FATHER BRESSANI CATHOLIC HIGH SCOOL: A SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AND ADVANCED PLACEMENT CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Post #6: Reflections on Documentary
Students are required to spend some time reading and reflecting on peer's initial posts to the documentary Night and Fog. Please comment on two peer posts . For each of your posts begin your comments/reflections with, " My response to Post #5 written by (name of student) is..."
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My response is to post #5 written by Kayla Terceira. I must say, she hit it right on the head when it came to Hitler. It is indeed true that the Fuhrer had a cause in what he was doing, a cause that would make any patriotic German proud. Adolf Hitler was going to make Germans the perfect people, and turn the world into a paradise. All this is good; however the way it was to be done was beyond atrocious. Kayla made the same point as me that we had all heard and read about exactly what went on in those camps. However, when we finally see a film of the happenings in places like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Belzek went from being a sad bit of history to something that really happened. And, like Kayla said, “(dealing) with the greater evil is still no excuse for genocide.
ReplyDeleteMy response is also to post # 5 written by Mary-Ann Bui. To start off, I like how she mentioned the fact that it took the exposition of the camps to get the rest of the world up in arms about the German’s treatment of the Jews. Surely, when the Nazi party began to segregate all the different races into ghettos and slums, the world must have known that was happening too. We saw all the signs, so why didn’t we connect the dots and help out before it got worse? Quite simply, I believe it is because we didn’t feel like it. In a way, it seems to me like the average bullying situation, on a larger scale. Minorities were the victims, Nazi’s were the bullies, and everyone else who saw trouble brewing long beforehand were the bystanders that did nothing at all to helps, and so were just as much to blame. I completely agree with her sentiments when she said “How can we point fingers when we ourselves are to blame?”
My response is to post number 5 written by Sam Cesario. I was skimming through what she wrote and a specific line caught my attention. She wrote: "as I watched the bodies- there's no way those bony figures could be human-" I got a feeling in the Pitt of my stomache when I realized she was right. They were just bones with sking on it; the same figures that haunted me my nightmare. She's aid she was passed the point of crying and I felt her sympathy. I knew her feeling. It was too gory to look at yet the fear in our hearts was too strong to make us cry. She also mentioned how she kept saying that it couldnt be real. I realized that the "reality check" I had received 3 days ago was no only given to me, but given to my peers as well.
ReplyDeleteMy other response is to post number 5 by Melissa Paul. She made a remark that our classmates were trying to wrap their heads around the fact that there are people in the world who could be so cruel. That reminded me of my initial reaction, wondering if any one person could be so cruel. Another part of her comment that caught my eye was "I can barely believe that one person could do it, but I refuse to believe that an entire comment 100%. She also mentioned that it wasn't just the Germans who were exterminating the Jews, but they were people who thought they were better then rest. I admire her for saying that because it means she's not listening to the 1 single story.
As my classmates and I commented on the gruesome film “Night and Fog” two of my peer’s posts really stuck out for me. One of the posts that were dominant was David’s. I also remember watching the scene of the film where the soldiers were congratulating each other by giving each other high-fives and laughing. This put me in utter disgust, but I also realized this was not only happening during the time of the holocaust but happened in many other periods of history and even in this day in age. What the Nazis were doing to the Jews were basically bullying them- of course to a greater extent than what we see in schoolyards today. Discrimination towards someone because they are different is wrong, but we have all experienced it in some shape or form. Whether it is we doing the discriminating, us getting discriminated against or us just watching in a distance, we’ve all gone through it. I like what David talks about it in his post because I hadn’t really thought about how this cruelty could be going on at any place at any time, to anyone.
ReplyDeleteThe second post that made me think a bit was Sarah’s. Her post was very interesting and she makes a lot of good points throughout it but her first sentence said a lot for me. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” When watching the documentary, by having the sound turned off it really impacted the way we watched the movie. One of our senses was shut off as we watched in awe when different sickening images appeared on screen. For a minute during the movie I remember looking around at my classmates and taking in the look on their faces. Fear, disgust, and horror filled their eyes and Sarah’s sentence sums up exactly that. She also talks about the Nazis and their horrible ways. The fact that people just like us can even do those things without feeling just a tinge of guilt sickened my peers and I.
I admire both Sarah and David for the insightful posts and look forward to reading more of my classmates’ blog posts.
