Poisonous Mushrooms By Julius Streicher: A Comparative Analysis

WWII was one of the most horrendous wars in history, but the ‘cherry-on-top’ of this devastating period was the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide (mass murder) of around 6 million European Jews. There are still various opinions about the Holocaust, some were in the past as shown in “Poisonous Mushrooms” by Julius Streicher, others happened a short time ago like “Students’ Visit to a Concentration Camp Makes Some People Mad” by McClatchy Tribune, and “WWII Heroine Irena Sandler” by unknown. All three have different purpose; because one shows hatred, another shows how we need to learn about the Jews’ atrocious past, another talks about how many people outside the Jewish ethnic group helped them survive. “Poisonous Mushrooms” was published around 1939 - 1945 is a story about a mother and her son whom are gathering mushrooms in a forest. The mother states that “‘Look, Franz, human beings in this world are like the mushrooms in the forest. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous, bad mushrooms and there are bad people.’” What the she ,the mother, is comparing mushrooms to are human beings. The good mushrooms are the Gentiles, the bad mushrooms are the Jews. Another statement, “The mother praises her boy for his intelligence, and goes on to explain the different kinds of “poisonous” Jews: The

“‘Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this earth and not a title to my glory.’”- Irena Sandler. The quote above shows how humble Sandler is about what she had done in the past. She is proud of what she had done, saving over 2,500 children that lived better lives thanks to Sandler. “They broke her legs, but they never broke her. Irena never gave up the location of the children” Sandler never gave up. The Germans had tortured her, they broke her legs, did she give up