The Holocaust of the 1940s is one of the most abominable periods in world history. Approximately eleven million Jews lost their lives during World War II due to Nazi genocidal policy enforced by Adolf Hitler. Jews were beaten to death, starved, burned in human crematoriums, enslaved, and forbidden to associate with the outside world. Jewish survivors of the genocide are living testimonies of this ghastly period in history, and the magnitude of this crime against humanity goes beyond the meaning of evil. In addition to numerous personal accounts of the Jewish genocide, a number of famous texts also provide the reality and the proof that the Holocaust did indeed take place. Two such written documents include Anne Frank's famous book "The Diary of a Young Girl" and Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize winning book "Night". Both texts describe what life was like as a Jew during the Nazi regime, although there are differences in the writing style and scope of each book. Anne Frank's book is a revised and edited version of her personal diary as a young girl from 1942 to 1944, while Elie Wiesel's book is written in the form of a fictionalized autobiographical novel of his account in concentration camps as a teenage boy. The authors both urge readers through their heart-rendering accounts to never forget the atrocities and inhumane treatment of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. They both keep the memories alive by their writings, and further allow readers and humanity to deeply sympathize with the plight of the Jews. Because of these two books, readers are made to learn the history of World War II to understand the events that subjected Jewish people to such torture and evil treatment.
[...] In Diary of a Young Girl” Frank describes her life in Amsterdam, Holland, but she also explains that she and her family lived in Germany before fleeing to another country because of the fear that Adolf Hitler put into German-Jews during World War II. On October Frank states in her diary “Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I'm actually one of them! No, that's not true; Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and the Jews” (The Diary of a Young Girl 55). [...]
[...] It is, however, the evil events of the Nazis that starts these feelings in Wiesel as a young boy who has gone from wanting to know the principles of the Kabbalah to questioning whether God even exists. Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank and by Wiesel allow humanity to enter into the world of the Holocaust and learn about the tragic events that took place. A common agreement among survivors and victims of the Holocaust is that there could never possibly be the exact language to describe the horrors that took place during this dark period in history. The two texts written by Frank and Wiesel, [...]
[...] As an audience, it is important to readers to know why this is happening, and to understand it thoroughly, a knowledge of World War II and the Nazi Regime must be sough much like Anne Frank's initial introduction, Elie Wiesel also begins his book by portraying a seemingly normal young teenage boy concerned with learning the Kabbalah. Elie finally seeks out Moishe the Beadle, a man with dreamy eyes” (Night to teach him Kabbalah's revelations and its mysteries” (Night 5). [...]
[...] On page 19 of Night, Wiesel writes about the situation in which his family and he are being forced to move out of Hungary and onto transports that will ultimately take them to a concentration camp in Auschwitz . He states father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry . As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my little sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. [...]
[...] As audiences begin to read Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl and Elie Wiesel's Night, readers get to know the lives of both authors before they suffer the consequences of being Jewish. Because of these initial introductions of their everyday lives, they are humanized and put into the category of people living their lives just as everyone else does. For example, Anne Frank first tells of her life as a young schoolgirl who has birthday parties just like anyone else: As it was my birthday, I got to decide which game my classmates would play, and I chose volleyball. [...]
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