Kristallnacht-The Turning Point

Kristallnacht. The night that was the start of it all. The event which triggered the mass murder or six millon innocent Jews. Around 1,668 synagogues were ransacked, 267 burned. A place where one can go to when there is nowhere else to go, gone. 91 Jews killed and 30,000 sent to concentration camps, a fate death even fears. After Kristallnacht, it was told to the Jews that they were responsible and they had to pay for repairs. Millions of marks to be paid. November 9-10 1938 is the beginning of the final solution.

After WW1 the people of Germany were left starving. Adolf Hitler, seen as the savior through some, the reincarnation of the devil through others, ended 15 years of turmoil and gave a new meaning to Germany. He was seen as a great man through the eyes of many Germans as he vowed to break the Treaty of Versailles, but he is still a man and man makes mistakes. Hitler's greatest mistake was his anger for the Jews. Some of them even fighting for the Fatherland were seen as normal people. Then Hitler told the Nazi party that the Jews were responsible for the War. The Jews are evil and are greedy liars. The Jews had money and food for the Fatherland but kept it for themselves.

Hitler targeted the young. There would be story books about how sinister the Jews are. The children and teenagers of Germany loved to play sports. Hitler declared that boys could only join a sports club if they were part of the German youth. The children of Germany could not go out on holidays, so the Hitler Youth organized trips to mountains. Naturally many children joined. Klaus Boelling describes his experience at Hitler Youth, "At the age I joined Hitler Youth, it was fun. It was fun to be with children of the same age and not just stay in the streets or climb trees, but go on proper trips." This is the way that Hitler recruited so many youths. Andre, a young 12 year old German boy( Facing History, Facing Ourselves reading) turned to his parents to advice of if he should go throw stones at the Jews as elders at Hitler Youth told him to or not. His parents told him to make up his own mind. In the end, Andre made the choice of not throwing stones at the Jews. The following day, Andre's family left the country. What discourages Germans to not throw stones is that you have to leave the country as fast as you can which means you will not have enough time to take a lot with you. With the Youth, if you don't throw stones, your family will have to leave the country and you will be expelled from Hitler Youth. Being explled means you cannot play sport and go on trips anymore. Its like giving something so valuble, you cherish it as much as you can, then taking it and using it as a bribe. This is how the Nazi party grew so big. Fear of being different different of standing out forced people into the position of being a bystander.

There have been other experiences from Jews who have miraculously survived this terrible time due to their strong will and never give up spirit. Susan (Strauss) Taube, a surviver of the Holocaust explains about Kristallnacht in an interview with The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "I was going to school as usual every morning but I saw that our Synagogue was on fire. The news said that Jews should stay in their homes, and that what we did. Then it was mid-morning and all these people came to our door and just smashed the door and just barged in with scissors. They smashed all our plates, windows and used the scissors to cut up our beds and pillows. When they left we were just looking at the mess thinking, "how do we clean this up?". I went to my home town and found that the same thing has happened there.". Susan's father had been released from Buchenwald under the condition that he leaves the country. He leaves only with a small suitcase to the U.S. The rest Susan's family all die in Europe while Susan reunites with her father in the U.S. Susan says that she must share this with others because it must not happen again. She believes that something of this degree cannot happen again because it was so terrible and so un-human.

I believe that smartest of people can easily become the stupidest. The Germans were not stupid. They faced economic trials which few Americans have ever witnessed. You have been told its bad, but keep in mind that the German would have had to eat their own waste to survive. Hitler was seen as a Saviour because he brought back order and prosperity. He told the people what they wanted to hear. It could happen to any other county, all you need is the right crisis. Then those people will become stupid too.

I also believe that it the fact that it was all Germany's fault is overrated. They did burn down Synagogues but it should have ended there. The Westerners and Europeans should have ended it right there. As Albert Einstein says "The world is not bad because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen.". I also believe that it was the Britain, Italy and France who triggered this ghastly event. If the Treaty of Versailles had not been so harsh, Germany would be under a democracy and not a dictatorship. The Germans would have no reason to worship Hitler, and like in the Norse myths, The gods relies on the peoples worship to survive and in return, they protected them. If Hitler does not have anyone to worship him, the Fuhrer cannot survive.

