The Holocaust did not start with gas chambers, it started with hate-filled words. When somebody reads stories about the Holocaust it completely gives a whole new perspective, the reader can feel the pain that the survivors had, sometimes their stories can just stab the reader’s heart, But most of all the holocaust survivors went through something so, appalling, horrific, and terrorizing , at the age around 14-17. It was hard for these young children to sustain an ideal state of mind.
For some people the Holocaust is just an old story in the history books, for others, they have lived it. The Jews would fight for the right to live as they were killed solely for being Jewish. The Holocaust began in 1939 and would continue through 1945. It was introduced by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, although he did not act alone. His mission would be to “exterminate” all minorities, but most abundantly, the Jews. It is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million of these were Jews. For some, their story was not so tragic. Fortunately, 3.5 million Jews survived and now live on to tell their stories. Some people theorize that the gas chambers could not possibly have killed as many victims as historical research shows.
Elie Wiesel, the Auschwitz survivor who became a significant witness for the six million Jews annihilated in World War II and who seared the memory of the Holocaust. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he was defined not so much by the work he did as by the gap in history he filled . In the aftermath of the Germans’ systematic massacre of Jews, no voice had risen to drive home the enormity of what had happened and how it had changed mankind’s conception. Elie Wiesel, who had been liberated from Buchenwald as a 16-year-old with the tattoo A-7713 on his arm, gradually resurrected the Holocaust from the ground of the history books.
Anne Frank, born June 12, 1929, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, died February/March 1945, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp,was a Jewish girl whose diary of her family’s two years in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became a classic of war literature. During the first half of July, Anne and her family hid in an apartment. For two years, they lived in a secret attic apartment, which Anne referred to in her diary as the Secret Annex. Otto Frank's friends and workers , Jan Gies, and Miep Gies had helped to prepare the hiding place and smuggled food and clothing to the Franks at great risk to their own lives. While in hiding, Anne kept a diary in which she recorded her fears, hopes, and experiences. Her diary is used to keep her and the fellow other 6 million Jews memories alive and help us understand what it was like to go through this horrifying time in history.
Everyone always talks about remembering the Holocaust. Remember the six million. The world must remember so that a holocaust can never again happen. Remember those who perished in order to honor them and give their deaths meaning. Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel are only two of the 3.5 million survivors. Everyone tries to keep their memories alive so we can remember the hatred and disgrace that the human race brought during that time. Autobiographies are the most heartfelt and reliable sources a reader may find. We can truly imagine the emotion and terror in that person's experience.