Reaction Paper Amy C. Steinbugler the author of Beyond Loving, examines interracial intimacy in the beginning of the twenty-first century and it has continued to developed new ideologies. Segregation, slavery, court cases, black lives matter and many other historical movements occurred decades ago and people were not allowed to form a relationship outside of their race, because of biracial which was looked upon as wrong. It became a phase of racial denials in which interracial relationships are seen as symbols of racial progress. This book examines the racial dynamics of everyday life of lesbian, gay heterosexual of black and white couples. Overall, this book analyzes cotemporary interracial through “racework”.
Elie Wiesel and Gerda Weissmann were both Jewish prisoners that were taken from their homes and forced to work in factories with terrible conditions for Nazi Germany. They both had very different experiences during their time in concentration camps and slave labor facilities, but after watching the documentary, “One Survivor Remembers,” and the memoir Night, one can determine the differences and similarities between Weissmann’s story and Wiesels’s story in terms of driving motivations in the will to survive. To start, one similarity is that both Wiesel and Weissmann had a family figure that kept their motivation strong and prevented them from committing suicide. In both accounts, the family figure happens to be their fathers. In the documentary,
Introduction The book that I selected is called “Getting Life” by Michael Morton, who is a man that was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife in Texas in 1986. This book takes us from a happy young couple to the day of the murder, through the investigation into his wife’s murder, Michael’s trial and conviction, 25 years in prison, appeals, release from prison, and reintegration into society. One unique fact about this case is that is the first case where the prosecutor in a wrongful conviction case was subsequently convicted of prosecutorial misconduct, stripped of their law license and sentenced to serve time in jail.
All But My Life is a memoir written by Gerda Weissmann Klein. This memoir tells about her experiences during World War Two. Her childhood was full of happiness growing up with her Jewish family. This memoir starts two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.
In the documentary, One Survivor Remembers, Gerda Weissmann recalls her miraculous survival of the Nazi concentration camps. Throughout her survival, Gerda Weissman shows personality traits of courage, perseverance, and compassion. When Gerda Weissmann was fifteen years old Germany seized control over Poland and all Jewish Poles were confined to small living quarters of their houses. Gerda Weissmann’s ability to keep calm and go on living in that situation showed true bravery because a girl her age would surely panic and develop a negative personality. Gerda Weissmann is possibly most courageous when she separated from her family and has to go to Dulag transit camp, while the rest of her family is sent to Auschwitz.
For my book talk, I read a realistic fiction novel called Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Miranda Evans lives with her family in Pennsylvania. She attends eleventh grade at her high school, and is also a part of her local swimming team. Her life is normal until the moon is knocked closer to the earth by a meteorite. The coastlines are under water and the weather is abnormally cold.
The Holocaust ended the lives of 11 million people, 6 million of them being Jews. As well as many other people of different races, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations. In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, persevered with his father and really hoped that he would be able to make it through the camp and selection. In the article “Holocaust Survivor Shares Powerful Story of Hope”, Magda Herzberger is another survivor of the Holocaust. Magda persevered through her faith in God and says God is what strengthened her throughout the Holocaust.
Eva Kor and Elie Wiesel, two survivors of the Holocaust, were also activists within the Jewish community. They were known outside of their communities for spreading inspirational speeches and ideologies to heal and overcome the experiences of the Holocaust. Even though Eva Kor and Elie Wiesel’s ideas and motivations were different, they had the same effect on people in and outside of their communities. After all, they were both able to leave lasting impressions on the world. Elie Wiesel focused on telling his story, and describing how he survived the traumatic event through his memoir, Night, that demonstrated his perseverance through the Holocaust.
In 1943, during World War II, there was a mass genocide of the Jewish population. Many people in the concentration camps had lost everything from clothes to family to names. These people who after losing everything, gave up, lost their lives. But those who continued putting one foot in front of the other, made it through to the end. Elie Wiesel, a young boy at the time, has lived to tell the world about his experiences in Auschwitz.
Family members were often initially separated once they arrived at the camps and those who survived past selection were forced to work. If one was lucky enough, they could be grouped with a family member. However, events of the Holocaust strained these existing connections. When Elie continues to help his dying father, a fellow prisoner points out, “you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations” (Wiesel 111).
In the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel talks about the challenges from living at the concentration camps. Elie expresses how family is key to survival and how families are crucial in our lives and how they can motivate us to keep surviving. When Elie and his father were in the cattle car, they recognized a woman named Madame Schächter. Madame Schächter had three children, but, “Her husband and two older sons had been deported with the first transport, by mistake. The separation had totally shattered her”
Many survivors experienced severe trauma, depression, and anxiety that lasted long after the Holocaust ended. The dehumanization tactics used by the Nazis stripped the Jewish people of their sense of self and identity, leading many to feel empty and disconnected. For example, Wiesel’s father died earlier than he might have, due to the psychological and spiritual impact of the Holocaust. The Jews during the camps in “Night” had lost their sanity and will to live. For example, Elie Wiesel had given up on his god and felt that this was his punishment.
And they talked about being traumatized by some of the expectations that the Holocaust had placed on them, such as that they are the reason their parents survived and therefore there was a whole set of things that they would now have to accomplish so that all the people that died— they could give their lives meaning. They had difficulty in any kind of a separation circumstance — divorce and those kinds of things. And they described essentially this problem in separating from their parents," Dr. Yehuda went on to
The majority of the experiences shared about life before the Holocaust was about normal life. They talked about going to work, taking care of the home, just living life, but as time continued the realized that their normal way of life was ending. Golly d. tells about he experience when she finally understood just how bad things where, and how worse they were going to get. She tells of the ordeals that her family face during Kristallnacht. “ We were fast asleep, and then someone started pounding on the door.
These survivors who experienced this event, have been scarred for the rest of their life. We can listen to their stories but we can’t imagine and experienced what they have gone through. For example, Szymon Binke, Hilma Geffen, and Baker Ella, were the survivors of the Holocaust. Szymon Binke was born in 1931 in Poland, his family moved to the city after the Nazi’s invasion. Nazis deported his family to Auschwitz where his mother and sister were gassed, while, Szymon was placed in Kinder block but after sometime he ran away to meet his family in Auschwitz.