My response to Post #6 is in regards to Post #5 written by Veronica Cesario. “The Jewish people had become robots going through the same motions/actions each day, no longer being an individual person with a name, family, unique looks. Now they were all just a number.” Reading this statement really provoked some ideas that had begun forming in my mind, while watching the documentary. It breaks my heart knowing, that at this moment the one thing that really classifies me, expresses me and represents me, my personality and individuality, was taken away from millions of people. Not only did they lose their lives, but they lost what could have been remembered when they were gone; who they were as an individual and what they brought to this world, whether it was laughter, joy, even anger… anything really. To me this is one of the worst possible consequences and torture that anyone could ever have to go through and put on someone else, for that matter. I can not bear the thought of it happening, and the reality is Hitler, along with many others, forced this torturous journey on millions. This got me thinking about, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and it reminded me of something that I had discussed in one my posts. Bruno and Shmuel both died, specifically because Shmuel was Jewish and his death was ultimately planned, Bruno more in my opinion because of fate. But they died together, happy, and this alone almost brought tears to my eyes because it meant that even though Shmuel traveled through this torturous journey, he still got to keep some of his individuality. And he was able to share that with someone else; he was not just a number anymore, like he had been for a big part of his life. Between the two boys, they were each their own person, different from one another, not just because someone labeled Shmuel and not Bruno, but because through friendship. This brought hope in my thinking because it meant that maybe, some out of the millions that died, also got to keep and share some of their individuality with one another.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #6 is in regards to Post #5 written by Chiara Canaletti. I had a sense of urgency to comment on her response because she literally explained what I had felt directly after watching the documentary; a hollow pit, almost empty. After watching in horror, Night and Fog, I found myself wondering why everyone else was filled with exploding emotions, that needed to be written down on their papers, and I was not. It frustrated me that I hardly felt anything other than emptiness, almost numb. But I realize now that I was not the only one. Chiara, who was sitting directly beside me, actually felt the exact same way. We both saw the setting of death, injustice and cruelty of innocent people, and like she brought up about Bruno, we were just as ignorant and hopeful that it was a reenactment, or a horror story, definitely not a past reality. It is actually ironic, because I have never liked horror stories, nor have ever wanted to go watch one, and in this situation I am actually wishing it was a horror story, something scary but untrue. Some things are just too complicated to ever understand and unfortunately like Chiara said, the Holocaust is one of them.
The two posts that I found related to a lot of things that I felt when watching the documentary were Samantha Cesario's and Isabelle Nicholls'. My response to Post #5 written by Samantha Cesario is that I found that I was able to really understand the surrealism that she felt when watching the documentary. When I watched it felt that it wasn't real but at the same time it was, and that's due to the fact that these horrific actions caused by the Nazis to the Jews are astounding, horrific and as a few others have mentioned "hard to wrap your head around". I myself feel that way and when I watched the documentary, I was baffled by the things I saw. It also may have seemed fake to a certain extent because like Samantha mentioned we see all these violent videogames and movies that it almost seemed like the documentary was a horror film in itself. With so much going on in our lives its easy for us (like Samantha mentioned) to get back to our regular routines and place these scary images at the back of our minds but we must take what we learned from this documentary and use it in our current lives and keep the losses of these people close to our hearts so we prevent events like these to happen again. Samantha's post I find was really insightful.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #5 written by Isabelle Nicholls is that she mentioned she felt helpless and sadness which I was able to relate to because I felt those same emotions when watching "Night and Fog". As I mentioned in my other post, I had this sensation of emptiness in my gut because I felt so depressed, and helpless to what was happening on the screen, none of us watching could stop this and you feel so worn out watching and just imagining the pain of the horrors these innocent people lived through..... We both felt helpless because this matter was out of our hands and we sit and watch saddened. She also mentioned that the images without dialogue made the documentary more impactful ("a picture is worth a thousand words") that many other students mentioned which I completely agree with. She also stated that, now she seemed to know more on the technicalities and events that occurred and I too feel this way and many others did too, we were all left impressionable by this documentary because we figured things about this brutal historic event that we didn't know before.
I found many comments posted were insightful, including ones that mentioned how companies reacted eagerly to the building of the concentration camps as well as Nazi equiptment, posted by, I think David and Thomas but I also found some comments gave me a different perspective of things.
