Preview

All The Light Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
684 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
All The Light Analysis
During warfare people tend to become more self concerned; their well-being becomes more important than others. Within All the light we cannot see Werner puts his wellbeing over Fredrick. When Fredrick is maliciously attracted by fellow students during the weakest training Werner idly stands by, he doesn’t even say a word. “This time he catches Frederick on the jaw… Werner forces his mind to keep sending up images of his home… is this not wrong? But Here it is right (Doerr, 194). After the attack happens Werner feels guilty, but Fredrick doesn’t blame him he even invites him to his home. “Not once has he accused Werner of is betrayal, even though Werner did nothing while Frederick was beaten and has done nothing since (Doerr, 217). Despite going through troubling times the anonymous woman in the memoir A Woman in Berlin goes out of her way to help the older widow. Throughout the diary the woman protects and shares her rations and …show more content…
These heinous crimes were considered to be normal and expected to the women on the losing side. Within A Woman in Berlin and All the Light we cannot see the lower rank solders such as Peka were more violent during these acts while officers showed a gentler side. “Stay calm and they won’t shoot. I’ll make sure to go first. After that they’ll be gentler” (Doerr, 490). In reality the situation far more severe; Kevin Alfred Strom, an American neo-Nazi activist, wrote an essay about the massive rape of the German women during World War II.
“A Soviet officer told a group of women to seek safety in the Cathedral. Once they were securely locked inside, the beasts of Bolshevism entered, and ringing the bells and playing the organ, "celebrated" a foul orgy through the night, raping all the women, some more than thirty times. A Catholic pastor in Danzig declared, "They violated even eight-year-old girls and shot boys who tried to shield their mothers”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Second World War began when Germany violated international law and invaded Poland in 1939. When the war began, huge amounts of human rights were violated by the major powers. “The Table,” by Ida Fink is a play that describes the recording of statements given by multiple witnesses on behalf of a war crime that occurred. The prosecutor in charge interviewed 4 people who were present during the crime and took note of their testimony. The interview seemed more like an interrogation, since the prosecutor wanted every detail from that day. Although a work of fiction, the tales of atrocity provided by the witnesses in the play represent the magnitude of brutality the Nazis implemented on civilians.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Book Stasiland uses the interviews with victims and perpetrators to inform the reader on life in East Germany. To some extent, Anna Funder does paint a black a white picture of her views, separating the victims from the perpetrators. As she despises the GDR/Stasi, Funder still acknowledges that many of the officials were just doing what was told and were reluctant to react, in fear of falling under the stasis harsh rules. Despite this, many of the officials were strong believers in the system, and do not regret life damaged due to their job. The Stories of Miriam, Julia and Frau Paul do highlight how the Stasi’s tough rules, may devastate ones life and Funder recognizes this by sympathizing for the victims. By seeing the effect the Stasi had not only to the civilians yet country itself, Funder is able to see the mark the Stasi left on its country.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The short story “The Death of Schillinger” was a story about a First Sergeant whom ruled over labor sector ‘D,’ a laboring portion of Birkenau which was formally known as the Auschwitz extermination camp. Schillinger was a short stocky man and was truly evil at his essence; “He visited the crematoria regularly and liked to watch people being shoved into the gas chambers.” (pp.144) One day in August of 1943, the SS were unloading a transport and preparing to load stripped Jews into the gas chambers. However, before this could be done Schillinger took a liking to one of the nude women and grabbed her out of line; she threw gravel in his eyes, grabbed his revolver, and shot him several times. After being fatally wounded Schillinger was repeatedly asking himself, “My God, what have I done to deserve such suffering?” (pp.146) Later that day several Sonderkommandos attempted to rally a revolt at the crematoria, however all were killed by German SS soldiers via machine gun. I believe the theme of this short story is that death was so prominent in Birkenau that no one, even the sergeants, were safe. While Schillinger may have been truthfully ignorant to his ways, I believe the death of the Sonderkommandos symbolized the lack of justice in Auschwitz. Even though the evil Sergeant was killed, by no means did that suggest the innocent would escape or achieve their vengeance.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    He showed bravery in many ways throughout the book. The first instance of his bravery is when he is first at the school. They have the students climb to the top of a platform and jump off. Most of the kids that went before were very scared or took a long time to jump. One of the people even jumped and broke their arm. But Werner thought that he needed to impress the people making the selections. He climbed the ladder and jumped off the platform very quickly. Another time that he showed bravery was when he was trapped under the hotel with Volkheimer. He was about to give up trying to fix the radio and trying to get out. But when Volkheimer told him to think of his sister he started to fix the radio. He was brave for doing this is because he was about to give up but he didn’t. Another time he showed bravery was when he heard Etienne over the radio and tried to hide it from Volkheimer and the rest of the people in his company. He was brave for doing this because that goes against his orders and he could be shot for it. But doing that ended up helping him and Volkheimer because the music that Marie played over that radio inspired Volkheimer to get them out from under the…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    What will go through one’s mind if he/she hears a boy killed 14 girls at once? A normal person would think “was he crazy?”, “was he out of his mind?” and more phrases like this. A very similar event happened on December 6th, 1989. Marc Lepine, a 25 year old boy entered the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique University and started separating boys and girls. He then opened fire and killed 14 girls (The Montreal Massacre – Gunman massacres 14 women, 1989). His words such as “I want women”, “I hate feminists” show his hatred towards women and his cause for committing this crime. Just before killing women, he justified his actions by saying “You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists” (Eglin and Hester, 2003).…

