emilykim0206:

“I want to know how they managed to have enough will and strength to live through this horrible time?”

Exactly! I don’t think that I would be able to survive in these camps for even a day… I know that we all have the natural will to live, but quite frankly I wouldn’t want to live in a world knowing that you have been shoved into living hell just because you look/think/feel differently. You know that hatred has been engraved into these people’s minds and it might take them years, or even their lifetime to realize how wrong they are for condeming you. As pathethic as this sounds, I would probably starve myself to death under such circumstances.

nicoleratel:

I completely agree with Alix. I have no idea if could last 6 months in one of those camps, but just having the will to survive is in us and it would be extremely difficult to let yourself die of starvation. That’s probably one of the worst ways to go. Its not like anyone was going to care if you did anyways though. The people in charge would still make you work and force you to work. There was no way of getting out of the work. Starving yourself would only make it worse.

I always forget about how fortunate we are and how separate we are from experiencing war. Our generation has no real experience with a major war and cannot truly connect with our grandfathers and great-grandfather, we can’t even begin to think of what it would be like, but just hearing this help us try to understand. Being excited to eat raw potatoes and grass is something I can’t image being excited for. I want to know how they managed to have enough will and strength to live through this horrible time?

tara-flagel:

mariab-historyrocks:

alixverlaan:

emilykim0206:

David, the fortunate prisonner

Can you imagine learning of your siblings’ deaths while being forced to carry 50kg cement bags on your back? Where do you find the will to keep living? You wouldn’t ever know for sure when you will be liberated, because you wouldn’t know exactly when the Allies will be coming to your rescue. Personally, I am very close to my older sister(although we fight a lot) and if we were to be placed in concentration camps and she ends up dying, I would be more than devastated; I probably wouldn’t even mind dying at that point. David, on the other hand, seems to be very strong-willed and I respect him for that.

I honestly can’t imagine people eating grass to stay alive… But then again, we saw that when people are desperate for food, they’ll even cannibalize children. I guess grass is better in that case.

My question for everyone is, if you were to be sent to a concentration camp and to be kept there for at least 6 months, would you rather starve yourself to death at the camp, or do all you can to stay alive?

I think it’s human nature to stay alive. It is in our blood, our instincts and our moral development to do anything not to die. On the other hand, if you grow deep into depression and have no strength or the mental capacity to continue thinking about the future, what may happen, what could come and save you… you may just feel the need to end your life because you feel as though you have no hope. I don’t believe I’d starve myself to death unless I was in that complete stage of darkness.

What I found interesting in this video was not only the speaker’s struggle for survival, but the whole host of events that where in fact occuring around the same time as their “Death March”. Perhaps the most striking of these is Hitler’s persistence in the war, and how he was unwilling to give up his Third Reich; so much so that he made his Hitler youth, children yet to reach adulthood, fight for Germany. It is not enough that men must go through the chaos and hell of fighting, but having the new generation going through that fight for survival… It is perhaps one of the most horrendous things “de Fuhrer” has done, besides the holocaust.

This essentially ties in with the speaker’s message of respect for human life: no matter the color, relgion, ethnicity, creed or age. And this is something that was destroyed in its enterity, during this period of darkness in our history, and is something that should never be repeated again.

I never knew the extent of Hitler’s possessiveness over his prisoners until this video. He is much like a petulant child who keeps his toys away from others only to smash them later; he subjects prisoners like David to leave Auschwitz, and other camps, to trek on death marches only for him to kill them later. Going from working in Auschwitz and stealing potatoes and eating grass to marching in the bitter winter with snow to the knees to working in a mine and eating nothing is like finding the oblivion of hell: the next place worse than the last. If the physical burdens were not enough, David had to discover the death of his two brothers. At that point, I would not have been able to continue being subjected by the physical and emotional torture. This is truly “what happens when racism goes unchecked” and I am further appalled with each fact like this that a Tumblr assignment unveils. Though, as appalled as I am, as a student, this is intriguing to learn.

“We must learn to give our fellow students, as you grow up, our fellow neighbours respect regardless of their colour, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their religion”.

David’s words are the lesson that WWII and the Holocaust teaches others throughout the world; though we have advanced, I wish every person in the universe could follow his advice more thoroughly.

My answer to Emily is that it really depends on the circumstances. I need all of the variables before I can decide a proper answer. If I was a patient of the experiments, a prisoner who had to console children and their mothers before sending them to the gassing chambers, or a prisoner forced on a death march, I would try to stay alive only to try and find my loved ones. If I found out they had died, I would have no purpose if I survived the camp and would then resort to starving myself.

After the video, I wondered if all of the death marches were heading west, due to the Russian front closing in; if anyone is interested, I found a map of other Auschwitz Death March routes: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005162&MediaId=308

I could never myself living in those camps either. But I agree with David that those raw potatoes might taste good, since they haven’t got any REAL FOOD for so long, and it’s better than grass soup. I would rather eat anything I can see & grab than being eaten by the other people. However, living in that kind of condition and facing all those horrible things happening might be extremely disturbing. I think I would have just commit suicide rather than suffer to death.  

kitteringhamhistory12:

 Click on the picture to visit a nifty online museum related to the Holocaust.

