“She was the sweetest of little things,” said Frau Kellermann. “Full of fun. She used to come and play with my Gisela sometimes. She was a pretty girl. Dark eyes and sleek brown hair, almost black.  She used to stare at you sometimes as if she could read your soul. You know the wisdom that little ones seem to have. As if they’ve come straight from the angels.”

“But the doll, Frau Kellermann, tell me about the doll,” said the reporter.

“My husband gave it to her,” said Frau Kellermann. “It used to be his mother’s and her mother’s before her, I think. Carved out of ivory.”

“Do you have it?” said the reporter.

“No, the Police are holding on to it,” said Frau Kellermann. “They’re keeping it as evidence. They say we can have it back after the trial.”

“Didn’t your own daughter mind that her father gave her grandmother’s doll to someone who was not a member of the family?”

“Not at all,” said Frau Kellermann. “Our Gisela is a generous girl. She had plenty of toys. She knew that the Goldbergs didn’t have much money and the family didn’t have too much time for little Emi.”

“Why was that Frau Kellermann?”

“Well, for a start, Emi had six brothers. I don’t think her parents knew how to deal with a girl. Then, of course, they were also busy working. It wasn’t easy for any of them by then, not even here.”

“Not even here?” said the reporter.

“There have always been people like the Goldbergs living here,” said Frau Kellerman. She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“People like the Goldbergs?” said the reporter.

“Yes. You know exactly what I mean,” said Frau Kellermann.

“So you still associated with the Goldbergs? Even when the new laws came in?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” said Frau Kellermann. “They were ordinary people as far as we were concerned. I used to invite Frau Goldberg in for coffee sometimes. The poor woman was run off her feet looking after six men. Yes, the boys were big and hefty, even Eli, the youngest. He was just eleven. She was so thin. Any energy she got from what she did eat went straight into looking after her family. The only bit she got for herself was if I found a scrap of cake to go with our coffee.”

“Didn’t it worry you that you might be found out? Wasn’t it dangerous, associating with the state enemy?”

“Like I said, the Goldbergs were just people in our eyes. And anyway, who was going to tell? There were more of them than of us. That is, more of them were taken away that night than were left here afterwards.”

“So how old was Emi the last time you saw her?” said the reporter. “As a young girl, I mean.”

“She was just seven the night they came for them,” said Frau Kellermann.  

“So, what was it like, the night the Goldbergs were taken away? What happened?”

“It was a warm night,” said Frau Kellermann. “Everyone had their doors and windows open. There was a full moon too. There was a lot of light.”

“So it was easy to see exactly what was happening?”

Frau Kellermann nodded. “Many people were outside already,” she said.

“Did you get any warning anything was going to happen?”

Frau Kellermann shook her head. “Not really.  They arrived so suddenly. One minute everyone was just going about their normal business. The next minute the trucks were here and those brutal men in their grey uniforms. They had dogs as well. It all happened so quickly in the end. Ten minutes I think was all it took. From the moment they arrived until they had gone with all of the families.”

“Do you think someone might have given them away?”

Frau Kellermann laughed. “Of course not. They were our friends. All of them. Not just the Goldbergs. In a small place like this everybody knows each other and everybody looks after each other. The authorities knew exactly who lived here anyway. They knew exactly who they were looking for.”

“So, if you all look after each other,” said the reporter, “why didn’t you try to help them? The Goldbergs? Or the others?”

“How could we?” said Frau Kellermann. “The men had guns.”

“Were you afraid of them?”

“Of course we were. We were frozen to the spot.”

“Tell me what it was really like,” said the reporter.

Frau Goldberg sighed. She picked up the packet of cigarettes that was lying on the table and offered one to the reporter. He shook his head. She took out a cigarette, lit it and took a deep drag. She exhaled the smoke and tapped a little of the ash into the ashtray. “We were sitting out at the front of the house,” she said. “Gisela and Emi were playing together. Most of the other families were also outside. Then we heard the trucks arrive. It was all very sudden. The men in uniform started yelling “Scum, out!” And they started pushing people on to the trucks. Their nasty dogs were snarling at them and nipping at their ankles. There were just one or two doors that were shut. The officers hammered on those and if they weren’t opened straight away, they broke them down. In most cases the doors had been shut because nobody was home. So, they’d broken the doors for nothing. One of them kept firing his gun in the air. I’ve never heard a gun so close before. It was terrifying.” 

“What was it like, watching the Goldbergs being taken way?”

“Awful.  The worst moment in my life. They were my friends and they looked so helpless. Herr Goldberg was a strong man and so were the boys. But they looked hopeless. I thought Frau Goldberg was going to faint.”

“And you really couldn’t do anything?”

“No, it all happened much too quickly. And there were the guns and the dogs. And of course, you know how it was. But there was Emi of course.”

“Emi. Yes.  Tell me all about Emi.”  

“My husband gathered her and Gisela up and ran into the house with them. He was acting as if both girls were our daughters and he didn’t want them to see that horrible scene. Which father would?”

“Wouldn’t they have known there was a child missing?”

“Even if they did, they didn’t stop to find her. Not then at least. She wasn’t the only one to get away. They came back for the others the next day. I think they were afraid they might lose the ones they did have. They knew everybody was scared and that we wouldn’t help or hide any of the people they were after.”

“But you say your husband did help Emi?”

“Yes, he did. He took her out into to back garden and helped her over the wall and told her to run into the forest. He told her he would come and find her once the men had gone. We’re lucky that our house backs on to the forest.”

“Didn’t they see her run into the house?”

“Yes, they did. And seconds later they came looking for her.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything. I was still more or less frozen. My husband said she’d jumped over the garden wall back into the Goldbergs’ house.”