The first of my peers’ posts on which I would like to comment was written by Thomas. I must admit that I found the whole piece overall to be very sophisticated, it was written really eloquently and he had a lot of valid points to make. Some lines from his post, however, struck me more than others. One was the comment on how the TV screen acting as the door to another world. I can only agree. The way we all sat transfixed, completely silent, save sounds of horror, it was as if we hadn’t seen anything like it before, as if we couldn’t believe something like this could possibly exist. That’s true though, we hadn’t seen anything like it and that’s why we couldn’t believe it ever happened. I don’t think any of us wanted to. Then he goes on to comment on the look in the eyes of victimized, boring into us, asking, “‘why aren’t you doing something?’” It makes me wonder, why aren’t we doing anything? Do we realize that by solely acknowledging their suffering accomplishes nothing? It only makes us as complacent as the German perpetrators? I can completely understand as well why Thomas had to pull away from the screen and remember his surroundings. I myself couldn’t even bear to look at the screen, yet I was still drawn in by the words periodically flashing across the television, the edges of the grainy black and white shots. Everything melted away, you were drawn in, captivated, stolen by what you knew was there; lost in the silence, lost in the darkness, lost in between ‘then’ and ‘now’ struggling to escape, if only to be reassured that you could. The final two points that I were struck by brought some important questions and thoughts to the forefront of my mind. One was his reaction to the hierarchy in the camp, which then reminded me of a specific reaction of mine; that the explanation of the Commandant’s job is sickening. He is to keep the camp running smoothly, and then run home to his wife and kids, play chess and host Sunday meals as if there is not a trouble in the world, as if he is helping to destroy any trouble that does exist in the world. I hate the character of Father now; I refuse to look at any humanity he once possessed. He took his family to such a place; he worked in such a place?!? If I were to ever walk into a place like that (God forbid it) I would be sick to my stomach right there. Maybe I’d be punished for such a reaction but anything is better than attempting to rationalize the actions of the Nazis. I think in the end it would have driven me to suicide or mental instability anyway. For the second point it seems best to directly quote Thomas, “They [the officers] had killed, tortured and maimed millions of people and for them to calmly say that they were innocent and uninvolved was pathetic.” I couldn’t have said it better myself, although I am tempted to use ruder adjectives to describe them. There is one thing I do disagree with, a part of Thomas last sentence. Only one word felt awkward in that sentence “enlightening” and I do see his points, and agree with his conclusion wholeheartedly, but “enlightening” is the wrong word in my opinion. I could never find that documentary enlightening, nothing remotely to do with light actually. If anything a dark, cold, impenetrable feeling writhed its way into my minding, basking everything I knew about the Holocaust in a new light, or should I say, absence of light. It molded my thoughts into the cold, hard truth; and sometimes, the truth hurts, and it definitely hurt. Every image that haunts me is like a knife twisting deeper into my mind; unforgiving and unavoidable.
ReplyDeleteLast, but not at all the least, I would like to comment on Sofia’s post. Wow. It was a-maz-ing, it’s unbelievable to me that every thought, every comment you made, in both posts, touched on something that I was thinking or feeling or dreading or hoping. I want to be able to quote certain parts of your post, but when I start I realize I have practically quoted the entire thing. It was extremely well thought out, insightful and had an effortless fluidity that showed the pure honesty, the pure conviction in your (writing) voice. Every time I read a sentence I was eager to read the next, to see if the path your mind took, at different stages after the documentary, were similar to mine. They were; and it is priceless to be understood that way, in a way the Jewish weren’t, to realize that I can post whatever I want and it can be agreed with so soundly, like in this scenario, or it could be rejected; an yet be respected regardless. I applaud you Sofia, on your dissection of all the different dimensions of this documentary: Jewish, German and Canadian. It was a pleasure to read your post, to see some of my thoughts reflected so clearly, as well as notice new thoughts, valid and important ones, created in my mind.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #5 written by Thomas Hewitt pertains to his attention to the way that this documentary captivated his mind and brought it to a different time & place – even if only for a minute. When I read Thomas’s take on the silence of the film in comparison to the vividness of each image, I realized just how powerful this documentary was. Thomas’s response is insightful of the personal attachment that one can grow towards a theme or subject as they learns more about it. We begin to feel a sense of responsibility for the people before us who weren’t stood up for – we witness the crime, and thus time no longer becomes an obstacle. I think that Thomas voices what each of us probably had the urge to do – all feeling like we needed to go back and speak up for those people we were deprived of the voices they were born with.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Thomas addresses the scene in “Night and Fog” where the commanders and officers deny their wrongdoing towards the Jewish people who lived and were murdered in the concentration camps. When you look at the life of a Nazi, all of it is a game, a sneaky, ruthless, dirty life. Originally they partake in this gruesome torturing and murder of millions of people. They go about their jobs as if they were raising cattle, meanwhile hundreds die at their very hands. Then when it all ends, when the world fights back and freedom rings at last, they simply plead whatever it is that will get them out of trouble. They don’t hold onto a purpose, they don’t have an aim in their actions and all they do is slip around to every opportunity not to be hold accountable for their actions, or not to be opposed against. These soldiers don’t have a heart anymore – after all they have done, love simply cannot take form in them any longer. But that just makes it easier for them to do the things that they did and to plead innocent of a crime which was so evidently their doing. I understand the frustration which Thomas describes in his response and he is correct in feeling that way because the actions of the Nazis are enough to make someone mad with frustration.
