the holocaust - Oboulo.com

3 word format

Language : english

literature

school essay

date published

19/10/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 1 times

Summary

If Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox. Confessions of the unspeakable, the unthinkable in written word. And yet it exists, tangible, published. In memoir and fiction and essays, these expressions and representations brought to life by countless authors, countless survivors. The witnesses to apocalypse found. No, Holocaust literature is only a paradox when it is misunderstood, when the intentions of these authors, men and women like Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, are mistaken for historical value alone. To represent the unrepresentable, to represent the Holocaust, would be paradoxical; but Holocaust literature only represents personal experience. The Holocaust in its entirety is inexpressible, beyond comprehension. But individual stories and the individuals themselves are not. We, the readers, who hunger sixty years later to understand the Holocaust, we are responsible for creating this paradox, for we expect the impossible from these texts. These works are pieces of human experience, maybe even pieces of humanity itself. Experience, not explanation. Holocaust literature is unique to each author, for each experience is unique, each story lived differently, told differently. In a sense, maybe the term “Holocaust literature” is the paradox: it is literature instead about individuals transformed in the face of inhumanity’s darkest hour.

Table of Contents

If Holocaust literature strives to portray the paradoxical (the representation of the unrepresentable, the expression of the inexpressible), maybe it too is a paradox.
Memory does not work like history. History is laden with facts, statistics, dates and geographical particulars.
A strictly historical approach to the Holocaust is impossible in such literature, because experience itself contradicts fact.
baring witness to the Holocaust is a struggle for these authors.
If the Holocaust were left to history, if it were possible to explain the reasoning behind the Third Reich or to understand that special corner of human nature that contains the aptitude for grand-scale murder, then the Holocaust could be forgotten.
Like literature, we expect much from history.
They only represent themselves, their experiences, their memories.

$3.95

4 word format

Language : english

history 1789 to present

school essay

date published

22/10/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : General public

requested 1 times

Summary

The twelve years between 1933 and 1935 saw the systematic elimination of over ten million people, including over six million Jews and over four million Gypsies, Slavs, Communists, and people deemed unfit for life, such as the mentally retarded and homosexuals. Known as the Holocaust, this mass-genocide was perpetrated by German nationals under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, who promoted a racial ideology of German superiority over “inferior races.” At the height of the Holocaust, extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka “processed” over 9, 000 victims daily, in what would become the paradigm of efficient slaughter of human beings.

Table of Contents

The Holocaust was the realization of the racial ideology developed by Hitler in his semi-autobiographical work, 'Mein Kampf?
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was named chancellor, the most powerful position in the German government, by President Hindenburg, and swiftly moved to put his racial ideology into practice.
Though Hitler's racial ideology was primarily anti-Semitic, it also included those 'unworthy of life' such as the sick, disabled, mentally retarded, and homosexuals.
The next attempt at solving the 'Jewish question' was one the Nazi's first experiments in mass extermination
The primary strategy resolved upon by the Conference involved deportation, forced work and systematic killing.
The six main sites chosen by the designers of the Final Solution were Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau
The methods of murder were similar in the killing centers, which were operated by the SS.
The liberation of Jewish prisoners began in July 1944 when advancing Soviet troops discovered the extermination camp of Majdanek.

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2 word format

Language : english

literature

book review

date published

19/10/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 9 times

Summary

There is a basic purpose to the literature of Holocaust survivors: to bare witness. Many believe they survived to perform such a duty, to fulfill such a debt to those who did not. As witnesses, they record living history, for they record the history of their own lives. But what happens when a witness does more than witness? When a witness not only questions the Holocaust, but questions the state of the world? In The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Simon Wiesenthal questions. And the world answers.

Table of Contents

The Sunflower itself is the story of Wiesenthal's experiences in numerous ghettos and concentration camps.
This decision plagues Wiesenthal until the day of his liberation.
The Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu are individuals known throughout the world for their relationships to peace and genocide.
At the core, Wiesenthal's dilemma is a religious dilemma, a crisis of faith.
Many of the contributors question Karl himself. They question why he asked for a random Jewish prisoner instead of a priest.