“Did they go and look?”

“Oh yes. They ruined another good door in the process. And they took some of the Goldberg’s possessions. I saw them stuffing some of Frau Goldberg’s nice china into the cab of one of the trucks.”  

“And was the child very scared?”

Frau Kellermann took another long drag on her cigarette. “Oddly, I don’t think she was,” she said. “She seemed very calm and seemed to understand exactly what Wilhelm – that’s my husband – was telling her. She just stared at us with those angel eyes again. She clung on to that doll though.

“No, if anything Gisela was more frightened. She was jumpy for days afterwards. The slightest sound and she would cling to my legs like a toddler and bury her head in my lap.”

“And did your husband go and look for Emi like he promised?”

Frau Kellermann nodded. She stubbed out her cigarette. “Do you mind if we have a little break now?” she said. “The next part of the story is very painful. I could make us some coffee.”

The reporter put down his pad and pencil. “That would be splendid,” he said. “Could I look at the garden wall while we’re waiting?”

“That’s where he lowered her over the wall,” said Frau Kellermann.

“It was quite a long way for her to jump,” said the reporter.

“She was a brave little soul,” said Frau Kellermann.

“And this wall between the two houses has always been this low?”

“Oh, yes. The girls were jumping over it all the time.”

“And you have new neighbours now?”

“Yes. Really only for the last few weeks.  They seem nice enough and they’ve done a lot of repairs already. We tried to keep the house in trim. We always hoped the Goldbergs might come back. Then of course, we found out they wouldn’t. But if a house isn’t lived in it still rots. Seven years it was empty. What a waste!”    

“And so you say your husband did go and look for her?” said the reporter, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yes, that night, as soon as the trucks had gone. And then the next day at first light. Several more times that day. Then we heard that they’d gone back and rounded up all of the ones who had escaped into the forest. We actually heard them shooting them. We didn’t know then that the Goldbergs had never registered her birth.”

“But you gave up looking for her when you heard that all of the escapees had been shot?”

Frau Kellermann shook her head. “We never really gave up. We hoped for a while that we might find her despite what they’d said. And then even when we believed that she had been shot we still looked for traces of her in the forest. But there was nothing. Nothing at all.”  

“So, let’s fast forward now and talk about the Wild Woman. When did you first hear about her?”

Frau Kellermann laughed. “Years ago,” she said. “When I was younger than Emi was when she left us. There have always been stories about the Wild Woman living in the forest. Of course, when I got older I realised that it was just a story our mother told us to stop us straying too far. The forest is so untamed and dense round here you could get lost for days. As is perfectly clear now.  In fact it’s clear you can get lost for years.”

“I’m talking about the young woman they found last week. They call her the Wild Woman, don’t they? Why do they call her that?”

“Because she looks scruffy, so uncared for. Because she ran like a wild animal when they tried to help her. And because she won’t speak.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Only briefly. We all went out to watch when they took her from the Police station to the hospital.”

“Do you think she’s a wild woman? Do you think she’s lived all of her life in the forest like they’re saying?”

Frau Kellermann finished her coffee. She offered the reporter more. He nodded. She poured them both another cup. Then she picked up the cigarette packet again and offered him one. He shook his head. She lit the cigarette and took a long drag. “I know she’s not a woman,” she said. “She’s barely more than a girl. The same age as my Gisela. And look at the state of her. Compared with my daughter who as we speak is sitting comfortably in a classroom studying for her Abitur.”

“So why are they calling her the wild woman if she’s just a young girl? Did you tell them that? Don’t they believe you?”

“Wild yes,” said Frau Kellermann. “Woman no. She’s a girl. The forest is rich. It would be possible to live there for seven years. You can forage. There are animals to kill.”

“What about clothes, though? The woman was fully clothed, they say.”

“Animal skins. She was wearing animal skins. Everybody could see that.”

“Why are you so absolutely convinced that she is in fact Emi Goldberg?”

“Because she was carrying the doll.”

“Couldn’t she just have found it in the forest where Emi had dropped it?”

“Emi wouldn’t have dropped it. If she needed both hands free, she’d have hidden it somewhere safe. She really loved that doll. Besides, there was something about the way she was carrying it. Holding it to her like you would a baby. Dear God, I hope when that baby’s born she’ll know to love it and hold it like that. Goodness knows she’s had enough practice with the doll.”

“Are you absolutely sure it’s the same doll that your husband gave to Emi?”

“Yes. Without a doubt. They let me look at it. It had a chip on the back of its head. I remember our Leo – Gisela’s older brother – banging it on the fender when the three of them got into a fight over something really silly.”

“But this wild woman – girl even – won’t speak. Surely Emi would talk?”

“Well yes, she used to be a right little chatterbox. But think about it. She had to watch her family being taken away. Then she heard some of her friends being shot. On top of all of that, she’s been on her own for seven years. And then the way they found her last week. Would you want to talk after all of that?”

The reporter shrugged and shook his head. “So perhaps we can wrap it all up with a statement,” he said. “Something that’ll give a nice neat ending to the story.”

“It’s a tragedy,” said Frau Kellermann. “We should have looked after her better. We are all guilty, not just that poor young man facing the judge and jury now.”

Hilde Kellermann took a final drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out on the low wall that surrounded the entrance to the hospital. She took a deep breath and walked in.

There had been hardly any case to answer in the end. The young man they’d found lying on top of the girl was a simpleton and probably didn’t even understand what he was doing. She hadn’t been resisting at the time. So it technically couldn’t be rape. He’d been sent to an asylum for the criminally insane more for his own sake than for any other reason. It was yet to be proved that she was Emi Goldberg but at least they believed Hilde now. There was the question of her being underage if Hilde was right. And it clearly hadn’t been the girl’s first time –  the rounded belly proved that. But had it been rape then? And had it been the same lover?

