katmac95
Apr 7, 2012
Scholarship / "Holocaust Remembrance - remember and understand" Scholarship Essay [2]
The prompt is as follows: Students responding to this year's writing contest should study the Holocaust and then, in an essay of no more than 1,200 words: (a) analyze why it is vital that the remembrance, history and lessons of the Holocaust be passed on to a new generation; and (b) suggest what young people can do to combat and prevent prejudice, discrimination and violence in our world today. Your essay may have a theme that addresses one or two aspects of the Holocaust, or may be a broad overview. It is important that your essay exhibit your research skills as well as your creativity.
And here is the essay I need proofread!!!
"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." (Ellie Weisel, Night).
As far as many members of society are concerned, the Holocaust, to this day, remains one of the most nefarious, grotesque and heartbreaking events in modern history; it is the defining evil of our time. The stark hatred behind the systematic oppression and killing of over six million innocent men, women, and children of Jewish descent, as affected by then- Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, is undeniably difficult to forget. So why, pray tell, does it seem so many have?
Jews living in Europe, or anyone else deemed a "threat" to the Third Reich in the 1940's, were at first confined to ghettos, or overcrowded, small, areas of cities that had been cordoned off for them, until such a time came, if they were still alive, to be transported to concentration camps. Within the walls of these camps, horrible things took place: forced sterilizations, brutal beatings, starvation, overcrowding, perverse experiments, and mass homicides in gas chambers, which inmates were led to believe, were showers. In these camps, it was forgotten that these were people- people with dreams and aspirations, families, and friends; people who went out on dates and had to do their homework every night; they were people, each with unique personalities, smiles, laughs- that had been turned into ghosts. But all of this- the atrocious treatment, neglect, and murder of so many innocent souls- is only part of what the Holocaust truly is, and truly stands for. The rest lies in the questions.
Often, while exploring such events as the Holocaust; slavery and lynching in the South; the Trail of Tears; and even modern- day bullying, I have found myself asking the same question again and again: How are any of these different? And the answer I seem to always arrive at, the truth I have come to realize, is that they are not.
Whether genocide, a public hanging, or bullying someone to the brink, it all comes down to one thing: hate. Hate, as defined in the dictionary, is "the feeling of aversion for, or intense hostility toward a person, place or thing". Over 70 years have passed since the awful events of the Holocaust, but hate is far from outdated; it hasn't withered away and disappeared with time. Hate is ever- present.
Even walking through the halls at school, I see acts of hate, every day. Words like "fag", "slut", and "retard" are thrown around as if they mean nothing. Such venom is spewed from the lips of my peers, with such ease, that it is truly difficult, sometimes, to believe it's real. But the truth that many people don't seem to understand is that it happens all the time. The evidence of hatred is not limited to the gaunt bodies and haggard faces of those imprisoned in concentration camps. Hate is the single tear, beading down my neighbor's face. Hate is universal.
After the Civil War ended, Jim Crow laws were established, for which the penalty of disobeying, was death. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we put them in internment camps. And when Prop 8 arose on the ballot, riots ensued. Why? Fear. As a people, we are afraid of what is foreign to us, whether the feeling is rational or not, and that fear grows to a disinclination, which leads to hate. We hate that which we cannot understand. But where does this hate end?
As George Santayana once said, "He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it". The key to preventing such travesty in the future is education, presently. If the problem- the reason we turn to hate- is because we do not understand, then as a nation, and as a planet, maybe we need to try harder to. Is it really so difficult to pick up a book or to look online when we have questions? We have countless resources at our disposal; it seems only logical to use them when such a time arises, that we don't understand something. I do not believe that hate will ever be truly eliminated from our midst, but I do believe that preventing grand- scale acts of hatred, such as the Holocaust, from happening again, is as simple as remembering to. If we can remember and understand the great adversity caused by the events and actions of the past, we can, together, create a better future.
Word Count: 792
The prompt is as follows: Students responding to this year's writing contest should study the Holocaust and then, in an essay of no more than 1,200 words: (a) analyze why it is vital that the remembrance, history and lessons of the Holocaust be passed on to a new generation; and (b) suggest what young people can do to combat and prevent prejudice, discrimination and violence in our world today. Your essay may have a theme that addresses one or two aspects of the Holocaust, or may be a broad overview. It is important that your essay exhibit your research skills as well as your creativity.
And here is the essay I need proofread!!!
"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." (Ellie Weisel, Night).
As far as many members of society are concerned, the Holocaust, to this day, remains one of the most nefarious, grotesque and heartbreaking events in modern history; it is the defining evil of our time. The stark hatred behind the systematic oppression and killing of over six million innocent men, women, and children of Jewish descent, as affected by then- Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, is undeniably difficult to forget. So why, pray tell, does it seem so many have?
Jews living in Europe, or anyone else deemed a "threat" to the Third Reich in the 1940's, were at first confined to ghettos, or overcrowded, small, areas of cities that had been cordoned off for them, until such a time came, if they were still alive, to be transported to concentration camps. Within the walls of these camps, horrible things took place: forced sterilizations, brutal beatings, starvation, overcrowding, perverse experiments, and mass homicides in gas chambers, which inmates were led to believe, were showers. In these camps, it was forgotten that these were people- people with dreams and aspirations, families, and friends; people who went out on dates and had to do their homework every night; they were people, each with unique personalities, smiles, laughs- that had been turned into ghosts. But all of this- the atrocious treatment, neglect, and murder of so many innocent souls- is only part of what the Holocaust truly is, and truly stands for. The rest lies in the questions.
Often, while exploring such events as the Holocaust; slavery and lynching in the South; the Trail of Tears; and even modern- day bullying, I have found myself asking the same question again and again: How are any of these different? And the answer I seem to always arrive at, the truth I have come to realize, is that they are not.
Whether genocide, a public hanging, or bullying someone to the brink, it all comes down to one thing: hate. Hate, as defined in the dictionary, is "the feeling of aversion for, or intense hostility toward a person, place or thing". Over 70 years have passed since the awful events of the Holocaust, but hate is far from outdated; it hasn't withered away and disappeared with time. Hate is ever- present.
Even walking through the halls at school, I see acts of hate, every day. Words like "fag", "slut", and "retard" are thrown around as if they mean nothing. Such venom is spewed from the lips of my peers, with such ease, that it is truly difficult, sometimes, to believe it's real. But the truth that many people don't seem to understand is that it happens all the time. The evidence of hatred is not limited to the gaunt bodies and haggard faces of those imprisoned in concentration camps. Hate is the single tear, beading down my neighbor's face. Hate is universal.
After the Civil War ended, Jim Crow laws were established, for which the penalty of disobeying, was death. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we put them in internment camps. And when Prop 8 arose on the ballot, riots ensued. Why? Fear. As a people, we are afraid of what is foreign to us, whether the feeling is rational or not, and that fear grows to a disinclination, which leads to hate. We hate that which we cannot understand. But where does this hate end?
As George Santayana once said, "He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it". The key to preventing such travesty in the future is education, presently. If the problem- the reason we turn to hate- is because we do not understand, then as a nation, and as a planet, maybe we need to try harder to. Is it really so difficult to pick up a book or to look online when we have questions? We have countless resources at our disposal; it seems only logical to use them when such a time arises, that we don't understand something. I do not believe that hate will ever be truly eliminated from our midst, but I do believe that preventing grand- scale acts of hatred, such as the Holocaust, from happening again, is as simple as remembering to. If we can remember and understand the great adversity caused by the events and actions of the past, we can, together, create a better future.
Word Count: 792