$2.95

3 word format

Language : english

history 1789 to present

school essay

date published

28/08/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 5 times

Summary

Racism has existed since the beginning of time. People have fought hundreds of wars in the name of racial superiority. Racial differences come between almost all people at some point, be it in war or in every day life. Robert Abzug’s Inside the Vicious Heart and Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War exemplify the racial differences that occurred as a result of the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. These events were based on racial discrimination and events that led to a new racial hatred.
The Holocaust was spurred by the Nazi hatred for all those who they believed to be inferior to them. Many races were victims of the Holocaust: Jews, Polish, Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, Ukrainians, Russians, French, Gypsies, and even some Germans.

Table of Contents

The Holocaust was spurred by the Nazi hatred for all those who they believed to be inferior to them
Over time, after American soldiers infiltrated the camps, the news spread of the true, real life mass burials, the mass murders in crematoriums and gas chambers, and the full out genocide that was going on in Germany
If nothing else, Americans had a hard time dealing with the German guards who remained at the camps.
Caputo's A Rumor of War reveals another type of racism that can develop as a result of war.
In the finals months of his time in Vietnam, Caputo became enraged with two young VC.

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3 word format

Language : english

history 1789 to present

term papers

date published

03/05/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : General public

requested 8 times

Summary

World War Two left Europe war torn and destitute. Over 30 million people had been “uprooted, transplanted, expelled, deported and dispersed…in the years 1939-43” (Judt, Postwar, p. 23). Many cities were completely destroyed including Minsk, Royan, Le Havre, Hamburg, Cologne, Warsaw, and thousands of others (p. 16-17). Industry and agriculture were hard hit, which contributed to the need for food rationing because there was not enough food to feed Europe. This war was without a doubt a total war, in the sense that nothing was sacred or safe from the war machine. An example of the effects of this total war can be seen in the number of civilian casualties: “The numbers of civilian dead exceeded military losses in the USSR, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway” (p. 18). Thus, this war wreaked havoc not only on the physical landscape of Europe, but also on the psyche of Europeans: Europe would never be the same. In order to deal with this intense trauma and its ensuing consequences, Europe repatriated millions of refugees and displaced persons, many Western European countries instituted social welfare programs, and some countries created myths about the war in order to help their countries heal.

Table of Contents

During WWII, Hitler fought a racial war in order to 'protect' Germany's racial purity
Because of the Holocaust, there were few Jews left in Europe
Another by-product of the war was the creation of welfare states
World War Two represented a key turning point for France
The Soviet Union suffered the worst casualties of the war, losing over 30 million people
After the war ended, Stalin claimed all of the territory that the Red Army had liberated as part of the Soviet sphere of influence
Germany's postwar experience was different than the Allied nations' experiences
World War Two left a deep wound in Europe both metaphorically and physically

$5.95

6 word format

Language : english

international law

presentation

date published

18/04/2006

review : not yet assessed

level : General public

requested 6 times

Summary

Humanitarian intervention deals with two academic fields: political philosophy and international law. The question of intervention depends on the morality and on the legality of the intervention. Is humanitarian intervention a moral duty for states? Is humanitarian intervention a right for states? Those two questions will be the core of our argument in this essay.

Table of Contents

Traditional Approaches about humanitarian interventions
1. Theoretical objections to humanitarian interventions
2. Theoretical approaches in favour of humanitarian intervention: Solidarist international society theory
3. The ambiguous case of the United Nations
A renewal of approaches since the end of the Cold War: practice and theory
1. 'NATO's humanitarian intervention in Kosovo: making or breaking international law?'
2. The effects of globalization and the arising of non- forcible intervention

$3.95

4 word format

Language : english

literature

school essay

date published

28/10/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 1 times

Summary

The death toll during World War I surmounted fifteen million. The second World War erased the lives of fifty-five million, nearly five million of which were civilian Jews exterminated throughout Hitler’s tyranny. Nine million died during the Russian Revolution, and twenty million more died during the reign of Stalin. Almost sixty thousand American soldiers died during a small phase of the Vietnam conflict, a small phase that was eventually abandoned as a failure. Yet such numbers, relied on by every modern media source, are only mathematical representations. While striving to paint an honest portrait of war for those on the home front, for those distanced by land and generations, body counts succeed only at numbing the reality of death. They “reduce human suffering to cold statistics” (White). However, “human suffering” has been reduced to ideals far more pathetic than cold statistics for far longer than statistics have even been a common practice of describing war. Death means almost nothing in the modern era. It has been accepted to the point of expectation, and war has become only another means by which to fulfill the promise of finite life. Nations abuse death tolls for political defenses and political attacks, numbers that lie and erase the moral fiber of proper respect for those soldiers and civilians alike sacrificed in the name of the progress of freedom and democracy. Beyond numbers, death is such a common occurrence that soldiers, breathing it and tasting it day to night and year to year forget that it is not inevitable, a phenomenon explored by Joseph Heller in his book Catch-22. Death has become a tool, an object, not a means within itself, but a means to an end result molded in the hands of time and civilization. And war, its greatest ally, with its death tolls and body counts, its endless thirst for blood blurred in the minds of its very victims, the men and the women in uniform and the men and the women hoping and pray and trying to remember the men and the women in uniform in the midst of an easier path, the path to forgetting; war bleeds death in its most carnal form, that of innocent forfeiture.