“We can’t promise anything,” they’d told her when she’d asked about the possibility of adopting the young girl. “But yes, she could do with some friends right now. Do visit her if you have time. Try not to get too attached, though. And don’t let her get too dependent on you. Just in case.”

Hidle gently pushed open the door to the side ward.  The girl was lying on her side. She turned to face Hilde. Hilde gasped. She looked so much like a younger version of her former neighbour. Hilde smiled. The girl just stared blankly at her.

Hilde reached into her bag and pulled out the doll. She held it up to show the girl. The girl’s face lit up and she stretched out her arm. Hilde gave her the doll. A faint smile appeared on the girl’s lips. Her dark brown eyes looked into Hilde’s.

Angel eyes.

Unmistakably Emi.

Hilde leant forward and stroked the girl’s hair.

“I am so sorry, Emi,” she said. “We should have looked after you better. We’ll make it good now. I promise.”

Emi pulled the ivory doll closer.                   

            After World War II the world recognized what had happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust was terrible and should never happen again. Now in the 21 century what is America doing to help prevent genocide in other countries, nothing. This is where we, as a nation need to stand up and fulfill a broken promise we made in trying to end all genocides.

            Some would say we need to stay out of countries that aren’t our own and that it isn’t our problem if it isn’t happening to us. This is where most people would like to stand and believe genocide doesn’t happen and isn’t happening. Have we lost humanity in the world? And on the other hand some people say it does happen and we did and will help. But take for example the Armenian genocide, the American ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, send numerous reports on the killing and even tried to raise funds only to never get a response and had to come back to America and read about mass killings.

            The US government sits back and likes to dispute genocides as just Civil wars. Like in Cambodia where after the Khmer Rouge’s victory our government said it was over and muted. So when they turned there back Cambodia, it fell into a dark genocide with no help from the US or any other country.

            As much as people would like to say we need to stay out of countries or that it isn’t a genocide and its just a war, we cant. We need to be aware that turning our backs away from countries just allows them to preside the killings and plunge into genocide.

            When we turn our backs and make believe that this isn’t happening, we turn our back on innocent lives. Wouldn’t it be different if it were your brother being killed? Your father? Your Mother?

            Now, I’m not saying that we should make the government send in military force and kill all the perpetrators, what would good would that do us? We need to use our voices, we need to get the word out that this is still happening all around the world and we can do something to stop it. We need to stop living in our sheltered peaceful lives. Doesn’t mean we need to move down and have peace talks to the killers, it just means we need to speak up as one and get our government involved and send in supplies and resources they need. If we all spoke up we can get other countries attentions and send in the U.N to set up camps for these people with proper attention and equipment.

            You may think you don’t have a voice, you can make the difference, you can push your friends and family into speaking up and they bring in more people to help a cause, a cause that could save millions of lives. If we get the attention of the world we can help people realize how wrong genocide is and we could be on the road to stopping it all together in the future.

In the poverty concept, poverty cycles through families due to the transference of behaviors from parent to child that can be seen as behaviors that are more associated with living in poverty and providing children with tools that would inhibit their ability to escape. Younger generations would lack the tools necessary to change their socio-economic standing. The tools that are of particular interest in studies of trans-generational poverty are the understanding of how ideas and generalizations are presented to younger generations, and the younger generations will build upon the ideas through a variety processes which have been clearly studied and defined in psychological research.

In the occurrence of trans-generational trauma, one would ask what is kind of trauma can be transferred, and how is it transferred? In examining the issue, any kind of trauma could be transferred to proceeding generations. This could include experiences of oppression, slavery, Jim Crowe laws, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the Holocaust, impacts of being on both sides of racism, and many other experiences. Trans-generational trauma serves to answer numerous questions concerning why poor people fear condemnation from authority figures, why wars continue in the countries of the Middle East, why western cultures were so quick to accept Islamic fundamentalist as terrorists as opposed to terrorist of a western origin, and various other ethnographic issues. The potential understanding that this concept allows for provides a clear understanding of how we develop these stigmas and generalizations in some people but not others. With a better understanding of the transmission of the ideas that set the foundations for behaviors that inhibit growth and improvement, one can set in motion necessary action needed to produce change throughout the society as a whole at least in sense of future generations.

 For this concept to be a sound theory, the basis for how the transmission occurs must be established. Research has looked at the concept from a few different angles and viewpoints. Volkan (2001) explained the concept through group identity theory in that generations associated with the group identity, and past trauma is seen as a threat to that person’s identity. Srour and Srour (2006) examined the issue through a case study in which they found it to be tied to emotional motivations as a response to communal stress. Wohl and Van Bavel (2011) found that PTSD symptoms and behaviors were more prevalent in descendants of Holocaust survivors as opposed similar Jewish individuals that were not descendants of Holocaust survivors. In light of such research, one could imagine that trauma cycles through families from one generation to the next. Things are not so simple in reality because the proceeding generations never experienced the trauma, but there is an effect upon the future generations that can be seen to be connected to the trauma of the past.

This type of transference can be easily explained when one considers how an individual learns. In trans-generational trauma, younger generations are learning behaviors that are associated with the trauma from the older generations. This can be seen as inadvertently teaching younger generations to behave in an abnormal manner that is ungrounded in events directly related to the young generation’s life experiences. Trans-generational trauma allows for the symptoms of a mental illness or condition to be transferable through learning to future generations. In these cases, people really do what they know, and the younger generations only know how to act in a manner that is similar to a traumatized individual. This is because their family acts this way. Since poor families tend to live in a more communal environment, the mesosphere and exosphere levels of the individual’s ecological make-up re-enforce the behaviors exhibited by the parents because they would have experienced similar trauma or would have learned the trauma behavior in a similar indirect manner from social interactions with other traumatized or trans-generationally traumatized individuals.  

