We were supposed to go to the Holocaust Museum with our Washington DC trip, but it got bumped so we could meet two of our Congressmen, so my parents asked me to do a small report on the Holocaust.
They asked me to answer these 5 questions:
1. What was The Holocaust? Well, I will do my best to explain. The Holocaust took place in World War 2 and was from 1933-1945. It was basically the killing of 6 million (out of the 11 million) European Jews. A man named Adolf Hitler was the man running the whole thing. He was a German politician, and the leader of the Nazi Party (the soldiers who killed the Jews). One of his quotes was," Make the lie big, make it simple, and eventually they will believe it." I don't know about you, but that quote is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Anyway, in the Holocaust, there were camps. Certain camps...for Jews, where most of them died because they just simply didn't have enough resources to. Even worse, in the camps, the families were separated, and at the end of the War they rarely got together again. The Holocaust officially ended on September 2nd, 1945.
2. What is the Holocaust Museum? Okay, so the Holocaust Museum is the official memorial for the Holocaust. It's full name is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Inside, there is everything you need to know about the Holocaust. There is documents, pictures, even diaries or stories of people who experienced the Holocaust wrote. The museum was built not only for a Holocaust memorial, but also to help citizens around the world prevent genocide, promote dignity, strengthen democracy, and most importantly, confront hatred. I like that. Anyway, it was built in 1980, Washington, D.C. The museum has approximately 12,750 artifacts, 80,000 historical photographs, 200,000 registered survivors, and 40 million visitors. Surprisingly, there has been one shooting in the museum in 2009. But other than that, the museum has been perfectly safe since then.
3. Why should people go to the Holocaust Museum/why must we always remember the Holocaust? First of all, you need to know about the Holocaust. Like, NEED to. So a good way to learn about it is by going to the Holocaust Museum. Also, the Holocaust Museum has really cool artifacts and documents, pictures, too, and in general, it's just a really cool thing to see. You know, what other people experienced. That's why people should go to the Holocaust Museum. Now, we should always remember the Holocaust because of what a hard time it was for all of the European Jews. We have to remember it because it could have been something much worse. Also to show respect to the people who died in the Holocaust, and to acknowledge the great evil (things) done. I think we should also remember the Holocaust to be glad that someone hasn't done something like that to us.
4.
Reflect on the Holocaust. Ok, I can't really answer this question, because then I would be saying everything I did in question one, and that wouldn't be a good blogpost. So, instead, I will put in pictures and say a little about them:
Ok, so this was a quote from a Holocaust survivor. He was a writer, professor, and political activist. He was born in 1928 and died in 2016.
This was also another quote the same survivor, Elie Wiesel.
This was a quote from the USHMM. I really like this quote because it really says how much damage words can do. For example; if you tell a lie, and something bad happens because you told it, the damage is the words of the lie, not what happened.
This was a quote from Martin Niemoller. He was a German theologian. I don't know exactly why or how he died, but it possibly was because someone killed him. He was born in 1892 and he died in 1994.
Those are all the quotes and pictures I have in this post. You can find more quotes about the Holocaust
here.
5.
Do you think the Holocaust could happen again? I hope not. I googled someone who made some signs to follow to see if something like the Holocaust is happening. Two of the signs were classification and symbolization. Classification means to classify groups of things (or people) that have the same similarities. Symbolization is sort of the same thing, except it also means what the thing or person symbolizes. Another two signs are discrimination and dehumanization. I did not know that dehumanization was a word. Anyway, discrimination means to discriminate certain people who have certain qualities. Now, dehumanization refers to depriving a person or a group of qualities. Basically like looking at some one and saying, "Well, they aren't human. They are an animal. Or a monster." It's a really cruel thing to do. Then there is polarization and organization. Polarization is like to cause people to separate into opposing groups. Like the North pole and South pole. They repel each other. An organized body of people with an particular purpose is organization. Those signs were the only one obvious to me, but you can read the article
here.
Interesting Fact: The Holocaust was longer than World War 2.
Interesting Fact: Another word for "Holocaust" is Shoah.
