44). Things escalated quickly as the Nazi’s wicked plan of starvation was put into full force, the “hunger was tormenting us” food that people would consider nauseating such as “potato peels” and “a few stalks of grass” for “six days”(114-115). The impact that food and hunger had on Eliezer was that it made his perception of the world different, before when he wasn’t A-7713, food was just that food. Now that he is nothing more than a prisoner, all he cares about is food and he even considered his fellow prisoners as “emaciated creatures ready to

If we look back in the beginning you’ll see how truly devoted Eliezer really was, “Why did I pray?...Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(4). He literally compared praying as easy to him as living and breathing, something that a person can do without thinking or not even realize, he had devoted himself that much to God. He wasn’t just a normal synagogue go-er either, he’d “remain in the synagogue long after the faithful had gone, sitting in the semi-darkness…”(5). Someone who is willing to sit in a dark place with only their thoughts and God to accompany them, shows off true devotion. Unfortunately, this all changes Eliezer after he witnesses his fellow Jews being burned alive and he suddenly gets angry while hearing others praying, “Why should I sanctify His name?”(33). Eliezer had changed so much from witnessing something so traumatic that he even questioned God, “The almighty, the eternal and terrible master of the universe, choose to be silent”(33). That night had forever changed him, he would never be the same when praying and he won’t “forget those flames that consumed my faith forever”(34). But as the story would continue, Eliezer would go back in forth with his opinions of faith and God, until the last time he would pray, “in spite myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in which I no longer