Term Paper on "Holocaust Stands as Proof That Humans"

Term Paper 4 pages (1241 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Holocaust stands as proof that humans are not as humane as they might be inclined to believe they are. A lot of apparently good people took place in making the catastrophe happen and failed to realize the extent of their actions. Not only were this men unable to gain a complex understanding of the condition they were in, as they actually came to believe that they were acting on behalf of society as a whole and that they were doing the world a service by going through with their horrible missions. Individuals like Primo Levi and Christopher Browning produced accounts enabling the social order as a whole to comprehend the complete version of how the Holocaust destroyed people on a series of levels.

Levi's book "Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity" emphasizes the horrible nature of crimes in concentration camps. The writer wants his readers to understand the gravity of the Holocaust as seen from a first-person perspective. Moreover, he hopes that by enabling his readers to look at matters this way they are more likely to acknowledge that the genocide did not only involved killings and torture, it also entailed a complex dehumanizing process that virtually destroyed individuals.

From the very first moments when Levi describes his journey to Auschwitz it becomes obvious that the Nazis were determined to destroy their prisoners' lives through every means possible. One of Levi's travel companions is a woman, an individual whom he knew very little about but who came to be one of the most important persons in his life during those moments. "Now, in the hour of decision, we said to each other things that are never said among the living. We said farewell and it was short; everybody said farewell to life through his neighbour. We had no more fear." (Levi 14) In just a matter of days the Nazis had succeeded to perform a first step in the process of dehumanizing their captives.

Browning sheds more light with regard to how many Nazis felt when they were assigned with the task to either torture or kill individuals considered to be 'sub-human'. By focusing on the German Order Police Reserve Unit 101, he made it possible for the readers to understand that they need to break away from considering stereotypes when coming across the idea of a Nazi or of a person who would be capable to get involved in the merciless killing of innocent individuals. The persons Browning discusses did not meet all of the requirements to enter the German military and were thus provided with the task to murder innocent individuals believed to be unworthy to be part of the Third Reich.

The battalion Browning refers to was actually composed mainly of working-class middle-aged individuals who felt that it was perfectly normal to play an active role in the conflict. One of the most intriguing aspects of this particular unit was that men were provided with the opportunity to leave their battalion if they considered that their tasks were too difficult or to cruel for them to take on. Only fifteen out of the approximately five hundred people initially composing the battalion left while the others stayed and continued to play an active part in the genocide unfolding across Europe at the time.

In spite of this case's gruesomeness, it is interesting to see how perfectly normal individuals who are not fanatical and who are not very well acquainted with the purpose of their mission put across an indifferent attitude toward killing innocent. It is likely that disinterested people killing innocent are far more horrifying than people who actually know why they are doing it. These people basically considered this to be no more… READ MORE

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