Transfer of the behaviors occurs in simple manner at first and then is reinforced and magnified over time. The behaviors are first learned through social learning as explained by Bandura (1977) as the learning of knowledge through observation. Children observe the implicit behaviors of the parents. The children attempt to rationalize the behaviors and associate the behaviors with emotions that drive such behaviors. If an adult becomes tense around the police, the child will learn to become tense. Piaget (1950) explains that there are two types of ways in which individuals learn information. Early in development, the child learns by assimilation. During that time, new information is associated with pre-existing schema and ideas. Later the child learns by accommodation in which the child develops new categories of schemata and is able to modify and adjust older schemata. However, the initial schemata can be reinforced over time and become more difficult to change.   

Several generalizations are produced over time throughout development that lead to the reinforcement of the behaviors, cognitions, and emotions associated with traumatic events. In the example of the child learning to become tense in relation to an authority figure, the child will later become tense as a physiological response to other stimuli and events. The child will associate the tenseness with both all situations. The child may not fully understand why the parent is tense in association to authority figures, but the child will understand that one becomes tense as response to a fight or flight situation. In connecting the two categories, the child will associate authority figures such as the police and doctors as being threats that they must either oppose with a fight response or escape through use of a flight response. Similar patterns of development exist in other instances of trans-generational trauma. 

The pattern is set forth through this theory showing how behaviors progress over time and generations in response to events that happened many generations back. As the child grows, the behaviors are reinforced through repeated instances of being exposed to similar situations. Once the child enters the social world of the education system, these behaviors have been engrained in the child’s thought process. The response to the trauma of past generations has become normal to the child without their full understanding of why because the child knows no different. The child’s thought pattern is the only way they know how to think. There should be no reason for them to see it as abnormal because they have developed with that pattern of thinking. Typically, the community, teachers, and various other important figures in the child’s life think along the same lines of thought as the child’s family because they are all interconnected through the levels of ecology. No one realizes anything should be different. It is just the way things are.

Change occurs as a few individuals in the society come to realize that the pattern of thought is not normal and they wander about what the grounds are which cause individuals to think along that line of thought. Frustrations set in as there is a conflict between change and stagnation. For the trauma to be removed, the entire ecological system would need to change and adjust. To change an individual’s schemata after the schemata have been reinforced through such a high degree of repetition would be extremely difficult. The key to change is to attempt to modify the schemata as early as possible through early childhood education. In doing so, the issue of cultural preservation must be addressed. This early childhood education would need to serve as attempt not to destroy an ethnic group’s culture. It would serve to unravel some of the trauma that has been embedded in that culture. To have cultural identity is seen as serving to preserve the history of a people. Cultural identity should, however, serve as a positive associate for people to connect without having a negative impact on the functioning of an individual through behaviors associated with traumatic events of past generations. If positive change is to be created, individuals will need to change adjust the flow of trans-generational behaviors from one generation to the next for the purpose of inhibiting emotions that were born of trauma while understanding and remembering why the cycle is to be broken.

            Hitler’s goal was to kill of all those who did not fit the requirements for his master race. This was part of the Nazi philosophy of eugenics. He believed the ideal human was blonde, blue eyed, and of no physical or mental defects. He shipped Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, Muslims, Christians, Gays, and the disabled off to his death camps, majorly, Auschwitz, and Dachau. However the Jews were the main target of Nazi aggression. After World War I, the usage of the Jewish people as a scapegoat for the German depression became popular with the German people, which was exploited by Hitler in his rise to power. The prisoners where given little food and forced to work in the factories or in some cases deranged medical experiments. However the starving is an icon reflecting the pain of the victims. “Bread, soup – these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” (Elie Wiesel, Night). The most feared element of the death camps, other than the gas chamber, was the furnaces. Elie Wiesel writes: “I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . . “. The cruelty stemmed from Hitler’s hatred based on discrimination, as does all genocide.

The discrimination against certain ethnic minorities, as seen in the Holocaust, is also the main cause of other genocides. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994 the Tutsi monarchy was overthrown by the oppressed Hutu people. The Hutus saw the Tutsis as the source of many of their hardships and responded by systematically killing the Tutsi people. The scapegoating of a race or people of a certain cultural background is very similar to what the Nazis did in Germany.

            For genocide to occur there needs to be three elements cohesively established. The first is the perpetrator. This is the commander, dictator, president, or whoever is in charge of the forces used in the systematic killings characteristic of genocide. The second is the victim. This is the group of people targeted for extermination, and is usually not equipped to resist the aggressor. “What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”  (John Boyne). “The victims are of a certain class, ethnicity, or disposition, which at one point lived as neighbors of the perpetrators.” The last and most important element is the bystander. The bystander offers no aid to the victim, and no retaliation against the aggressor. Yehuda Bauer writes: “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” There are many excuses for being a bystander: fear that the perpetrator will shift to the bystander if the bystander acts; complacency with the situation; and profitability in the case of arms dealers or regimes looking to destabilize a country. In the case of the Holocaust in Germany many of the Polish and German civilians acted as the bystander. They refused to shelter the Jews from the Nazi death squads out of fear of reprisal or in some cases were paid by the Nazis to hand over Jewish refugees.  