    • 2046 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fritz, a German solider in occupied Greece, is a major character in John Chioles's short story, Before the Firing Squad. We first begin to learn about him through the recollections of a young boy in the town whom he has befriended. We learn that all of the soldiers are very young. They do not know what they are doing. People in the town almost like the soldiers, including the young boy in this story. The solider that he befriends is not cruel or inhuman. In fact, he brings good food for the boy and the family all of the time. He does not do it because he has to; he does it because he wants to be kind. One would not expect a German solider to act in such a manner. However, this soldier is more of a boy than a man. In fact, all of the soldiers are like this. The town even refers to them as the "town mascots," which is iron since they are supposedly the ones in charge of the town. This image contrasts sharply with that of the other German forces. They are cruel and malicious and the men of the town fight against them. These forces are the antithesis of Frick and the other town soldiers. They ignore when all of the men are gone and refuse to ask questions. This shows the kindness of the soldiers. Frick is just a young boy and he, like the other boys, has become attached to the people in the town. Giving them food and ignoring their transgressions are both signs of that.…

    • 555 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Halo That Would Not Light presents a theme of maturing and the way one rushes through childhood, but no one realizes the true meaning of childhood until they can no longer return to it. “As certain and indivisible as red scarves silking endlessly from a magician’s hollow hat and the spectacular catastrophe of your endless childhood is done.” Red scarves are sure to come from a magician’s hat during a magic show just as your childhood is sure to end one day. Your childhood is spectacular yet catastrophic because as one enters the ages nine through twelve one tries to rush into everything. Young children try so hard to end their childhood and become teenagers or adults way too fast, but no one could honestly tell the truth about why they…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In both "Friday Night Lights,"by H. G. Bissinger, and "Quiet Strength," by Tony Dungy, their are two coaches who are very similar, yet very different in their own ways. In one coaches locker room you may find an aggressive, hostile written note. While in the other coaches locker room you'll find bibles. Both coaches have a winning mentality, how they go about winning though is a different story. The quite, calm, and faith first mentality of one coach, verse the loud, aggressive, in your face way of coaching from the other. These books though also have their own similarities. Such as how football can serve as a way out for people. How winning is important, and what it means to be a winner in life, and in the game. Then the differences, such…

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By making connections to the text, Resisting Hitler, I am able to further my understanding of how the characters feel and where their motivation comes from. When watching on TV about all those rebellions around the world in the past years and even now, it isn’t that hard to see the fire that sparks in the people’s eyes. I automatically see their energy and motivation within them, that drives them to do whatever it takes to get their opinion across, even if it means dying. By being able to realize the reality of wanting something so bad, I can understand how Helmuth did everything he could to go up against Hitler.…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Enter here These men grew up before the Nazi’s ideas and morality was pushed on everyone. Most of these men came from Hamburg one of the least Nazified places. Also they had come from social classes that were anti-Nazi. It would have seemed that this group of men would not have been the ideal group of men, to carry out these acts (48). There were those that were anti-Semites and were racist toward the…

