The Holocaust Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Holocaust - Essay Example Primo Levi’s memoirs describe the situation of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust. Levi was a Holocaust survivor from the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland. His accounts are used for evidential analysis of Holocaust itself. On the other hand, works of the scholars like Mueller provide us with a comprehensive view of the similarities between Christianity and Judaism from a much liberal but realistic viewpoint. Holocaust: One of the Darkest Chapters of Human History The Nazi German policy makers might have thought that in the case their Fuhrer Adolph Hitler would conquer the world nobody would know the actual reality of Nazi atrocities. Nazi atrocities were not completely based on anti-Semitic policies. Deep rooted self esteem existed in the minds of the Nazi officials. They considered most of their neighbors (particularly in the countries of eastern Europe) to be subhuman. The Jews were their prime target. But they meted out similar atrocities also towards the Slavic peoples of the erstwhile Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. They tortured the Poles, Gypsies, and many other nationals including their own countrymen who tried to oppose them or who were homosexuals. Detailed accounts of Nazi torture techniques have been provided by Primo Levi. Levi was an Italian Jew who survived Holocaust. Writing about the Nazi officials, he recalled that â€Å"they were particularly pitiless, vigorous and inhuman individuals† (Levi, 81). Levi also wrote that t he Jews were used as experimental specimens, forced laborers, and subjects of fathomless humiliation. As per the Nazi ideologue, Jews were Untermenchen who deserved to be ultimately destroyed though a systemic process of â€Å"the demolition of man† (Levi, 26). ... Indeed, Mueller has explained that the term anti-Semitism â€Å"was first coined by Wilhem Marr, a nineteenth-century German atheist who hated Jews and Christians equally† (324). However, certain researchers like Norman Finkelstein have expressed skepticism over the extent of the humiliation and mass execution suffered by the Jews during Holocaust. They raise questions on the possible roles of the Catholic Church during the period of Third Reich. As a matter of fact, majority of the Nazis were either Protestant or Catholic Christians. However, Catholic Church officials like Archbishop Angelo Roncalli did not remain a passive watcher of the atrocities to which the innocent Jews were being subjected mercilessly. â€Å"As a papal diplomat to Turkey and Greece during World War II, he was personally responsible for saving tens of thousands of Jews through the issuance of false baptismal certificates.† (Mueller, 324) There are certain persons even in the present day world who hold that the Jews were responsible for the tortures done to Jesus Christ and his followers. This tendency of torturous persecution against Christians spiraled into the several parts of the ancient empires of Rome and Egypt. Particularly under the rule of Nero, hundreds and thousand Christians were enslaved and killed in Rome. Yet, scholars like Mueller hold that the atrocities meted out to the early Christians had been triggered off by the Jewish authorities and their associates. All Jews did not participate in the processes voluntarily and/or systematically. Later, in the medieval empires of Ottoman, Hapsburg, etc. the Jews and Christians lived in harmony for most of the years to come. Although prominent