I chose this painting by Henry Fuseli because I think that this is the state that the Germans were like before Hitler rose to power. Now you can see that if you were in this state, and someone gives you everything you ever wanted, you would be indebted to them for life. This is what happened to the Germans, unwilling to do Hitler's bidding, but are grateful to him for liberating them.

This could also represent the Jews in the concentration camp. That is worse than the German state. The Jews in Germany suffered the same fate as the Germans but instead of being liberated by Hitler, they are striped of whatever else they had (friends, family, human rights) and make them work until it is physically impossible to work anymore, and then make them work more, then kill then. Very few have lived to tell the tale about these horrific Hell zones. It is a fate worse then death.

The man's face, you cannot see and it is in black and white. I think this could mean that he is very ashamed to be a Jew/German so he is bowing his head in shame.

Profile J=Me?

Last week Mrs Narsiman and Mr Whiting came to our humanities class to help us discover our profiles. We were all amazed at our results. Some dazzled of how this was exactly like them, others questioning the word of science. I did not know if it was me or not so I asked a few friends to help me out. According to them, I was equal to my profile. Profile J that is.

According to my profile I was Gestalt Dominant. In other words, I do not like to follow instructions and do them my own way. This is very true. It also says my hearing is very functional. This is kind of true because I somehow do everything better with music. I honestly dont know how it happens, it just does. I am actually listening to music right now and it helps me type faster. I even sleep with music and its all types of music. It doesn't even have to be music, just sounds, for sleeping at least. Complete silence to me is just scary. Its just too boring and there is nothing about it. No spontaneousness or any feeling to it. However listening to lots of loud music has made my hearing very bad and I cannot hear close whispers that well.

It also says what I cannot do under pressure and I believe this is right too. It says I cannot communicate under stress and when I am stressed, its just hard to me to speak well and communicate with others. Like in football matches, when I am under stress I cannot call out to my team mates to help me or call out to them when I am passing. I must somehow overcome this if I wish to be better in sports. It also says my movement is limited which is very true. When I am playing soccer at lunch with my friends, I am under no stress and I play quite well where as when I am playing a real match against another school, I get very nervous and dont preform as well as I do at lunch.

Overall I feel that my profile is a very useful tool for me and others because I can learn more about myself and how I can learn better. I now think that if someone did not even know me but knew my profile somehow, he could already know what I like and what I dont like. My profile is all about me but that might ot be the case with others.

Connections or symbols? Both?

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso is a response to the bombing of Guernica where 1654 people were killed, 200-400 of which were civilians. In the painting, you can see all the distressed faces off all the people and animals. I noticed in the painting that everyone is looking up as if there was someone there that they thought could help. Maybe a call to god uttering a single syllable. Why. Or could they be looking up because they were cursing at the Nazi's who were bombing them from above.

Guernica is probably the most complex painting I have ever laid eyes on an I dont think none could decipher it but Picasso himself. Picasso explains the bull and horse by saying "This bull is a bull. This horse is a horse. If you give meaning to certain things in my painting it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint objects for what they are."A quote that I found that really strikes me is when a Nazi soldier found Picasso, at that time viewing Guernica, the soldier said "did you paint this?" Picasso replied with "I didn't you did". One more thing is that the whole painting is in different shades of one colour. I this this is to go against racism because we are all the same colour just different shades so if you make fun of me, you are making fun of yourself

The painting is an anti war symbol and probably the most complex one I have seen. The secrets of Guernica? We may never know about it. There are many paintings around the world with lots of meanings that have been lost in time. This is probably my favorite piece of work by Picasso. Because I love mysteries.

I chose Starry Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh because the stars are high above the town and that kind of tree thing on the left is trying to reach up and catch the stars just as the sad people in Guernica were reaching up to try to find liberation from this terror. Both artists are great

Music. Self explanatory.

