"Holocaust Remembrance - remember and understand" Scholarship Essay

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

I don't know where the scholarship comes from, but given the prompt, I suspect it's motivated partly by a desire to inspire people to research the Holocaust and encourage them to think about the lessons it has to teach. With that in mind, your essay should show off your research skills. Right now, there are only three reasons to think you've done research on this topic beyond that required of most students:

1. You open with a great quote from Night, a holocaust memoir (great!);
2. You provide an overview of the horrors commited during the Holocaust (but I suspect most people your age can do this); and
3. You mention researching other topics, such as lynching and bullying (okay).

This is all good, but your essay would be much stronger if you had more direct examples of research, such as obscure quotes that back up your key claims. For example, you could cite excerpts from Nazi literature or reformed Nazi memoirs that explain why the Third Reich feared and despised Jews to reinforce your contention that their hatred stemmed from fear. You could also use comments from reformed Nazis or racists to show that knowledge reduces that fear.

On a nonrhetorical note, I suspect that the hate stems less from "fear of the unknown" as it does from "fear of losing power, opportunity, and a chance to live in a world that reflects their values." People refer to Mexicans as "wetbacks" not because they deny that Mexicans are people but because immigrants take jobs that might have otherwise gone to natives. I don't know enough about the Jim Crow laws to address them with any authority. However, I know many people oppose same-sex marriages not because they fear the unknown but because they think they know the consequences. In their eyes, same-sex marriage would undermine the sanctity of traditional marriages, deny society a tool for promoting a useful family structures, and send the wrong message about same sex relationships. Your comment that Jews were deamed a "threat" to the Third Reich suggests the Nazis regarded them the same way.

Since you asked for a proofread, not comments on the essay overall, I thought I might provide a light edit as well. In the opening quote, consider inserting "a holocaust memoir" after the book's title if it's possible your audience won't recognize the book. Since you're writing for a Holocaust-themed scholarship and I get the impression Night is one of the major works of Holocaust literature, you should be fine as is.

In the second paragraph, consider changing "killing" to a stronger word like "murder" or "slaughter." I would also suggest deleting the "over" before "six million" to highlight the six million, which is more important than the smaller number above six million, but I'm not sure if that's appropriate here; try it and see which sounds better to you. I would recommend deleting "as affected by then-Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler;" since most people know who Hitler is, bringing him up complicates the sentence structure without advancing your argument. Finally, try deleting the "undeniably" before "difficult to forget" to see if the "difficult" sounds stronger alone.

In the second paragraph, consider changing "until such a time came, if they were still aive, for them to be transported to" to "until their oppressors were ready to transport them-if they were still alive-to concentration camps." I would also suggest deleting the spaces that appear after the dashes that separte the "people" section and changing the final one from "they were people with unique personalities, smiles, laughs" to "people with..." so it's consistent with the other two. Finally, please expand the final sentence to something like, "The rest lies in the questions it causes people to ask" to complete your thought.

In the next paragraph, delete the space separating the hyphen in "ever-present" from "present." In the second to last paragraph, consider describing Proposition 8 briefly for people that aren't from California unless your audience will be. You could write, "And when California proposed a same-sex marriage ban through Proposition 8, riots ensued," but I'm not sure that example illustrates the point you want it to make. To me, the rioting that followed is an example of people expressing their frustration at others' conservative politics, not an example of hate-spawned cruelty. You might be better of saying something ike "And in California and many other states, people feared the thought of same-sex couples getting married so much they modified their states' consittutions to prevent it."

In the final paragraph, consider deleting the "maybe" before "we need to try harder." In general, qualifiers like "maybe" and "perhaps" suggest you're unsure of your position, which reduces your credibility. I would also suggest shortening "when such a time arises we don't understand" to "when we don't understand" and "I do not believe that hate will ever be truly eliminated from our midst" to "I do not believe hate will ever be eliminated." And as usual, there shouldn't be a space after the hyphen in "grand-scale." You should also delete the comma before the "is."

If you're writing for an American audeince, not people in the United Kingdom, Canada, or countries that follow their practices, you should place periods and other punctuation within quotation marks. While that doesn't make as much sense as putting them outside the quatation marks, it's the standard practice here.

As you can probably tell my comments, I didn't find many typos or other errors. In fact, your essay is written well. The sentences are varied, the words are precise, and the organization is logical. However, it would be much stronger with more evidence of research, especially if that evidence reinforces your contentions.

Did I provide the help you were looking for? Do you have any other questions?