Bigotry and The Holocaust: What will you do?
Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor from Austria once paraphrased Edmund Burke
and said, “For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.” Wiesenthal’s quote is
the epitome of all horrid events and tragedies in our world, including the Holocaust. Good men
did not take the needed actions in order to stop Hitler and his Nazi regime, but if they had there’s
a high chance that everything would have turned out differently. It is crucial to teach future
generations about the Holocaust and pass down our knowledge in order to prevent future events
from occurring. If we educate each generation about the tragedy of the Holocaust then we can
only hope that they would learn from the mistakes of past generations and work to prevent
prejudice, discrimination and violence in our world today.
One book that I recently read was I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia BittonJackson. This book was an autobiographical display of a young girl from Hungary, named Elli,
and her family and the challenges they faced during the Holocaust. Elli’s family home was
expropriated and her family was sent to live in a ghetto, her father was forced to go work in a
concentration camp with her brother, their books were taken and burned, and later Elli, her aunt,
and mother were moved to Auschwitz. This experience was both scary to Elli and to those
surrounding her. Today it is difficult for most of us to pick up and move even when we know
where we are going. This makes it so much more challenging to imagine how a young girl was
able to adjust to forcibly being moved many times and leaving behind her mementos, her home,
her family, her beloved poetry, her books of the Torah, her friends, and her school. The
Holocaust was a tragic and horrid event that took the lives of six million innocent Jews. At the
time only nine million Jews were living in Europe, meaning that roughly two-thirds of the Jewish
population was brutally killed during the Holocaust. Out of the six million Jews who were killed,
1.5 million of them were children. To draw a parallel, there are roughly 5.9 million people living
in Maryland which would mean that each and every one of Maryland’s residents would be killed.
Another book that I have read was The Diary of Anne Frank. As most of us know Anne
Frank was a young girl who ended up dying in the Holocaust. Although she didn’t survive, her
diary is a legacy and a living reminder of the challenges people had to face and the abhorrence
the Holocaust left behind. Similarly to Elli and her family, Anne Frank and her family were
forcibly removed from their home, but before the Franks could be sent to ghettos they were
hidden in an annex of a non-Jewish family. The constant fear of being found and taken to
concentration camps was overwhelming and it made it an even bigger challenge to survive.
Though the Franks were able to remain hidden in the annex for a few years, they were eventually
found and sent to concentration camps. Out of the four members of the Frank family, the lone
survivor was Anne’s father, Otto Frank. After being released from the concentration camp, Otto
Frank found Anne’s diary and later published it.
Anne Frank and Elli are both similar because they were young girls forced to adapt to
circumstances in order to survive. Now-a-days people look to thrive in their everyday endeavors,
not just survive, but during the Holocaust young Jewish girls like Anne and Elli were
discriminated against because of their religion, their appearance, their socio-economic class, and
their background and the most they could do was to fight for their lives. By teaching future
generations about the atrocities of the Holocaust we hope to instill in them a sense of knowledge
and awareness so that we can prevent future occurrences.
Although, there are many organizations in place today to help prevent prejudice and
discrimination, it is still very prevalent in our society and in everyday life. Some common
occurrences of prejudice and discrimination in the 21st century include unequal treatment for
women, discrimination against the LGBTQ community, prejudice and discrimination against
people of color, people of different socio-economic classes, disabled people, and people of
different religions. We can help prevent this prejudice and discrimination from blowing into
large scale events like the Holocaust by teaching and informing young adults about the
horrifying repercussions of this bigotry. Some organizations that students can join include the
Diversity Club, IMADR (or The International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism),
Equality Now, and UNESCO (of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization). Organizations like Diversity Club can be found in schools and they help inform
students of the different type’s discrimination and prejudice present in our lives today and it
focuses on the actions we can take to get rid of this discrimination. For example, this year the
Diversity Club at my school is participating in the Day of Silence on April 17, which is in honor
of the LGBTQ community and it puts an emphasis on the discrimination the LGBTQ community
feels; often times people in the LGBTQ community feel as though no one is listening or giving
them a chance to speak. Such organizations are fueled by past events and tragedies like the
Holocaust.
Just like Simon Wiesenthal said, “For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do
nothing,” for prejudice and discrimination to spread it only requires us to stand by and not take
action. By teaching our future generations about the Holocaust we instill in them a sense of
responsibility to prevent potential reoccurrences of violence and prejudice. The main lesson we
hope to share is that bigotry is dangerous and cruel and any and all actions possible should be
taken to prevent it. We wouldn’t want anyone else to feel the oppression that was felt by Anne
Frank and Elli and we wouldn’t want anyone to feel as if they can’t be heard, in fact all that we
want is to be heard so why take that opportunity away from someone else.