Thxa Soa thinks that Burma is a very closed country and he brings music to Burma. He believes that if the people of Burma like it, then why cant they get it? He also feels sad for the Burmese people because they rarely get to enjoy the great things that music has to offer and sees no reason on why they cant enjoy it.

In my opinion I defiantly feel that Soa is doing the right thing by introducing music to Burma. I honestly cannot think how life would be like without music. Even just taking two sticks and hitting a wall to make a beat is sometimes what makes you feel content. without music life would be so boring. So bland, tasteless. Music is not just for enjoyment, it is to express yourself as it is an art. It is to get your emotions out and if people are denied that, then they are getting denied a human right.

When I get in a bad mood, I instantly pick up my guitar, turn on my amp and start jamming to my favorite songs or just making up improvisation solos. Almost instantly, I forget the world and get into a musical trance. It almost feels as though I am god him/her self. Making the sounds of those notes that just takes the life out of me and eventually triggering me to achieve nirvana, the perfect state. It all depends on my mood. If I am mad I turn it up till I can hear no more. If I just need a fresh start to the day, I use my acrostic or make a cleaner sound with my amp. Both ways lead to the same calm state of a new beginning. I think this relates to religion because I have read in many books about people who have done more than one religion and they all say that the paths are different, but the where the path ends is the same for every religion. Water. When English take the clear blue substance from the tap they call it "water". When Malays draw it from the tap they call it "air". When Indians see the liquid they call it "pani". When the Spanish touch the shapeless form they call is "agua". Ultimately in all languages it is the same. Different languages call it different things but to everyone it is the blue shapeless liquid found in rivers, lakes and oceans, which all of us draw it from.

Music can be used in many different way and no one, not even Chuck Norris has the authority to take it away from people. If they do, we will revolt. What better way than with music itself. Well played Soa

I chose this picture because it represents a persons mind in torment. Painted by Wassily Kandinsky, each individual shape is a different idea and so many ideas at once causes stress. To clear the mind, you must find a path to your perfect state and subdue the thunderclouds that torment you. Music is one of these paths and if people deny it from you, it is hard to express yourself and make yourself mentally healthy. Music is a need and you cant take away needs.

Gods word will be done by us and us only

Eboo Patel believes that we should be able to live comfortably and be friendly to every religion and religion shouldn't matter at all for anything for interacting with one another. What does it matter if you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Catholic or Jewish? We are still human beings and each person should be treated the same. We are should be looking at the same direction, comfortable, yet apart.

I think Patel is right in saying that we must be comfortable with each others presence and try to help each other. In other speeches, it makes me feel as though they want a Christian person and Muslim person to walk around holding hands all day long. Our school for example is an extremely diverse place. We are all in one community and that is the school community and everyone is in it no matter where you are from, but we are not holding hands and walking down the hall. We are comfortable in each others presence and we dont care if they are Hindu, Christian, Muslim or Jewish. We accept them for who they are.

I have seen people calling each other names according to their skin colour or what they believe in. I do not support this yet like Patel and Jesus Colon, I did not do anything to stop this. This is because I have had other personal experiences where I have seen fights and then there was a good person who tried to stop the fight but in the end, all of them got suspended. If that happened to me, how good would that look on my record? It could affect me for life. Patel has now opened my eyes to see that not taking action will affect me for life because I will be left with the guilt of not helping that Patel and Jesus Colon have now. They have atoned for that by doing good deeds for others to a greater degree. They have also taught me that I have to take action when I can. Action separates opinions and beliefs

I chose this picture because this represents all of the people who want to make a difference but dont have the courage to take action to do so. All our idea are all scrambled up and never made into affect because we are not going further. However it looks beautiful because ultimately our ideas are for the good of mankind. Peace makers all over the world want to shape this not into idea, but an action that we will all follow.

Identities, what we can do to make them the best we can.

