Questions on 'One Survivor Remembers'

One of the most powerful scenes of One Survivor Remembers was when her friend Hilda knew that she was going to die. This scene of the documentary was so powerful for me because she knew she was going to die but stayed calm. Hilda knew that she wasn't going to live much longer yet she stayed calm, and was still a good friend and enjoyed the last few moments that she had on earth. Hilda gave the one potato she was given away. I believe that this is so powerful because it is human nature to do whatever you can to keep yourself alive.
The Nazis dehumanized the Jews by making them feel like nothing, that one wrong move and they would be dead. You had one shot based on your age, if you were over a certain age you were no good and would be killed. The way the Jews had to witness the ones they loved being pushed to their death would be very dehumanizing, and the way the Nazis could be so non-chalant about it. Jews were also physically dehumanized by not being fed. The woman said that she was 70 pounds during the death march. I think that she worked to overcome it by forcing herself to persevere, and telling herself that she had to stay with the group and just hope that everything would be okay. The woman who ran the factory that she went to helped also. She was kind instead of being nasty like most other Nazis. I think that the fact that she wasn't treated so harshly there helped her to feel human.
I think if I were put in that position and forced to occupy my time by thinking about the little things I would think about the things I love to do. I would try as hard as possible to keep a positive attitude, and think, when I get out of this mess this is what I will do, even if the odds are against me ever making it out alive. I would think about the food I love to eat, and imagine how nice it will be when I eat them again. I think I take many things for granted, even though I always try to be grateful for everything around me, it is sometimes hard because it has become such a normal thing for me to have so I forget that it's possible for me to not have them. I mostly take for granted food I eat because I love to snack, the things I have like clothes a guitar a skateboard, and the people around me that love and care about me.
I mostly see persecution in the form of being stereotypical, and making jokes about it. I think that in Israel there is much persecution going on because of all of the hate for the different ethnic groups. I see that Muslims are commonly targeted because most people still see all Muslims as crazy and violent people. I think that it is hard to make people see that we should all be friendly towards one another. I think that to have all people properly educated about all of the different people in our world would help. However, I do think that we will never be able to fully attain a world where all people are approving of one another's beliefs. People are brought up to believe that things should be a certain way all over the world just like Nazis did with Hitler Youth. If you are raised as a child to believe one thing it would be very hard to learn that you are wrong, and that you need to be a different way. This is why I think that we can never fully eliminate prejudice in our world.
I think that one of the biggest heroes of the film is the man that she winds up marrying because he saved all of the women who were living in the bicycle factory at the end. Had he not showed up and saved them all they most likely would not be alive. Another hero is the woman Nazi who was so kind to her when she was forced to do labor in the factory. If that woman hadn't been so kind and told her that she had to look well and try to work she would without a doubt be dead. They make me hopeful because it makes it seem like no matter how bad things are there is always something to brighten things up a bit, and it makes me hopeful that there is always someone who would help me. I think that I could do anything I wanted to make the world a better place if I took initiative. However, I think that just being friendly to all, and being open to other's beliefs, and ways is very important if I want to make the world a better place.

The Boy Who Dared Blog Entry # 3

In the book The Boy Who Dared, Helmuth lives in Hamburg, Germany. When he is young he decides he wants to be part of the Hitler Youth. They took kids when they were at a young age. Adolf Hitler said, "These boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years of age." They would keep the kids in their own hands for long periods of time. When Helmuth was young and in school he realized that everybody around him was spewing Nazi lies, and believing everything they were told. It was hard for Helmuth because the people around him hated Jews, but he saw no reason for having any hatred towards them. The Nazis who ran Hitler Youth made sure that you had no thoughts of your own, and believed that Jews were bad people, Adolf Hitler said, "And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months . . . And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left . . . the Wehrmacht [German armed forces] will take care of that." This passage shows how the Germans made sure that the young kids thought what they wanted to think, and nothing else. In fact, most propaganda was targeted towards young minds to try and get them to be a part of Hitler Youth. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says, "From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful." Helmuth witnessed everyone in his school's beliefs changed, and all children around him that weren't Jewish, U.S.H.M.M. says, "By 1936 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939."
The Hitler Youth group targeted young minds, and at first would have had Helmuth if he hadn't eventually realized that what Nazis were preaching was wrong. Yet, people around Helmuth still tried to tell him that what Hitler was doing was right, such as his mother's boyfriend Hugo. All of Helmuth's teachers were constantly pointing out how Hitler was doing such good for the country, U.S.H.M.M says, "Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view...Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession." The second part of this quote shows why so many of Helmuth's teachers were always shoving the Nazi beliefs down the throats of the students. During school one day when Helmuth raised his hand to ask a question about a painting, the teacher misunderstood and took it horribly. His teacher yelled at him saying, "The greatest honor for any soldier is to die for his country rather then to let the flag fall." (p.44). This quote is very important because on the U.S.H.M.M website it says, "In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland." This shows another way that the teachers around Helmuth tried to influence him to think a certain way.
All of these quotes and points that I have made are very important because of the role they all play specifically in my book. The Hilter Youth Movement plays a huge part in The Boy Who Dared because of how they all tried to influence Helmuth. All of what I have written are all ways that Hitler Youth was so involved in my book, and how they poisoned the minds of young people in Germany.