    • 1647 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rape and sexual assault during military armed conflicts are described as psychological warfare, thus harming and affecting the enemies emotions and feelings more than it's body. Now when carried out thoroughly and as a systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are now recognized under the United Nations Geneva Convention as crimes against humanity and serious war crimes.…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ordinary Men

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages

    If one were to take anything from Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men it is that even the most ordinary, normal men have the capacity to kill. The 101st Reserve Police Battalion executed at least 6,500 Jews at the Polish cities and villages of Jozefow, Lomazy, Serokomla, Lukow, Konskowola, Parczew, Radzyn, Kock, and Miedzyrzec and participated in the deportation of at least 42,000 Jews to the gas chambers in Treblinka (Browning, chapter 14, page 121). There were most likely even more killings that were never documented and much less remembered by the members of the 101st. These men had their first taste of death at Jozefow where they massacred 1,500 Polish Jews (Browning, chapter 8, page 74). It was a brutal and harrowing event where men, women, children, and the elderly were all executed, many in their own homes and even more in the forest surrounding the town. But out of this horror and chaos also came a sliver of hope for the souls of the men of the 101st when Major Trapp offered an interesting option; whoever did not have the stomach to participate in the executions could step out before the massacre was underway. Ten or twelve men accepted his offer (Browning, chapter 7, page 57). This would eventually lead to many men stepping away from executions in coming “actions”. Before the war these men were ordinary lower class workers who no doubt enjoyed many of the simple pleasures that we still enjoy today. These were ordinary men who found themselves in an extraordinary situation. They were ordinary men who became extraordinary killers.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the Holocaust, the Nazis perceived women as weak, inferior, and sexual objects because they were useless in contributing to the warfare. An example is the way Jewish women were treated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. As a result, the Nazis viewed Jewish women as an agent of fertility, motherhood, and homebuilders. During the Holocaust, women were considered useless, especially pregnant women and mothers of small children, due to the fact that they were unable to participate in tasks of the war. This counts for the fact as to why Jewish women were subjugated by the Nazis on a sexually violent level, such as rape, being sexually humiliated, and dehumanized. The Nazi pattern of sexual-violence started against Jewish women during the…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eyewitness Auschwitz

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The memoir greatly details the resilience of the human spirit, the choices individuals were faced with and decided to act upon and, the treatment of those who had succumbed. The personal choices that some made were extremely unmoral. “"Every day we saw thousands and thousands of innocent people disappear up the chimney. With our own eyes, we could truly fathom what it means to be a human being. There they came, men, women, children, all innocent. They suddenly vanished, and the world said nothing ..” An example of an unmoral prisoner was the Kapo Mietek, who was trusted to discipline the working prisoners. According to Muller, it was not necessary for Mietek to treat his fellow prisoners as human beings but rather beat them mercilessly to gain appreciation from the Nazi leaders. Another theme that Muller presents in his testimony is dehumanization of the camp’s victims. Approximately seventy percent of the prisoners that arrived at Auschwitz were immediately gassed. Their hair was shaven and their bodies were exploited in order to find valuables for the Nazi’s economic gain.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Holocaust and war was no joking matter. Millions were executed both intentionally and unintentionally. Men, women, husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, and children; The SS didn’t care. Nor did the Poles, Germans, or anyone at all for that matter. Nobody cared about the “dirty Jews”, the “filthy dogs”, or the “swine dogs”. There were so many insults that it’s impossible to name them all. People were malnourished, lonely, and hopeless. This torture was part of the everyday life of a young man named Lucek Salzman (George Lucius Salton). This boy lost his parents at age 14 and his brother at age 15. He was beaten, he had paint poured over him, his latter was kicked by a German soldier (this ended up causing him to have an infected leg). What this man went through as a child was brutal, but the fascinating part is that he never gave up and he knew that he had a chance. Lucek Salzman had hope in the end.…

    • 2118 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays