Night

=**Concentric Circles of Influence Or Circles of Change** = =**What are concentric circles?** = =**What is an influence?** = =**What is change?** = =**But how can influence or change occur in concentric circles? Let's give it some thought.** = ==**Events in history don't occur in a vacuum. They often start a chain reaction of events. It's like dropping a pebble into a bowl of water. What happens then?** == == == ==**You can think about the Holocaust in this way. Describe what __you__ think this concept means by looking at the diagram below. How much influence did Hitler and the Nazi party have on the lives of the people of the world? Is it possible that you and I or the people that we know are somewhere in these circles?** ==

===** Definition of anti-semitism ** === ===**In order to understand the Holocaust, it is necessary to understand anti-semitism or hatred of Jews. Students usually have difficulty understanding how this feeling can exist in today's world. When we discuss the definition, you will have the same feeling. Anti-semitism has a long and ancient history, as you will see from the linked article. The ancientness of its history based on the lives of ancient peoples living in such different, long ago times makes it difficult for us to understand the continued existence of this belief. [|anti-semitism] ** ===

===** Anti-Jewish Laws in Nazi Germany: The Nuremburg Laws [|Nuremberg Laws] ** === ===** Definition of genocide ** === ===**Genocide basically means the killing of an entire population or ethnic group. Here is a more detailed discussion:[|Genocide] ** ===



<span style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">NIGHT by Elie Wiesel <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">A survivor of the Nazi Concentration Camp at Auschwitz, Wiesel won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. He was born on September 30th 1928 in Sighet, a small town in the province of Transylvania, Romania. Wiesel comes from an Orthodox Jewish family and his father Shlomo was a shopkeeper. Two of his grandparents were Rabbis, and Elie spent much of his early years learning about his Jewish faith.
 * <span style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">THE AUTHOR **
 * <span style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Elie Wiesel 1928 – **

==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**The Hasidic Faith:** == ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Wiesel and his family were Hasidic Jews. Click on the link for a definition. <span style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Hasidic] ** == ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Many Hasidic Jews follow a traditional manner of dressing.** == ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;"> == ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Kaballah:** == He also studied the Kaballah as a young man. Click for the definition. <span style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Kaballah]

==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Summary of Night** == Click on this link for a quick summary. <span style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Summary]

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Von Hindenburg. During this year, the first concentration camp in Dachau was opened. Its overseer was to be Theodor Eiche. The legacy of Hitler’s Third Reich was for a Europe descended from blue-eyed Aryans. Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally defectives, and the largest population, Jews, were to be reduced to be mere servants of the ‘Master Race’ and then finally exterminated. During the 1930’s the Jews were to experience a gradual reduction in their rights and status. They would be barred from joining the armed forces. They would lose their citizenship. Jewish doctors were barred from practicing medicine, and so on. A Jew was defined as any person with three Jewish grandparents.
 * <span style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">BACKGROUND - THE HOLOCAUST – 1939 – 1945 **

German citizens were advised to boycott Jewish shops and businesses.

In 1935, Hitler proclaimed himself as Fuhrer und Reichskanzler which means leader and Reich chancellor. Hitler started the growth of his empire. He aligned himself with the Fascist, Mussolini of Italy, thus forming the Rome-Berlin Axis. In 1937, the Buchenwald concentration camp was opened in Weimar, Germany. This camp was liberated in 1945 by the U.S. army. During that time, an estimated 56,000 were executed. This does not include the 13,000 inmates that were transferred to Auschwitz or other extermination camps. The population of the camp increased from around 1,000 inmates in 1937 to its peak in 1945 of 80,436. The camp was built by its prisoners and its purpose was to support the German war machine. It supplied armaments and incorporated twelve-hour shifts, and at one stage the camp laborers died at a rate of 6,000 per month. The majority of these died from overwork and starvation, but there was also an extensive program of medical experimentation, and inmates were exposed to bacteria, burns, and lethal injections. On its liberation, a gruesome collection of finds was made involving lampshades made out of human skull and shrunken heads. The Commandant was an S.S. officer called Koch, who prior to this position was a notorious drunkard and gambler. Ironically, he ran a corrupt regime and did not uphold the S.S. ideals, and ended up being executed in Auschwitz.

The Second World War started in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. During this initial invasion, an estimated 17,000 civilians were murdered by the Nazis, of which at least 5,000 were Jews.

The following year, the Auschwitz camp was established in occupied Poland. In Warsaw, a huge ghetto was formed which contained half-a-million Jews. Anti-Semitism spread along with the German influence throughout Europe. Whilst around 10,000 Jews were dying of starvation in Warsaw, anti-Jewish riots sprang up in Romania and Hungary. Before a system was set up for the transportation of Jews to the concentration camps, a campaign of mass extermination was carried out in Eastern Europe. For example, 14,000 Jews were murdered in Kamenets Podolsk; 12,287 Jews were murdered in Kishinev; 11,000 Jews were murdered in Pinsk, and so on. This was not an efficient way in solving the Jewish question, and so the concentration camps were set up as a more cost-effective method.

At the end of 1941, the war became truly global when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and as a consequence the U.S.A. declared war on Japan and Germany. This was the beginning of the end for the German Third Reich, but another significant turning point was the German army’s surrender at Stalingrad in 1943. However, Hitler’s determination to continue exterminating the Jews was to severely hamper his own war machine and probably hastened the final surrender. Much of his crumbling infrastructure was consumed with the transportation of Jews.

The Russian army spurred on by the saving of Stalingrad started to regain territory in the East of Europe. The Nazis feared for the discovery of their concentration camps, which would steel their enemies to quickly liberate Europe from this evil regime. In early 1945, the evacuation of Auschwitz started which involved Elie in his death march. Elie ends up in Buchenwald, which was liberated in April 1945.

===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Elie is in this picture of the liberation of Buchenwald. He is the last person on the right, in the second row from the bottom, second section from the right.** ===



==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** Who was sent to the camps? ** == ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Many other groups were sent to the camps by the Nazis. We will read through this link about the "Mosaic of Victims" together in class. <span style="-webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Victims] ** ==