            The root of genocide, and The Holocaust, is bigotry. To prevent further genocides, the hate needs to be extinguished. People need to be educated on how the act of discriminating against another human being is counter productive to the advancement of man. People need to be educated in a manner that accepts all cultures and recognizes their equality. Racial combatants need to be treated as a threat. “Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.” (Primo Levi) Most of all, the events of the Holocaust need to be taught and reflected on. Some people belittle the importance of the Holocaust while others deny it ever occurred. This is due to widespread ignorance and anti-Semitism. Iris Chang writes: “As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” It is important that generation after generation learn of the past tragedies as an example of what can occur without unity.

            In conclusion, the Holocaust will never end if the impact of the event is denied or goes unrecognized; it may find another perpetrator, another victim, and another bystander. The trail of destruction has affected millions. It is important to teach the history to ensure it is not repeated. It is equally important to remember the factors needed to initiate genocide: a perpetrator, a victim, and a bystander. Without one, genocide can not occur. All it takes to prevent such terrible events is the memory of what took place, and the spread of that memory.

Aidan King

Sylvia Plath Analysis

On: Daddy & Lady Lazarus

            Sylvia Plath, though a talented student and a virtuosic poet, spent the majority of her life combating severe depression, leading to her successful suicide at the tragically young age of thirty. One of the roots of this mental and emotional instability, as seen in Daddy and Lady Lazarus, can be attributed to Plath’s destructive relationship with her father and the years of despise towards society’s patriarchal figures.

            Plath masterfully uses the first person perspective in these two semi-autobiographical poems. As the victim, she uses “I,” evoking sympathy from those who also associate themselves as victims. She refers to the antagonist – and the reader – as “you,” which also produces feelings of remorse, pity, and even guilt. Her confessional hatred in “Daddy,” with the phrases “You bastard” (80) and “Brute heart of a brute like you,” (50) attack the reader as if to compare you to her father. She even italicizes “you” in the line “I have always been scared of you” (41), further adding to the comparison.

            While “Lady Lazarus” contains much subtler references to the Holocaust than in “Daddy,” it does however draw a stark connection between the experiences of Nazi-enslaved Jews and her own suffering. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (4-9, Lazarus). Here, while again describing herself as objects – lampshade, paperweight, linen – Plath details the suffering surrounding her attempted suicides and equates it to the pain that Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

The pain she experienced was caused by her very own “Nazi:” her father. “I have always been scared of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. / And your neat mustache / And your Aryan eye, bright blue. / Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -” (41-45, Daddy). In these lines, Plath refers to her father’s time spent as a tank operator, and the trauma it inflicted on him over the years. This trauma was in turn passed along to her, who was not even ten years old at the time. She symbolizes this with her innocent and childish references to ‘Daddy’, ‘gobbledygoo’ and ‘Achoo’. The rationalization of her concentration-camp-Jew comparison is much more believable when told through the lips of a traumatized eight year old.

Plath sees Nazis the same way she saw her father: sadistic, controlling, and manipulative, and she connotes these traits with those of all men. Examples can be drawn countlessly from both poems. “Lady Lazarus” captures how men view women as aesthetically-appealing objects, showing little concern for any internal flaws. Plath refers to the men as “The peanut-crunching crowd” (26) observing “the big strip tease” (29). This is a criticism of the male obsession with women as sexual objects.  “I am your opus, / I am your valuable” (67-68). After her failed suicide, she felt as though she were merely seen as a specimen of sorts, rather than a real human being – an equal – with severe, distressing emotional problems.

In “Daddy”, Plath uses Nazism and her father as a metaphor of the oppressive force of men. “I thought every German was you. / And the language obscene / An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (29-35). Plath sees all men (Germans) as her father, each one hoping to cause her suffering (Chuffing her off to Dachau). After enough time had passed, and she had been treated like an insignificant pest (like a Jew) for long enough, she began to believe it to be true.

Both “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” serve as great examples of Plath’s intricate and intense metaphorical writing. Without directly chronicling her autobiographical history, she successfully is able to depict her distrust and distaste for men, her father, and the Nazi regime, fitting it into one big analogy.  “Every woman adores a Facist,” (48, Daddy) serves as her mockery towards the men who do in fact believe that one must act like a hegemon to live a fulfilling life. Her father acted that way, the Nazis acted that way, and the men in her life did as well. And although her predisposition may have hastily clumped all men together, it’s undeniable that Plath, who fought a bout of depression as extensive and painful as any, had just-cause to spite the patriarchy surrounding her, and “Eat men like air.” 

Aidan King

Sylvia Plath Analysis

On: Daddy & Lady Lazarus

            Sylvia Plath, though a talented student and a virtuosic poet, spent the majority of her life combating severe depression, leading to her successful suicide at the tragically young age of thirty. One of the roots of this mental and emotional instability, as seen in Daddy and Lady Lazarus, can be attributed to Plath’s destructive relationship with her father and the years of despise towards society’s patriarchal figures.

            Plath masterfully uses the first person perspective in these two semi-autobiographical poems. As the victim, she uses “I,” evoking sympathy from those who also associate themselves as victims. She refers to the antagonist – and the reader – as “you,” which also produces feelings of remorse, pity, and even guilt. Her confessional hatred in “Daddy,” with the phrases “You bastard” (80) and “Brute heart of a brute like you,” (50) attack the reader as if to compare you to her father. She even italicizes “you” in the line “I have always been scared of you” (41), further adding to the comparison.

