The Holocaust: What They Didn’t Tell You

After working for the Nazi organization and participating in the horrible events of the Holocaust, she didn’t even admit her wrongdoings or show regret. When given a chance to redeem herself, she kept this information a secret from everyone. Finally, justice caught up with her and she was forced to come clean. The important thing to learn from this story is that justice will not relent, and all wrong-doers will be caught and revealed to the world. I just hope that Mrs. Rinkel thinks about what she did every day of her life and pleads for forgiveness.

The topic for my research project was Stalin’s Gulag. Joseph Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union and his Gulag was a system of forced penal labor camps. This genocide was extremely interesting to research about, especially because the only one I knew about beforehand was the Holocaust. What really struck me as most interesting was that approximately fifty million people died in the Gulags, out of which approximately twenty million during Stalin’s reign. I did not even know about this genocide before it was introduced to me, and I was more astonished to find out that ten times more people died in the Gulag than the Holocaust. While my group did basic research on the Gulags, Megan and Kelly did some inside information on the Ukrainian Genocide, which was very related to Stalin’s Gulag. Stalin initiated a Great Purge, where he rid the country of all the people he didn’t want in the USSR, including the Ukrainians, Military Officers, and the people who helped him gain his government position. He also purposely increased the taxes and collection amounts of peasant families’ crops, starting a great famine. A lot of the modern day genocides have leaders that suggest they only acted for a greater cause, usually purging society of people or things that were holding it back. To me, this seems like a very badly rehearsed excuse. The Holocaust and Stalin’s Gulag, as well as the Ukrainian Genocide, are very closely related in their mechanics. All three were geared towards “exterminating” specific populations via cruel, demoralizing, harsh, and torturing conditions. The people affected were literally treated like dirt.

The major difference I saw was that in the Holocaust, the Jews didn’t know what was going on at all. In the other genocides, it was well known what was going to happen, as well to whom it was going to happen to. The Holocaust was more of an extermination, while the Ukrainian Genocide and Stalin’s Gulag were excuses for promoting the welfare of a nation. In the end, although there are similarities and differences between them, genocides are still genocides.

To make a difference in the world, all one has to have is a good idea. People have the common misconception that they have to be an important figure in society to make this difference. World leaders work towards the same goals as the global community; stop AIDS, cease child labor, decrease poverty, spread democracy, promote women’s’ rights. The globally powerful people often have the resources to take action against these problems, but they lack the foundation that can start the effort. It is the small people in society, like students in a club and ordinary people walking the streets, that possess the willpower to make a difference.

Together, with the ideas of the common people and the resources of the globally powerful, To make a difference, all one has to do is get together a group of friends with a common idea to help others, and then carry out an event that may help. The most basic task is to spread awareness and to try to get others to help in the cause. One person with a great idea isn’t quite as meaningful as many people with a common idea. Though the motion might start slow, it will build up just like a club’s members. As students, my peers and I can raise a few thousand dollars here and there, and then send it to an organization across the world in order to possibly get them sanitary bathrooms or more nutritious food. Even though we can only give them a little, it is better than nothing.

Every little act of kindness builds up, and with enough people doing what they can for others, big changes can occur. Helping others isn’t just a one-time thing, so the global community shouldn’t be worrying about the future; they should be worrying about right now. Without fixing the present, we cannot hope to promote the welfare of human beings in the future.