My response to Post #5 written by Erica is in regards to one specific point that she raises amongst many. While writing, she compares all that she has with the little that the holocaust victims were left with. Specifically, she capitalizes on the fact that she has a name. This really stood out to me when I read Erica’s response because it not only showed how deep she dug to try to compare two opposites, but also made me consider what having a name really means. For us, our name is a form of our identification; we wear our name and bring it with us wherever we go. Now, look at those who suffered in the holocaust: surely they all had a name before they were taken to the concentration camps. Surely they all felt a sense in individuality and belonging before all that they owned was taken away. Now, when they were living in the camps, the Nazis may have referred to them as only a number, but surely they hadn’t forgotten their names? No, I don’t see how they could forget their own name, but I understand that a name becomes meaningless to them after everything else they had is gone. To really have a name, you have to have the individuality and freedom of using that name. After all of that has disappeared, a name is nothing more than a number. So when Erica addressed the fact that she has a name, I realize that her intention wasn’t to point out that all of the Jewish people were nameless per say, but more to point out that a name changes with circumstances, and that we are so privileged to have a name for ourselves, one by which we can be identified and called.
My response to Post #5 written by Samantha Clarizio is that I agree with everything that she said. I especially found her opening sentence very important to me. “my heart sank, my mind cleared and everything around me froze” The Horrifying images that made up the documentary Night and Fog did exactly this. They wiped everything from your mind. You feel helpless and despair as you see these people transformed into living skeletons and reduced to being used in experiments. You stop worrying about if you remembered lunch money or if you are going to get a new game and realise, these people we are watching are experiencing true horror and worry. They were taken from their families and wiped of everything that made them human. “everything around me froze” When you are watching this documentary, it is so horrifying and terrible you are drawn in and nothing around you in real life matters anymore. You are now a part of their world, trying to understand their pain through snapshots of what it was like to be abducted into one of these camps. You are completely and totally absorbed into the documentary and you forget about everything around you.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #5 written by Ryan Baldinelli is that I also agree with your opinion. Even though there were no words, anyone watching would get the message. Terrible things have happened here, and they could very easily come again. These images are a perfect example of how an image can speak a thousand words. They are perfectly set up to illustrate the horrors that went on in Auschwitz and other camps. They teach us of the past and how terrible it was. How we should never think anyone is better than anyone else. It doesn’t only teach of the past it teaches us how to avoid such things is the future. By seeing what happened and knowing what happened we can use that knowledge to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.
My response to Post #5 written by Sarah is that I could not agree more with your opening statement: "A picture is worth a thousand words." I could not have said it any better myself. So, if just one picture can make us think of a thousand words, I can only imagine the amount of thoughts and words we could develop on the hundreds of pictures we viewed during that video. I also admire how she says that it was as if the Nazi's acted as a different species because often when we think of these horrors we would never think that a human could possibly have done such a thing. Sarah explained her point of view in such a way that now I am also steering towards thoughts that she brought up.
ReplyDeleteMy second response to Post #5 written by Erica. After reading her poem and really letting her words sink into me, I am left speechless. To have read a response written in a poem has really shocked me in the best way possible. I love how she expressed her feelings in statements of less than three words at a time: "bodies discarded. now rotting. disintegrating. disintegrated." Those statements brought a chill to my bones and made the hairs on my arms stand on end. It was not only what she wrote that gave me chills, but how she wrote it. It was different, and creative and I enjoyed reading every word.
Everyone wrote different words to describe how they were feeling, but I think we all described the same feeling of disgust and pity. Now that we have all seen the damage that has been done to these people, I think we can all at least try to think before we act towards other people because the impact can be large.