            While “Lady Lazarus” contains much subtler references to the Holocaust than in “Daddy,” it does however draw a stark connection between the experiences of Nazi-enslaved Jews and her own suffering. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (4-9, Lazarus). Here, while again describing herself as objects – lampshade, paperweight, linen – Plath details the suffering surrounding her attempted suicides and equates it to the pain that Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

The pain she experienced was caused by her very own “Nazi:” her father. “I have always been scared of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. / And your neat mustache / And your Aryan eye, bright blue. / Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -” (41-45, Daddy). In these lines, Plath refers to her father’s time spent as a tank operator, and the trauma it inflicted on him over the years. This trauma was in turn passed along to her, who was not even ten years old at the time. She symbolizes this with her innocent and childish references to ‘Daddy’, ‘gobbledygoo’ and ‘Achoo’. The rationalization of her concentration-camp-Jew comparison is much more believable when told through the lips of a traumatized eight year old.

Plath sees Nazis the same way she saw her father: sadistic, controlling, and manipulative, and she connotes these traits with those of all men. Examples can be drawn countlessly from both poems. “Lady Lazarus” captures how men view women as aesthetically-appealing objects, showing little concern for any internal flaws. Plath refers to the men as “The peanut-crunching crowd” (26) observing “the big strip tease” (29). This is a criticism of the male obsession with women as sexual objects.  “I am your opus, / I am your valuable” (67-68). After her failed suicide, she felt as though she were merely seen as a specimen of sorts, rather than a real human being – an equal – with severe, distressing emotional problems.

In “Daddy”, Plath uses Nazism and her father as a metaphor of the oppressive force of men. “I thought every German was you. / And the language obscene / An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (29-35). Plath sees all men (Germans) as her father, each one hoping to cause her suffering (Chuffing her off to Dachau). After enough time had passed, and she had been treated like an insignificant pest (like a Jew) for long enough, she began to believe it to be true.

Both “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” serve as great examples of Plath’s intricate and intense metaphorical writing. Without directly chronicling her autobiographical history, she successfully is able to depict her distrust and distaste for men, her father, and the Nazi regime, fitting it into one big analogy.  “Every woman adores a Facist,” (48, Daddy) serves as her mockery towards the men who do in fact believe that one must act like a hegemon to live a fulfilling life. Her father acted that way, the Nazis acted that way, and the men in her life did as well. And although her predisposition may have hastily clumped all men together, it’s undeniable that Plath, who fought a bout of depression as extensive and painful as any, had just-cause to spite the patriarchy surrounding her, and “Eat men like air.” 

70 years ago, my grandma survived the un-survivable, escaped the in-escapable and beat the unbeatable. 70 years ago, my grandma escaped Hitler’s army. Some of you may not think that this is a heroic act, but I believe it is. Hitler killed hundreds, thousands – no – Millions of innocent people, and only a handful of them escaped. One of this handful, is my grandma, and this, makes her a hero.

Some of you here might be thinking, ‘well, it couldn’t have been too hard to escape, and even if she didn’t, what could’ve happened?’. Let me tell you now, life in the ghetto was dangerous and challenging. A day in the ghetto must’ve felt like living a month under normal conditions. Not only that, but just to get food risky. Buying a loaf of bread was very dodgy. If any patrolling Nazis caught you, you would be shot on the spot. Luckily, my grandma was very subtle while obtaining food.

Now you are probably all asking, ‘okay then, get to the point, how did she escape?” Well when she was eleven, her parents saw that things were getting bad for the Jews in Germany so they were looking for ways to leave. Leaving Germany, in about 1941, was not a problem at all. The Nazis wanted to expel all the Jews from Germany anyway. The problem was: if you leave a place, you have to have a place you can go. This led to the fact that she missed her best chance of escaping, though if she did escape this way, I would not have called her a hero.

Months later, her parents received a call, instructing them to appear at Prague’s Exhibition Halls, in order to join a “transport” which would take them to the concentration camps.

In a short form, the concentration camps were places where people would work tirelessly until they died. My grandma was very lucky. She went to the camp ‘sobibor’. In 1943, members of the Sobibor underground, succeeded in stealthily killing eleven German SS officers and a number of camp guards. Although their plan was to kill all the SS and walk out of the main gate of the camp, the killings were discovered and the prisoners ran for their lives under fire. About 300 out of the 600 prisoners in the camp escaped into the forests. My grandma was one of those 300. From there, she lived with the others, until they found transport to Israel.  It was extremely bold of her to escape with the others, which is why I look up to her.

The holocaust was a terrible incident of our past. We must remember our past although sometimes we may not want to. We should not put it aside because it is not what we wanted to happen. To make a better future, we have to teach everyone about the Holocaust. We must listen and learn about the survivors’ stories while we have a chance, and we must make a difference on where this world goes in the future.  We must always keep in mind, as George Santayana once wrote, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” For if it did ever occur again, there may not be enough heroes to end it.

This is the most famous case of cannibalism in history, occurs in the mountains of Chile, Andes, Argentina-Chilli border in the winter of 1972.

This event began with the fall of the chartered plane Uruguay Air Force Flight 571 carrying 45 passengers, including the rugby teamand their families, in the mountains of Chile, the Andes, October 13, 1972.

Of the accident, 29 passengers survived, but the rugged terrainmade ​​one after another falling victim. Eight people were buried byan avalanche killed, several others followed into the after life because of various reasons, among which, unusually coldtemperatures and injury.

Practically the only remaining 16 people, they managed to be saved on December 23, 1972. Even then, after they themselves struggling to seek help, rescue operations have been discontinued due to long ago.

The local government has considered them as victims lost not found, until the victims came themselves to report their location.Excellent!

Imagine, at an altitude of 3,600 meters above sea level in winter is a great-great. Heavy snowfall, freezing almost everything.

Well, these victims, only wear modest clothes, no food, anyone can not think normally. How do I survive, that’s the only thing on their minds.