Table of Contents

The objectification of death in the form of statistics and body counts became prominent during the Vietnam, the first truly televised war.
Reducing death to statistic appears immoral in and of itself, but the numbers themselves raise numerous other moral issues.
Since Vietnam, statistics have become essential to explaining any violent act: they have become the obsession of the Western world, the only comparable measurement of death that makes sense of the endless bloodshed around the globe.
''I used to get a big kick out of saving people's lives. Now I wonder what the hell's the point, since they all have to die anyway??
Heller's characterization of his soldiers, although written in a very satirical style, is honest.
Yet in every war movie, every war novel, there is a hero. In Catch-22, there is Yossarian, a man so incredibly sane that he does not want to die, that he will do anything not to die.
Former soldiers insult their former leaders, former Americans insult their former country.

$7.95

8 word format

Language : english

international law

presentation

date published

12/04/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 17 times

Summary

“The very concept of individual accountability – indeed – the very idea that an act could be ‘criminal’ was antithetical to International law during much of its history […] With narrow exceptions, individuals held no rights and bore no responsibilities under International law, provided some protection for individuals through the laws of war, but these were derivative of the rights that states had against other states” declared the Harvard Law Review . Further on, it deduced from the statements above that “the costs of such lacunae were demonstrated by the atrocities of World War II. […] the failure to prosecute after earlier wars create[d] a sense of impunity on the part of war criminals” . The Nuremberg Trials put an end to the ‘golden age’ of/for war criminals by initiating the development of international criminal accountability . Between 1946 and 1960, “similar proceedings” confirmed the principles established by the Nuremberg precedents, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949. However, they didn’t raise new legal aspects; either because “they involve[d] trials of former Axis nationals by courts of countries that had been occupied during the war” like in the major Nuremberg trials, or the “acts tried were committed on the territory of the adjudicating state and proceedings were conducted according to the lex loci” , that is, mainly, German law applied by German courts.
It is necessary to bear in mind this context in order to fully appreciate the significance of the Eichmann case. Unlike the cases that followed the Nuremberg Major War Criminals Trial, the Eichmann didn’t involve the ex-Allies or the countries occupied by the Nazi military forces, it was not explicitly supported by the international community, not through the United Nations Organisation, neither Eichmann nor the victims were of Israeli nationality… In short/in brief, there are many brand new/original features that make the case likely not only to set a precedent, but also to mark a turning point in International criminal law. The Eichmann trial started/launched the debate on what the priorities of International Criminal law should be and what procedural concessions the international community can tolerate in order to achieve the main objectives without endangering the accomplishment of Justice.
First, we will discuss whether the principle known as “the fruit of the poisonous tree” in the United States must be applied to the abduction of Adolf Eichmann or not. The violation of International law was “clear” to Louis Henkin in 1968 but one can argue that the end justifies the means somehow . Then, the trial in itself has to be analysed in both procedural and substantive terms. The jurisdiction of the Israeli court, the nature of the law it applied and the fairness of the proceedings will be brought into focus. Eventually, the topicality of the case will be highlighted.

Table of Contents

The abduction of Adolf Eichmann from Argentina to Israel: ‘the fruit of the poisonous tree?
1. The Facts
2. Their Justification
Procedural and substantive aspects of the trial: how the Eichmann trial launched a rich debate on many International criminal law issues
1. The Jurisdiction of the Israeli ad hoc court
2. Nature of the Law applied, line of defence and procedural issues

$1.95

1 word format

Language : english

history 1789 to present

school essay

date published

22/08/2007

review : not yet assessed

level : Advanced

requested 7 times