My response to Post #5 written by Kyle Ngyuen is that I agree with his comment about how this is just one single case of human cruelty in all of human history. Yes, this is just one event but it is such an important and meaningful one that we need to study it and learn from it. Since the dawn of humanity, humans have been committing acts of violence and hatred against their fellow residents of Earth. What makes the Holocaust so memorable and sinister is that it was not simply murder, it was a systematic genocide specifically designed to kill millions of innocent people of a certain race. The Holocaust took the concept of industrialization and modernization that has allowed humanity to increase the rate of manufacturing and resource gathering and used it for a much darker purpose. Hitler and the Nazi’s industrialized murder made the loss of Jewish life quicker, more systematic and much more heartless. They were able to pack Jewish people into a train car, send them to a concentration camp and kill them with poison gas over the course of a single day. Yes, the Holocaust was a single cruel event over the course of history but it was a very important one, as it demonstrated evil’s ability to stay modern and humankind’s continued lack of acceptance.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #5 written by Erica Smenderovac is centered around her statement “try to forget for the time being. just like everyone else did” I found this line extremely powerful for two reasons. The first is that it truly struck me how scary this documentary was as you generally only try to forget the worst and most painful experiences of your life. For Erica to rank this documentary as one of those events that was so disturbing she has no desire to remember it, showed me how powerful it really was. I also formed a theory while reading the second line. I believe that the reason that the Germans were so complacent was based on the fact that they were so terrified about what was going on around them that they felt powerless to stop it. The fear they must have felt while watching people they had known all their life being rounded up and taken to a distant place must have been all-consuming. They may have been like Erica and tried to forget because remembering was too painful. They must have asked themselves “what have these people done” and if unable to find a better answer then “being Jewish” they must have feared for their safety. How could they feel secure if suddenly the SS decided that being green eyed or left handed meant they too were to be sent to their death at a concentration camp. They must have been terrified and that terror led them to try to forget, something we still do in the twenty first century.
This is my response to Post #5 written by Veronica. Her post really caught my attention because as I was scrolling through the comments and reached hers, I immediately noticed the words she had written in capital letters – how, why, and number. When I saw these words, they really intrigued me and when I read her response it was very emotional and powerful. I am left with the exact same question as Veronica is – how could something like this happen? Did these people (the Nazis) have no morals, no ethics, no compassion at all? They (the Jews) were treated like animals; no, like Veronica pointed out, worse than animals. I simply cannot understand what would possess people to do such cruel and inhumane things to fellow human beings; it just does not make any sense and I don’t think it ever will. In addition, Veronica commented on how each Jewish person was made into a number. They were striped of everything they had, including their dignity and made to feel like nothing, but in reality, what made these people so different? They all had families, feelings, hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations; they were all human beings, who deserved so much more and so much better than to be known as just a number in that sea of misery and death.
ReplyDeleteThis is my response to Post #5 written by Isabelle. In her comment, she included a quote from the film that I had not paid particular attention to but now find very interesting and powerful. The quote is, “As I speak to you now, the icy water of the ponds and rains fills the hollows of the mass graves with a frigid and muddy water, as murky as our memory.” It illustrates how the darkness, coldness, and bitterness of the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust still live on, and will continue to live on. Also, it points out that as time moves forward and this event falls further into the past, our memories may become murkier, but the important thing is that we never forget. We must never forget the lives that were lost and the mistakes that were made; instead, we must try to learn as much as we possibly can from them in order to prevent similar situations from arising in the future. Also, like Isabelle pointed out, in remembering, we should be very thankful for all the blessings we are given each day and make the most of our lives because you never know, they could be cut short, too.
My first response to post #5 is written by Kyle. I enjoyed how he chose to make his clear and qualitative. I strongly agree about how he mentions we don’t have the right to judge the Jewish culture or the German culture, it was simply tragic events in which occurred due to wrong choices by specific people. We cannot base a label on the culture it isn’t fair to them. Just as Kyle had said it was just a coincidence that happened to incorporate the two cultures. There was no prior hatred towards the two and deep down there probably never was. It was all just a mistake that would cost dearly to many. Kyle went on to explain how he was aware of what had taken place in the concentration camps from text, but by having a glimpse visually of what went on brought it to a whole other level. By observing these events it just really makes you look around at what you have and makes you more appreciative and aware of what is happening around our world.
ReplyDeleteMy second response to post #5 is written by Zachary Smart. When reading his post Zach brought up a point that really got me thinking. When he related the documentary to the interview he wrote about how something like the Holocaust could easily happen again due to our complacency. It may seem out of the question to happen or pessimistic to happen but were really not far away. We do have greater technology, therefore communication from around the globe isn’t so difficult but despite this im not even sure if much would be done. It was also intriguing that he touched upon how the images really told a story and possessed such dark meaning. Although there was not a word spoken so much was being said mentally. It was disgusting and uncalled for, there is no place in the world where actions like these are necessary. As Zach said we now realize the crimes being committed and unfortunately we’re too late. I just hope that we’ve learned permanently that this behavior to this extent is not to repeat itself ever again.