The only way to survive is by eating their friends who have died.This is not an easy decision, even too much, but it must do if they want to live.

Painful, they monitor the radio when they stopped the search because the crash site was not found.

Their rescue operation was stopped after eight days of searching, or 11 days they fall on the mountain. Authorities must consider all the victims there were no survivors.

Understandable, the location of the mountains it is very difficult to access, while from the air looks all white as snow. Unfortunately, the plane was white.

Exactly, they survive 72 days before the rescue team finally found.And that’s after two of the victims, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, struggling to find help.

They went down the mountain, find a way to ‘life’. During the 12 days both on the road is difficult, local residents, Sergio Catalan, find them.

Ending, all victims (16 persons) Santiago was taken to hospital and treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, mange and malnutrition.

This extraordinary experience, filmed in 1993, and has since become one of the most famous miraculous stories of all time.

In 2006, Nando Parrado, one of the survivors, posted a dramatic  it in a book called Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home.

2. Franklin expedition.

This expedition is the most lamentable of all time popularly known as the Franklin expedition.

A naval officer who is experienced and many times lead the expedition, and this time it’s the year 1845, he was ordered tolead the expedition of Sir John Barrow again, namely complete mapping of the northwest tip of Canada and sailed the North Pole.

The expedition itself is made ​​of two ships, HMS Erebus andTerror, two ships of his time advanced.

But the sophistication of the technology, can not beat nature. It is said that these two ships besieged the ice in Victoria Strait nearKing William Island in Arctic Canada. Franklin and 128 crew andresearchers, is lost.

The fate of Franklin’s expedition was only revealed later centuries.During the search continues, even with the lure of prize.

A search led by Francis Leopold McClintock in 1859 discovered a note left on King William Island on the details of the expedition.Then the search is continued until the 19th century.

It was only in 1981, research by a team of scientists led by Prof.Owen Beattie, an anthropologist from the University of Alberta,managed to reveal some of their findings on Beechey Island andKing William Island.

Beechey Island where some of the crew were buried, it was foundthat they died of pneumonia and possible tuberculosis and lead poisoning.

But the findings are also surprising in King Williams Island wherethe occurrence of cannibalism because of starvation so thateventually all killed.

3. Whale ship Essex Hunter

The story of cannibalism to survive among the sailors actually not new. Even in the early 19th-century maritime world rife with horrificstories like that. One example is the Ship Essex, whaler ship, in 1820.

The story begins with a shipwreck in 1820, where the whalestruck the Essex which caused the ship sank in the ocean 2,000 miles (3,700 km) west of the west coast of South America.

A total of 21 crew members managed to escape on HendersonIsland, Pitcairn Islands region. Henderson Island they survive by eating fish, birds, plants are also available, also found a smallfountain to drink.

Unfortunately, the island’s natural resources is only enough for a week, then nothing left to eat. They are still trying to survive by drinking his own urine, but not for long. So you can guess what comes in their minds in order to survive.

This is where the applicable law of the jungle, he is strong whowins. They were , eat each other. There are no friends, friends, even brothers, killing each other. Tragically, the captain ofthe ship, eat Pollard joined his cousin, Owen Coffin, who had previously slain by his own men.

The new aid comes almost a year later by a fishing vesselDauphin Nantucket 95. When the two survivors, Captain Pollardand Ramsdell, people who kill cousin Coffin Pollard. In a separate place other crew were rescued India merchant ship.

As many as eight people were rescued. Their recognition, theymanaged to survive by eating the bodies of seven others.4. siege of LeningradThis is the story of the siege of the longest and most heavilythroughout history. Siege of Leningrad or popular as well as theblockade of Leningrad, is a prolonged military operationconducted by the German and Finnish defense forces to blockade Leningrad on 8 September 1941. The siege lasted fortwo years.

Siege of Leningrad which caused 1.5 million casualties.

The city was completely isolated, both on land and sea. For months, residents of the lake just to eat there, but when winter came, the frozen lake. Soviet troops had difficulty to supply food.People began to starve.

To meet the need for food, bakers in the city was ordered tomake bread mixed with sawdust. This is simply to survive.

Moreover, birds, rodents, and other food-eating in normalconditions of disgust for food, had a meal. This is all for the sake of the stomach, and for life. When nothing else to eat, then startgoing cannibalism.

This practice is happening more and more widespread across the city, to the extent that the Leningrad police feel the need topatrol anti-cannibalism, to prevent the condition from getting wildand uncontrollable.

And that’s what Germany and Finland to bring down the Soviets.Even later admitted that cannibalism is actually saving the lives ofmany people, but by then the police action was still banned.

Even so cannibalism still occur despite the sly. It is estimated, the tragedy led to the deaths of 1.5 million people.

Based on the record, this is not the first time the Soviet people tocannibalism. Previously, the year of 1932-1933 famine in Ukrainethat caused widespread practice of cannibalism occurred in the region.
5. Holocaust
Until now the event is still a source of debate. The Holocaust is the systematic genocide of Nazi Germany against the various ethnic, religious, national, and secular at the time of World War II.

The Jews in Europe are the main victims of the Holocaust, the Nazis called the ”Last Settlement Against the Jewish Question”.

The number of Jewish victims is generally said to have reached 6million inhabitants. Genocide was created Adolf Hitler held, inter alia, with the shots, torture and poison gas, in the Jewish villagesand concentration camps.

Besides the Jews, other groups are considered to be the Nazis’unpopular’ among others, the Polish, Russian, ethnic Slavs other,religion Roman Catholic, the disabled, the mentally disabled,homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses (Jehovah’s Witnesses), the communists, ethnic Gypsy (Rom and Sinti people) and political opponents. They also captured and killed.