This website gives me a better idea of how Auschwitz looks like and the layout of it. I also found out that the Nazis had so many camps at so many different locations, which once again shows how they were so into torturing people and that did shock me again. People haven’t learned about this part of the history might see those maps of the camps and the barracks as the map of an apartment or something, while in fact it was the places that so many innocent people suffered to death. I was actually thinking about how to eliminate a large group of people, and I thought of Hitler and his concentration camps. Yet his was way too cruel and ferocious, which no one would ever be more ruthless than he was. 

kitteringhamhistory12:

 Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father, Shlomo, in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War.

I agree to most of the comments below. I was impressed by how successful the Nazis were at hiding secrets from the people, and how powerful propaganda was. I can’t imagine how they burned those innocent babies.. The power the SS soldiers had was powerful as well. People had to obey and follow what they said. I’m also impressed by how strong the boy was. He was only 15 and had no fear of facing death. He said he’d rather throw himself onto the barbed wire than burned to death. He was basically marching to death, yet he was not afraid of it. He accepted the fact that he was in the concentration camp and living in that kind of tough environment. That is something I could have never imagine. Despite all those cruel things done by the Nazis, this book was pretty interesting to read. 

kitteringhamhistory12:

STEPS TO HOLOCAUST BLOGGING

The Same Instructions That Were Distributed In Class

STEP 1:

Go to  www.tumblr.com and create an account

                - Fill in Email, Password, and Website name

                -Website name MUST include your first and last name                                        (Logankitteringham.tumblr.com)

STEP 2:

Go to www.kitteringhamhistory12.tumblr.com and click “follow” at the top right side of the page

STEP 3:

The first item that you can begin posting on is a YouTube clip of a Holocaust survivor who visited WGSS and shared his experiences at Auschwitz, the most notorious of the Nazi death camps. I have also posted a marking rubric and a possible list of guiding questions. I encourage you to blog on whatever strikes or grabs your attention while watching, exploring or reading about the Holocaust. The guiding questions are a last resort for those students that find themselves in need of some direction or guidance. Students who choose not to use the guiding questions will not be penalized and their mark will not suffer. In addition to the aforementioned YouTube clip, this Tumblr blog also includes short excerpts from five different books related to the Holocaust. At the beginning of each excerpt is the cover of the book from which it was taken and a short synopsis of that particular book. Everyone must read the one and only page from the book titled The Holocaust Chronicle. Of the five remaining book excerpts you must read and respond to two of your choice. There is also a picture of the entrance to Auschwitz, that when clicked is linked to an interactive online museum. You must respond to something related to exploring this website or to the material presented in the Holocaust survivor YouTube clip. That means you have a minimum of four items to respond to. You are required to offer up at least five deep and meaningful responses/reblogs. You can respond in any of the following ways….

1.       Respond directly to something of interest in the text on the page you encounter it on

2.       Summarize the entire excerpt on the first page of that particular excerpt

3.       Respond to something that someone else in the class has said

4.       Explain how something makes you feel

5.       Explain how the text has enhanced your understanding of the Holocaust

6.       Ask questions that others can respond to, but if you do this you must return to your blog and respond to their responses at least once.

STEP 4: 

When you are ready to blog simply….

·         go to tumblr.com

·         log in with your new account (your computer might now automatically do this for you)

·         go to  http://kitteringhamhistory12.tumblr.com 

·         click the bottom section (posted) of the page you want to respond to

·         You should be able to see the responses of other students now

·         You now go to the top right and click on reblog

·         Entire your comments and click reblog post

·         The dashboard button on the top right is a convenient way to see your work and edit it as well.

·         Good Luck and enjoy

I was really impressed by David bravery to tell people about his experiences after watching this video. I can never imagine myself eating raw potatoes and having grass soup… Besides the food they had, he also had to accept the fact that the deaths of his siblings.. I could never put myself into his situation… I was also impressed of how he could appreciate the beauty of the surroundings while he’s marching from one city to another and living under any kinds of harsh condition. I wonder how he slept at night and woke up to another tough day. I respect him for the determination he had to stay alive and to tell everyone about his experience. 

kitteringhamhistory12:

 This short excerpt explains the horrible medical experiments conducted by the Nazis.

 As I saw the title “Nazi Medical Experiments”, I did not expect it was someting pleasent or enjoyable to read about. The experiment itself was already cruel and horrifying, but the fact that they murdered these poor victims afterwards was even more undesirable. The first thing that came out of my mind was a bunch of gross images and obviously some swearing words. However, I wouldn’t say these doctors were evil - well at least not as evil as a REAL murderer who had an inention to kill. They had an objective of doing so, to find out “the limits of human endurance as well as bodily reaction to a whole catalouge of remorseless physical insult,” as it stated in the article. Although they did not randomly kill the people that they did not like, just like what Hitler did to the Jews, the experiment was still unacceptable due to its curlety and the lives of those innocent German. I wouldn’t say the doctors were to be blamed, because they had their profession and that was their job. However, the experiemt was obviously gruesome and terrible, I still don’t think that the doctors were evil. Since they were living under Hitler’s rule and were Nazi doctors, they could have been FORCED to do these inhman experiments on their people. There might be something that we don’t know underneath. Who knows?