My response to post #5 is written by Chiara. I can relate to that feeling of emptiness. You don’t really know what to make of the heart wrenching images before you. However, what stood out to me the most was your comment on how you don’t know the complete story yourself. When reading the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, all we kept saying to ourselves was “poor Bruno, he is so naive” but when you really think about it, how much more do we really know? Sure we know the facts about what happened in those concentration camps at the time of the Holocaust, we’ve read books, heard stories and now witnessed a documentary, but do we really know the whole story? The feelings expressed by those being tortured, what was going through the minds of the Nazi soldiers, what Hitler’s purpose and train of thought at the time was…it goes on and on, and it makes you think, maybe we are the naïve ones.
ReplyDeleteMe next response to post #5 is written by Veronica. There are two main points in your comment that triggered some thoughts. The first was when you stated how the Jewish people were no longer individuals, but just a number. Immediately from reading these words, images from the documentary flashed through my mind: the shaved heads, tattooed numbers, and marked with a Star of David on their filthy “pajamas”. I know you said these people were treated worse than animals (and I completely agree) but I kept thinking to myself how much they resemble cattle; being herded into the camps, in terrible conditions, marked and branded, with no one stopping think about how they feel. The next comment you made was about Shmuel being able to act like a normal nine year old boy. I have to say I disagree with this thought. To me, I can see no way a nine year old boy can experience such gruesome scenes (in real life!) and just go about talking to Bruno like nothing’s really the matter. From simply watching this documentary we all felt terribly affected; imagine how a little boy in the middle of it all would feel. I believe that John Boyne may have created that image to aid the development of the story and Bruno’s naïve personality; but the harsh reality (to me at least) is that a young boy like Shmuel would not have seemed as unaffected as he did in the story.
My response is to post number 5 written by Caroline. I completely agree with what she is saying about how the movie brings a new perspective. Pictures and videos bring an entirely new light to what would otherwise be just words on a paper. When a person can see something, not just read about it, they see it differently. It can seem closer to reality. I agree with what Caroline says when she asks how the Nazis lived with themselves after the war. How can someone live with themselves after being an active participant in a mass murder? Even those who weren’t Nazis must have felt some sort of guilt, because they didn’t do anything to help those being persecuted. They idly watched as people were being loaded up and lead to their deaths.
ReplyDeleteOf course not all Germans were wicked. However, in a time of dictatorship, those who were willing to help the Jews had to consider that if they were caught, they would be killed. Those who spoke against the government were labeled as traitors to the fatherland and they were killed. The people of Nazi Germany had to risk their life to do what was right, and it seems that the risk was too great for many of them.
My response to post number 5 is written by Zachary Smart. I felt that the defining moment of this film were the corpses being bulldozed. That sight made me nauseous. It was sickening to see that this really happened, and that people actually lived through this living nightmare. I agree with what he says about how the novel and movie both carry the same message. As true as these messages are, what are the chances of humanity paying attention to them. Our society is one that only helps others if it benefits us. Money is also a large factor. If it costs too much, we won’t help. It really is sad to see how society operates. We do have to try and stop this way of functioning. Our priorities should not be put ahead of human lives.
My response to post #5 was written by Megan. I agree with what she said about the documentary. When it comes to the Holocaust, it is the best I have ever seen. We read about the Holocaust through many media like the diary entries like the Diary of Anne Frank or other ways, like the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but the documentary in my opinion shows the Holocaust the best. While these print sources give the readers an idea of the malicious acts of the Holocaust, the documentary actually gives us something that we can see. We know of the stories of the Holocaust, but this gives us something to put in place of the ideas that formed in our heads from the things we read.
ReplyDeleteMy response to post #5 written by Kayla is that I somewhat agree with her. She says that a small part of her feels sorry Hitler, and I think that everyone might feel a little sorry for him. I do feel a little sorry for Hitler, but not to an extreme where I would agree with him. What I don’t agree with though is that she said that whatever he was dealing with provoked him into this terrible mistake. I think that he has always had this prejudice with him, and that maybe one bad event triggered this horrible rage. I don’t believe that anything could provoke a person into doing what Hitler did. I don’t think that it’s possible for anything to have that much of an impact on a person.