In the story of Jesus Colon, he believes that you should always offer your help no matter how you look and what kind of reputation you have. He believes that you should not let anything come to you, you must go to it. If someone asks for your help you must help them. If you see someone who needs help then you must offer your help not wait for them to ask you because the might not. It is our duty as human beings to help each other come through no matter what he/she looks like or talks like. We are one race

I think that Colon acted like a "rude animal walking on two legs". But in my opinion, I probably would have done the same thing. It is defiantly not the right thing to do. But I close my eyes and think that I was Jesus Colon, I would have been thinking the same things he was thinking about. Would she scream? I would get in real trouble then.

I think that it takes one bad event to make you a better person. In this case when Colon ignored the lady he made a promise to himself that he will always offer his help to anyone he thinks needs it. In Fatmire Feka's case it was the war and separation of her family that made her give speeches to everyone and inspire them. Now Jesus Colons walks away with a promise to keep to himself and I walk away with the knowledge on how to live by my promise.

Poem:

This Poem By James Berry really stuns me. How he used poetry as a form of making us know about difference. I dont really have an answer to these questions and I dont think there is one. A line that really gets to me is "Do we shut our eyes to it or poke it with a stick?-4th line of the poem. This relates to what we do in real life. When you see something of the unknown do you not care?-shut our eyes to it. Or do play around with it and experiment-poke it with a stick. This is exactly what we do with the unknown. This poem has many unanswered question and I dont really understand it so I cant say much about it but it is defiantly about fear of the unknown and exclusion.

The Island:

The Island is a picture book by Armin Greder and it is not so different from other picture books when you first look at it. Little words, Big pictures. But when you thing about it, there is a lot of meaning in the book. There is a huge message and I think a big idea is "fear of the unknown brings no gain" Because they see a poor stranded man with only his boat and reluctantly take him in. The are very scared of him and dont give him any food or let him out. They then banish him and build high walls around their city so no one could get in. Now what if they is disease in their community? They cant get help because they do not know anyone around them to help them because they excluded everyone else. So if you always help people, they will help you back.

Peace is a need

In her speech, Fatmire Feka talks about her past and how it affects her today. How her family is still missing and how peace could have changed all of this and what we can do to achieve total world peace. She also thinks that we need to take action. You do not have to be like her and become a leader but at least try to help with donations. Not just heartless donation in which you just drop a coin in a box, just caring will do better than that. But try to tell others about what is happening and hopefully, they will start caring to.

Feka's speech relates to John Donne's "No man is an island" because Feka wants peace. Peace means that we are together and the whole point of John Donne's poem is that man kind is not separated and can never be separated, we are all part of the big picture, none bigger than the other, like a puzzle. But I think that that puzzle is incomplete and we are the ones that have to fix it. From both the world wars and other wars before and after those we can see that that puzzle is slowly being completely. Now people like Feka, Aung San Suu Kyi and many other peace makers around the world are not trying to fix the puzzle, but are trying to make us fix the puzzle with them.

When my brother leaves overseas for some time for some reason, my mom always misses him and the moment he gets back, she says that she missed him and the next day everything goes back to normal. It would be hard to imagine if he never returned and we didn't know where he is. Feka is going through this right now and it is a lot harder than I can ever imagine. To be struck by horror that follows you because you dont know if they are alive or dead. It is much harder to have someone "missing" than someone dead because when someone is dead, you can have a funeral for them and honor their souls. But if they are missing, what can you do? Nothing.

I feel that feka is a great hero in our time because she teaches us more than to make peace, but look at her. Her family is missing and insted of being sad about it she has inspired the world by using the stories to fight against hunger, poverty and make equality with peace. Although I don't think that she would have been the person she was today if her family did not go missing. However, it still takes a great deal of strength to become where she is today. Like my blog quote "A hero is a person who can hang on for longer" Feka is a hero because she hung on for longer. And she hasn't leg go yet

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I chose this picture painted by Rene Magritte because it shows a person who is completely oblivious to us to the left, In the middle he has turned slightly towards us so you can slightly see his face. On the right he has made a quarter turn to his right so you can see half of his face. I think that it is the peace maker goal to try to turn that person around and see what is happening to the world around him.