If the share count of these groups and the Jews also, the number of Holocaust victims could reach 9-11 million people.

German sadism treat prisoners has become a life story for decades until now. What and how they are treated to a story thatendlessly invite tears and anger.

That said, the German POWs were left starving in concentration camps set up Germany. The impact, in order to survive the prisoners were preyed on each other mutually.

6. Alferd Packer
Alferd Packer (21 November 1842-23 April 1907) often known as the only American ever convicted of cannibalism to the demand,although demand is murder, not cannibalism.

Members of the Donner Party was famous, not convicted ofcannibalism in California, because cannibalism is not a crime by law in the United States.

On February 9, 1874, he was with five other people on an expedition in the mountains of Colorado. Two months laterPacker returned from the expedition alone.

When asked where the people who had gone with him, Packersaid that he had killed them all to survive the body was forced toeat his friends.

Another thing found in Germany, specifically Berlin in our case, was a tram system. The one we took to move across the city was bright yellow, often crowded, but it was still better than walking those distances (if one doesn’t have the time or inclination to walk). It was also hot and humid in there. Anyways, the trams provided simple mass transportation to those who needed it, so I guess the system is overall good in its purpose. While moving through Berlin I noticed that there were many apartments. They came in all sorts of colors; such as red, green, yellow, blue, etc. I noticed also that the streets of Berlin were narrower and there are many line in white painted on them for the use of walkers and cyclists.

Near Berlin is an old concentration camp named ‘Ravensbruck’ filled with crumbling weathered buildings. This was a place where women were held. Here we had an hour to walk around and examine the place, all the while trying (and most likely hugely failing) to imagine what it must have been like to be interred there in those horrible conditions. While we were there the sky grew cloudy and a light rain began to fall, and yet, the birds around us in the area continued to sing their merry songs. It was a bit eerie, but that was probably the best atmosphere for where we were at that time. The old concentration camp near Munich that we visited a day or two later, named ‘Dachau’, was also quite similar to the first one, excepting it was emptier because more building had been removed, and it was creepily more beautiful as well. There was an area with flowers, trees, and a walking path, that was actually quite nice to linger in for a while. There too a light rain began, it being cloudy as well, and so too was there the sound of happy birds all around. Overall the concentration camps in Germany had a big impact on us.

Munich, Germany was much like Berlin, a difference being some piping, blue and pink, which snaked aboveground through the city. We saw most of Germany’s countryside whilst sitting on a bus. There were many farms, conventional and solar, and also a lot of wind turbines. One could easily grasp the importance of alternative sources of energy in Germany. We saw also many little villages scattered amongst the hills, and they would reveal themselves suddenly as we passed around a bend in the road. As we left Germany we had time to reflect on everything we had seen previously on our trip. The concentration camps especially weighed heavily on our minds. The first leg of our trip was over, three more to go yet, and we were already hopefully a little wiser, somewhat more experienced in the ways of the world, on our way to being seasoned travellers. Germany had managed to shatter some misconceptions, born of media back home… showing us what the country, or merely parts of it, is really all about, and it sought to make a good impression. I would say that it succeeded.

Economically, The United States was in a poor state after the great depression.  The poor economy meant that the government was more focused on lowing joblessness than attempting to help the victims in Europe.   Many have vilified America in not jumping to aid those in need but truly we were only fighting off the war on the home-front of our economy. Americans were at an enormous level of unemployment, and after having lost almost 50 percent of their banks, they were justified in not supporting humanitarian aid.  At the time, tariffs around the world were at an all time high.  This had been a result of isolationist policies  after World War I.  And while some believe it was a bad idea in hindsight, the current time period would have no way of telling the consequences which lead to such a heavy depression.  

As Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected, he initiated a policy known as the New Deal.  This was a series of deficit spending based on Keynesian economic theory.  It was a hugely popular policy and it spurred the economic recovery of America after the Great Depression.  While this was helping the economy, the public was still very concerned with the United States’ domestic state over the worries of a brooding World War in Europe.  Citizens considered it Europe’s problem as they still had their own.  It was a politically unpopular idea to try to involve ourselves in another continent’s problems.  The ending result was multiple weakened countries in Europe struggling against an industrial thriving military.  Due to the economically bad times, and the political parties attempting to remain in good light, the United States stayed out of the war, along with not attempting to aid Holocaust victims.

Although the economic times were poor, there was also great potential for economic recovery through intervention.  A majority of the people who were persecuted were professionals in the work place.  They would be able to provide valuable skills in medicine, banking, and financial consultation.  This would also encourage more global trade.  Which was becoming the standard as the increase in markets promoted more growth and more business opportunities.  Moving away from an isolationist policy would mean that countries would be able to world collaboratively for business ventures and efficiently allocate resources.

American Industries were tied in with Germany’s war machine.  This showed corporate greed, and a lack of ethics.  GM, Ford, GE all had ties with the German industries which were used throughout the holocaust.  These showed how corrupt, or at least heartless business can be. These companies claimed they did not have control over their German branches, but many believe this is not true.  Hitler had a life-sized portrait of Henry Ford in his office, and had awarded him with the highest possible medal that a non-German citizen could receive.  A shocking thing to realize is that IBM had sold the information computers and networks used in concentrations during the Holocaust.  The United States had ties with the Holocaust that are shocking to discover.

The economic responsibilities, in many ways, held back the government from funding a war so far off.  Our late arrival in the war was at worst excusable and the preoccupations we quite reasonable. It is a world effort to stave off civil right infringements, not just ours. There may not have been many as able to help as us but this made little difference on our economic position.