The Ordinary Men of the Holocaust - 1075 Words

The average person’s understanding of the Holocaust is the persecution and mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s, most are unaware that the people behind the atrocities of the Holocaust came from all over Europe and a wide variety of backgrounds. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution, and Jan Gross’s Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedbwabne, Poland, all provides a different perspective on how ordinary people felt about their experiences in the Holocaust both perpetrators and victims. Art Spiegelman’s Maus: a Survivor’s Tale is particularly unique in that it is a graphic novel, not typically a genre used for writing about the horrors†¦show more content†¦The Jews were the enemy, and many men justified this by dehumanizing the Jews and distancing themselves psychologically which enabled the continued killing. Each of these novels takes on a different perspective of the Holocaust. The common theme among each is that it was ordinary human beings who did extraordinary things during the Holocaust. The average perception is that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were inherently evil, monstrous and immoral people, they must have been to commit such heinous acts? This is not the case. It was ordinary Europeans who for varying reasons including, wartime brutalization and lack of a collective identity carried out much of the Nazi’s Final Solution. Bibliography Art Spiegelman. Maus: a Survivor sTale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. Christopher R. Browning. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Collins, 1992. Jan T. Gross. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2001. -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. Art Spiegelman, Maus: a Survivor sTale, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986) 66. [ 2 ]. Approximatly 1500 Jedwabne Jews were rounded up and killed on July 10.1941. They were rounded up and into a barn which was set on fire. Only 12 Jews survived. Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the JewishShow MoreRelatedOrdinary Men Essay935 Words   |  4 Pages Browning’s â€Å"Ordinary Men† chronicles the rise and fall of the Reserve Police Battalion 101. The battalion was one of several units that took part in the Final Solution to the Jewish Question while in Poland. The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, and other units were comprised of ordinary men, from ordinary backgrounds living under the Third Reich. Browning’s premise for the book is very unique, instead of focusing on number of victims, it examines the mindset of how ordinary men, became cold-heartedRead MoreOrdinary Men Book Review Essay976 Words   |  4 PagesOrdinary Men Christopher Browning describes how the Reserve Police Battalion 101, like the rest of German society, was immersed in a flood of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda. Browning describes how the Order Police provided indoctrination both in basic training and as an ongoing practice within each unit. Many of the members were not prepared for the killing of Jews. The author examines the reasons some of the police members did not shoot. The physiological effect of isolation, rejection, andRead MoreThe Nazi Party s Inner Circle Essay1538 Words   |  7 PagesHow can ordinary people come to commit atrocities against defenceless victims? Hitler was an evil man, or at least was prepared to employ evil actions to achieve his goals. There is very little in literature to suggest anything contrary to this opinion. Most literature suggests that while Hitler had some level of power over Himmler and the rest of the Nazi Party’s inner circle, they were also well aware of the extent and implications of their actions. Despite this, the atrocities of the HolocaustRead MoreChristopher Browning s Ordinary Men1241 Words   |  5 PagesChristopher Browning is an American historian whose research mainly focuses on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Browning has been teaching about this specific field for thirty years, since 1974. He has published many different notable books in regards to Nazi Germany and the events that occurred during the time of the Holocaust. Some of the books written by Browning are, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp (2010), The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (1978), and NaziRead MoreOrdinary Men By Christopher Browning965 Words   |  4 PagesIn the novel Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning there contains a thesis in which the novel is centered around. This thesis is the theory that these ordinary people could commit these atrocities in the Holocaust because of the pressure from their peers and country that were participating in these appalling acts of violence and massacres of innocent people. The basis of this novel relies on the need to show that these men were not necessarily physically forced to commit these heinous acts, but thatRead MoreHitler s Willing Executioners And Christopher Browning s Book Ordinary Men1101 Words   |  5 Pagesargue the opposing views of Daniel Goldhagen s book Hitler s Willing Executioners and Christopher Browning s book ordinary Men. These books deal with the question of whether or not the average German soldiers and civilians were responsible for the holocaust. My research paper argues in favor of Goldhagen s book, the average German was responsible for the participation of he holocaust. At the end of world war ll the Jewish community and the the rest of the world were crying for justice because ofRead MoreDiscovery Of The Nazi Death Camps940 Words   |  4 Pagesbrought to question how civilized humans could participate in the atrocity of what is now known as the Holocaust. Although from the beginning, it was clear Nazi’s belie ved Jews and other races were inferior to the Aryan race, the idea of genocide was not their original intent. How then were German soldiers able to exterminate Jews without question? Christopher Browning in his book Ordinary Men dives into the human psyche to try and recreate the possibilities in which the German soldier were ableRead MoreThe Expectations Of Morality And Actions972 Words   |  4 PagesConnor McAdoo HIST-111-B Olin 22 April 2017 Word Count: 918 Ordinary Men Essay As a society, we have certain expectations concerning morality and actions. When an individual’s behavior coincides with our societies’ expectations then they are deemed as ordinary because they are not an outlier. Though when the situation changes for individuals so do their actions and after an amount of time their new actions and behaviors become the norm. Even when the behavior fundamentally conflicts with theirRead More Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust Essay example1713 Words   |  7 PagesOrdinary Germans and the Holocaust Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefsRead MoreAnalysis Of Christopher R. Brownings Ordinary Men1315 Words   |  6 PagesChristopher R. Browning’s book, Ordinary Men, is a microhistory of the Holocaust that focuses in on the Reserve Police Battalion 101. The books main purpose is to persuade the reader how ordinary middle-aged men could become the professional killers leading to horrible massacres. In the preface to his book, Browning makes the following comment about the men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101, â€Å"Never before had I e ncountered the issue of choice so dramatically framed by the course of events† (Browning