Holocaust Lessons Can Still Be Learned

“Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.” – Hebrew Proverb (”quote 29269″)

Prejudice is such a complex adjective that describes something that is so easy to feel towards someone or something. It is so easy to look at a complete stranger and form an automatic opinion based on what clothing they wear, or the way they walk. The root word in prejudice is prejudge which is something that everyone does – it’s an aspect of human nature. According to Dr. John Irvine (”Healthy Racial Attitudes”), an expert in psychology, prejudice is picked up early in childhood, and can be a good thing or a terrible one: “In some ways it’s a survival disposition. In a threatening scary world, kids are desperate to find friends, to know they’re socially safe. That’s a fundamental social instinct.” However, prejudice can often turn into an unhealthy aspect that may lead to negative emotions and actions. The past and the present show many examples of times and events when prejudice has caused people to act wrongfully, and in some cases, inhumanely. The best example of this was actually the worst example in history, being known as the Holocaust. Isn’t it ironic that the Hebrew proverb that teaches about prejudice was written in the 1700s but only to be contradicted a few hundred years later?

Remembering back to eight grade in junior high school, I recall a visit by a Mr. Joesph Diamond. Before the presentation began, the only thing that my class was told was that he was coming in to speak to us about the Holocaust. Ironically, we hadn’t even started that unit yet in Social Studies, so we didn’t what to expect. The first question Mr. Diamond asked the students was “Do any of you know what the Holocaust is, and what it means?” After a short silence, a boy stood up and guessed “Isn’t it what’s in Hogan’s Heroes, you know that show on TV. Land?” The children and adults who were familiar with the television show let out a brief giggle. As the presentation continued, the class and I soon realized that the comparison to “Hogan’s Heroes” was furthest from the truth. Additionally, all were astonished when Mr. Joseph Diamond revealed that he wasn’t only a survivor of the Holocaust, but he was also a survivor of Auschwitz – the concentration camp that was deemed the worst of any of the estimated 1,500 camps. So, what exactly was the Holocaust? Merriam-Webster’s New World Dictionary defines the term “Holocaust” as “a thorough destruction of life, especially through fire”. As scary as it seems, that’s exactly what the Holocaust was – even if the dictionary was stating the term rather than the event. It was a time, specifically durring the second world war, when people were being murdered in the masses because of the simple fact that they were of the Jewish religion. The Holocaust, in the sense of systematic extermination, lasted from 1941 until 1945. However, prosecution towards the Jewish in the country of Germany began as far back as 1933 (”Rescuers”). Regardless of how long it lasted, over six million people died because the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, simply didn’t like the Jewish. His prejudice was so great that it went to the point of inhumanity and beyond. The world learned from that time in history. The Holocaust showed the world how much damage prejudice can cause if it’s not controlled, and it still can. It is vital that the world remembers the Holocaust so castraphes like it never happen again. The Hebrew proverb that teaches about prejudice and how it sustains the greatest violence was meant to prevent such happenings like the Holocaust. If only that particular proverb was translated into German so Adolf Hitler could of heard it – whether or not it would have changed the attrocities he committed, the world will never know. As for the reason why Hitler felt such prejudice towards the Jewish people, there is a lot of idle speculation and little facts.