"Work" - English Comp. 1/23/2011

          Work.  My entire life is work.  I remember nothing before the camp, and I'm sure there will be nothing to know after...if I even get an "after".  All day I come out here and dig.  I wake up, go outside, dig.  I go in for a few moments, eat a crust of bread or some cold soup, come back out, dig.  At night, I sleep.  If I dream, I dream that I am back outside digging.  We dig in the heat, in the cold, sometimes in the rain.  Some days, we are even forced to fill the holes.  Those days are the worst.  When it's just the digging, I can pretend that I'm a kid, trying to dig all the way to the other side of the world.  I can pretend that I'm a pirate searching for lost treasure. Sometimes that one isn't so hard to imagine; the feeling of digging and digging, never finding what you are digging for, never feeling that satisfaction or relief.  I can relate.  Some days, I don't think about anything; I just dig.
          The way we dig, you would think this place would run out of bodies, or at least land, for the holes.  But that never happens.  The nazis are never satisfied, and they never stop killing.  I wish that for one day - just for one day - we could trade places.  I could stand and laugh icily while they dig these crude "graves".  Let them fill the holes with charred remains of bodies that used to be people.  I wish they could understand what it is to be forced to do manual labor for the people who want you dead.
          Mostly, I just wish it would stop.  I wish someone could come to take me back home with my family and my bed and no more digging.  I could finally sleep peacefully, not having to worry about blistered hands, sunburnt necks, and worn out backs...I don't remember what any of that feels like.  The only way I can fall asleep is to cry myself out every night.
          There is a girl my age who's sleeping with one of the guards.  He sneaks her good food, and she never has to work.  If I wasn't so exhausted, I would kill her.

"Preventing Another Holocaust" - English Comp. 1/23/2011

            The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah in Hebrew, was one of the most notorious periods in recorded history.  Today, some people still believe that it never happened;  that humans are incapable of inflicting such terrible acts upon one another.  However, the fact remains that if we let the personal prejudice of individuals effect an entire nation, we as humans are capable of a wide variety of evils.  Rather than bury our heads in the sand and pretend it was not real, people should be doing everything they can to be sure that another mass genocide never happens.

            History does not always have to repeat itself.  The first step in ensuring this is educating the next generation.  Many students know what the Holocaust was by the time they arrive in high school, but unfortunately, this is not true for everyone.  Some people have never even encountered the word.  Many schools do not teach it, or even try to cover it up and make it seem like it was not “that bad”.  This is a huge problem.  True, telling kindergarteners the details of how those 6 million Jewish people were killed in the span of 12 years is extreme.  But at some point, the Holocaust should be introduced to them when their school board decides they are mature enough to comprehend it.  Even if it is a step-by-step process, where the students learn only a few new details each year they are in school, they should not graduate high school not knowing about the Holocaust.  They should not begin their lives in the “real world” without prior knowledge of the horrors that bigotry and hate can bring to the world.  That kind of ignorance is exactly where plans for another Holocaust will come from.

            Where would we begin teaching students about the Holocaust if we did not begin with Adolf Hitler?  Adolf Hitler was a sad, angry man whose twisted mind was so filled with hate that he had to take it out on the entire world.  Germany not only let this man run the country, but they let him rule it with an iron fist.  They let him present himself as a hero, even a god, and so everyone gave him whatever he wanted.  Sadly, what he wanted was the head of every non-Aryan in existence, and he almost achieved that.  Personally, I am thankful that I live in the United States, where this kind of thing is impossible.  Our government lets the people of our nation vote on our nation’s leader, and even that person does not have total control.  Our system of checks and balances ensures that no part of our government gets out of control, and that our President does not become a dictator.  Hitler took over Germany and forced everyone to adopt his irrational hatred of Jewish, black, homosexual, and handicapped people.  If Germany had the same kind of government and legal code as the United States had, even with all of its flaws at that time, Hitler would not have been able to lead to the containment, enslavement, and mass killing of millions of innocents.

            The Holocaust was an event born of evil.  The hatred of one man encapsulated an entire nation, and then some.  Because of Hitler’s sick “logic”, countless people suffered through so much pain and torment, before most of them finally died.  Yes, Hitler suffered through much pain in his life as well, but none of it comes close to what he put so many people through during the Holocaust.  If he had not been so hateful towards humanity, perhaps none of it would have happened;  or at least it would have happened at the hands of someone else.  That is why it is important for people not to hate.  It is important for people to realize that there is not one race, religion, or culture that makes some people any better or worse than others.  If there was not so much hate in the world at that time, perhaps the Holocaust could have been stopped sooner.  If there was not so much hate in the world now, perhaps I would have more hope that something like the Holocaust would not happen again.