“It is hard to believe that any human being would agree to commit such horrible crimes and to watch people just like themselves die by the thousands.” Caroline Spizziri wrote this statement in her response to Post #5 ‘The Documentary’. I decided to begin my response with this quote from Caroline because while reading all the wonderful posts written by my peers, I felt that this truly captured my attention entirely. I completely agree with what Caroline is saying, how can people watch someone, human just like themselves die? It absolutely blows my mind to even try to understand this concept. Caroline also discusses how the movie only demonstrates how Germans were “horrible, wicked” people, but it does not show that there were some Germans who were most definitely not “horrible and wicked” and were against the persecution of Jews. As Caroline says, there are always two sides to every story and unfortunately, this documentary only presents one. I completely agree with all the points Caroline made in her response.
ReplyDeleteMy response to “Post #5” written by Ryan Baldinelli was quite thought provoking. Ryan brought up a point that I had truly never thought about; this was reflecting on how the Germans must have felt. In most of the stories we read and movies we watch, we are most often pushed towards feeling sorrow and heartache for the Jewish people (which of course is MOST definitely deserved), but Ryan brings up the discussion of feeling sorrow for the Germans who were sometimes forced to committing the crimes; how did they feel? Does it still haunt them every day of their lives? How do they move on from something like that? What they did was most definitely completely and utterly WRONG but think about it this way, how did they feel that they were ending the lives of thousands and thousands of innocent people. Ryan also says the German people living in Berlin must have felt helpless knowing that maybe a few miles away, hundreds of thousands of people were being murdered for no good reason. Both Ryan and Caroline’s responses shed new light on the Holocaust for me and made me think in a different way. Thank you :)
Two posts that I would like to comment on contradict one another immensely, but I could relate to both.
ReplyDeleteThe first post that I want to comment on is Isabella Socci's post. I can relate to her because after seeing this film, it has unraveled many negative feelings inside of me such as anger and frustration. It had also made me sick when I saw such actions towards the prejudiced. Seeing such injustice makes me only want to see the negative side of the Germans and hope for the worse for them. I could understand her hopelessness when she had said that she wanted to jump in the screen and "kill every German in sight". Yet this would also be wrong...wouldn't this just cause an endless cycle of hate?
This is where Ryan Baldinelli's post comes in. I agreed with most of his post, yet when I read about the German soldiers I immediately thought, no. This was not right. The German SOLDIERS could not have felt guilt... could they?
What we see is only on the surface; and as all of us raise our eyebrows and think thoughtfully to ourselves... not everything is showed on the surface. We must inspect further the aspects of this event before judging or we might make the same mistake as the past.
Putting the German soldier's boots on, I imagine myself in their shoes. This is war; food is scarce and jobs are nowhere to be found. How will I feed my family? How will I support them? As cruel as it was, the Nazis were in top command and any ally of theirs was also taken up with them. Of course, you would rather take the life of a faceless man than your own blood... but that faceless man turns into many. And instead of "mercifully" pulling the trigger, those men go through torture that even you, yourself could not witness. The guilt that many soldiers bear is unimaginable.
We must then take into consideration that not all people are the same. Others have become soldiers just because they think this is right and enjoy these cruel ways.
Again, we see a repetition here. Not everyone is completely in the wrong and everyone was definitely not completely right. The message is simple, we are all different and unique yet we are all equal. If people can accept and embrace that single fact, I think the world would be much more peaceful.
My response to Post #5 written by David J. I completely agree with what he is saying. I also found it sickening when the soldiers were “high-fiving” while innocent lives were being taken before their eyes. It was almost as if they thought they were playing a game, and winning, even though there is no reward in genocide. David also mentioned this powerful line in his post: “a world of death, torture and everything else that was evil.” It is entirely true that the concentration camp was complete torture and agony. No one wanted to go to these camps, and especially not to be killed for any good reason. It is a shame that the events that took place in the Holocaust could not be stopped, as David also pointed out. It is a shame that so many lives needed to be taken before anybody realized the cost that this took on society. I agree that it was disgusting, sickening, and repulsive.
ReplyDeleteMy response to Post #5 written by Zachery S. Seeing the photos of the Holocaust really made me notice how brutal people can really be. The “bulldozer” scene constantly plays through my head, over and over again. I found it to be nauseating, as the once-living human bodies were being treated like dirt. It is so accurate that, as Zachery stated, any one of the events that had taken place can happen again. A shot of reality is downed by the fact that in our world, it is up to the people to prevent such disasters from reoccurring. We must make a change in the world and force ourselves to make a difference. Millions watched as the Holocaust transpired from minor disagreements to major catastrophes. We need to identify the crisis before it turns into such problems. The message is clear: “we cannot sit idly by while others are suffering.”
