Representation of a Holocaust Survivor's Pain

Holocaust represents genocide that occurred during World War Two. In this genocide, approximately six million Jews died. This murder was carried out by Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Before the Holocaust, nine million Jews resided in Europe. About two thirds of them died during Holocaust. This included one million children, two million women and three million men. Apart from the Jews, some other people died during this period. These included homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, Romani and people with disabilities. Therefore, the total number of victims of the Holocaust is approximately eleven million.

Holocaust was one of the greatest murders to have occurred in history. Representation of the pain and suffering that the victims underwent is not achievable. They went through considerable suffering and torture before most of them were brutally murdered. These murders took place in stages. Even before the start of World War Two, the Germans had started making plans of removing Jews from the civil society. Some camps were established and referred to as concentration camps. The Jews were then subjected to labor in slavery until some of them died in the process. Some died of exhaustion, while some died of diseases. The Germans did not care about how the Jews suffered. They did not even consider the kids present. As long as one was a Jew, he/she went through to this treatment. Whenever Germany conquered parts of Eastern Europe, they went round killing the Jews present. They even had distinct units, whose main job was to kill the Jews.

The Jews that survived were taken to Camps where they were exterminated, while others ended up in gas chambers. In these gas chambers, many Jews were put in a single room, and poisonous gases were let into those chambers. After some time, all the people in those chambers would be dead. This was a high level of brutality among human beings. It left the survivors so traumatized that some never recovered.

There have been several attempts to represent the Holocaust. This is in written form, and films, which attempt to show the suffering that the Jews underwent. However, historians have continued to criticize these representations. Some of the things that happened to the victims of the holocaust have never been made public. There are also some details that were omitted in describing Holocaust. For this reason, most film-makers, who attempt to represent it, construct their own events and theories. This is totally unethical, because there are some survivors of the Holocaust, and such representations could be quite disturbing.

Apart from physical torture, the victims also underwent emotional and mental torture. It is so hard to think that someone could hate them to the extent of killing them just because of their race. This made the victims feel as if they did not belong to this world, since they were no accepted by their immediate neighbors. It is just so difficult to explain the torture that these people underwent. Therefore, it is not in line with the correct code of conduct of humans, to attempt representation of the Holocaust.

The extermination of six million people in extremely brutal ways is so strange. The human language certainly has no words that can explain these massive killings. The vocabulary in the human minds is not adequate to describe the merciless events that were being carried out during the Second World War. It is a truly unique event on its own. An event escapes all meaning. Therefore, there is no ethical value in attempting to represent it. It would lead to conveyance of information that is not true. It would create an entirely different picture from the actual events. This is not morally acceptable, since it could disturb the mind of the survivor of the Holocaust. Understanding, analysis and representation of the Holocaust are not as straightforward as that of any other event. This was a truly unique event, which should not have people attempting representation every other day. This would amount to unethical behavior.

Writers like Paul Eisenstein have published monographs on Holocaust. These monographs are designed to outline and describe the problems encountered by scholars in describing Holocausts. He even describes how hard it is for teachers to inform their students on the occurrences and events of the Holocaust. The representation of Holocaust lacks truth in it every time it is attempted. This is because there were remarkably few  survivors compared to the people who died in the event. Most survivors never want to remember the events that took place. Some of them have physical scars, which are proof of the brutality of the Germans at that time. Therefore, the facts and statistics that are needed in the representation of Holocaust are hard to find. Most film-makers only want to produce entertaining movies, which will be sold. They do not care about the truth value of their story line. Such behavior is not ethical or morally upright.

The murder of all these people was a brutal act that will live to be remembered by generations to come. It is so scary to think of how the people were being executed. Therefore, people should use parts of the events that can be clearly remembered. Using these events, they should learn different things, so that they cannot repeat the mistakes that were committed during that time. Otherwise, trying to represent it is not morally upright. This is not an event that survivors would like to be reminded about time and again. A little kid who watched his/her parents being murdered brutally would not like to watch that event repeated again and again. Therefore, scholars should try to come up with lessons that can be learnt from the Holocaust. This would prevent a repetition of such acts in the modern world.

To kill all these people so brutally, the Germans had to be filled with passionate hatred for the Jews. This hatred cannot be imagined by the average human being. The hatred that would let a person kill a little child without mercy is unimaginable. Using people and characters to try to manifest this hatred is an almost impossible task. It is quite difficult for people to represent something that they cannot even imagine. Some of those events were so brutal that they scare people who were not victims of these murders. People are even afraid of hearing the other untold truths of the Holocaust. Therefore, it is clear that there is no ethical value in trying to represent the Holocaust.

The events of the Holocaust took place some time ago. Therefore, a lot has changed since then. The physical outlooks of places and people’s attitudes have also changed. However, representation of the Holocaust could bring up controversies and stir up the past. This can have serious consequences, since it would prompt a repeat of the hatred that existed between these two groups. In the modern world, the Germans and the Jews do not seem to have a visible conflict of any kind. Therefore, it would be better if things remained that way. The idea of having controversy between these two groups is just not bearable.

Scholars may argue that representations of other events, which include deaths, have been done. Therefore, they would argue that representation of the Holocaust is not exceptional. However, Holocaust is certainly exceptional. It was a murder that was committed on totally innocent people whose only mistake was their race. The number of people killed was also unusually large for a remarkably short time.

In addition, the methods through which the people were murdered were really brutal. People were transported to camps knowing exceptionally well that they were going to be killed. These were extremely serious crimes against humanity. If it was possible, the survivors could erase each and every little detail of the events. This is because the thought of the Holocaust creates fear in people (Haber 54). Representation of these crimes against humanity can never be adequate to show the sufferings that the survivors underwent. Watching most of your relatives get killed just because of their race is something that cannot be represented. This is because the methods that were being used to execute the people were unimaginable. An attempt to represent such methods would lead to the creation of a false impression of the actual events that took place. This is totally immoral and unethical.

Conclusion

Many events have occurred in history. It is the nature of human beings to want to represent these events. This is because human beings study their history and want to remember it even in the coming times. Some of these events in history can comfortably be represented. On the other hand, some historic events cannot be adequately represented. As the essay above illustrates, Holocaust is one of them. Therefore, every writer who is ethical and claims to be morally upright should not attempt representation of the Holocaust. This is because it would not portray a true picture of the events that occurred during the Second World War.