My first response from post number five is to Melissa Paul. I agree with Melissa that during, and after, that horrifying movie everyone was silent trying to process what they had just watched and had tried to imagine what the Jewish people did to deserve such an incredibly gruesome death, and why did Hitler conduct such a system. It really does show how one man can do so much to a country when he builds up their trust and their, once broken, pride. He fooled some many people of Germany and hid away the horrid things he did. I also agree that we only see the “bare minimum” from the eyes of Bruno. It shows very little of the Holocaust, and he horrors that occurred. I agree that it was a pretty biased opinion, but I think that the documentary gives you a broader view of the Holocaust. The only thing I did not think of like she did was how it affected my family, I have never really thought of my family being in the threat, mostly because they lived so far from Germany and that they were not Jewish. I do not really think a lot of people hate my family for what they look like or their religion. Not in specific but maybe there are people that are biased but I am sure there are some people but I think if they got to meet my family we could clear all misunderstandings.
ReplyDeleteMy second response to post number five is to Erica Smenderovac. It was a jumble of thoughts but that is what I thought was so expressive it was. She was just writing what was on her mind and her thoughts were just flowing to the paper. She expresses the feelings we probably all have. Guilty of not being able of doing anything. Knowing that we still are not doing anything about the genocide around the world. The whole of idea of humans killing other humans is crazy, and for what reason? Nothing but futile things like religion, race, culture. I think none of that really matters. We are all human the ultimate race. We can communicate, connect, create and develop. We are the apex predator. We have brains to think, we are not savages. We are evolved. But being all of this why do we have war and use our incredible brains to lower and harm others. We have no limits if we believe so. We wanted to fly, we built planes. We wanted to explore we built space shuttles and flew into space. We want to make people see events through our eyes, we made cameras and recorders. We wanted to express our feelings, without the use of words, we made music and art. We wanted to be more powerful, so we made weapons. We have our “imperfections.” Sloth, gluttony, envy, lust, greed, wrath, and pride. It is what makes us “human”. But why? Why can we not live in harmony and peace, with only happiness? The answer is a mystery.
My response to post #5 is written by Samantha Clarizio. I agree when she says, "There it was, in black and white, the death of millions of Jewish people. There are not enough words in the English language to describe the feeling I had." That touched me so much because she had the same emotions that I had. Of course not entirely the same, but I feel that she really was able to explain it in such a way that opens our eyes to what was going on in the film.
ReplyDeleteMy response to post #5 written by Kyle N. The point where he wrote,"Not all Germans hated the Jewish people and not all Jewish people hated the Germans." That's the truth. We shouldn't stereo type the cultures because we don't know all of them, one, and second, not all Germans are the same. Bruno's grandmother was a perfect example. She didn't believe that what her son was doing was right, therefore she didn't agree. She was a German who hated what other German's were doing. The point is, there is no need to stereotype people because each individual is unique and they have their own opinions and reasonings.
My response towards Martha Pulnicki’s post #5. “Also, even though the people in the film were just ordinary people whom I had no personal connection with; it still put my stomach in knots to see them go through what they did.” I second this statement; I had felt a sickening feeling that overtook me while I watched in horror, completely powerless to help. I have felt that feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense; seeing people being tortured or even witnessing the state that some of the inmates were in made me consider more the true nature of the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, regardless of the fact that I will never know the people that appeared in the documentary in the haunting pictures, I still think back and ask if their life was really that different from mine. I mean besides the fact that they were persecuted and the time was different. A sentence from the documentary that really managed to encompass my thoughts: “Are their faces really different from our own?". Because in reality they were not; physically in appearance perhaps, but they were all human. This also intersects with Erica Smenderovac’s post in which she spewed all of her unanswered questions, pent up feelings and connections with today’s world but how we are all undoubtedly human.
My response to Chiara Canaletti’s post #5. “Ignorance to a certain extent is bliss because we don't face with the ugly truth in front of us and but in reality to make a change in the world so we can prevent events like these we have to be aware of mankind's mistakes so we reflect on our behaviours.” Exactly. Ignorance can become like a protected bubble around us almost like shielding us from the ugly truths out there in the world. However, if people are always going on about how we must change the world and to refrain from repeating the past, why are they still remaining ignorant to the events that are occurring right under their noses? One must understand the flaws that have happened and we must look at the position that we have held in the certain circumstance, and only then can we all work together to mend the mistakes.