kk115+Holocaust+Essay

==You wake up in the wee hours on whatever day it is. You've lost track of time ever since they stuffed you in those smelly boxcars. Another day of scrubbing and cleaning the pots, while you watch your brother head off to hauling wood. Your heart sinks as you watch your little sister be discovered and sent up the smokestack. But it's just another normal day in the concentration camps. What comes to mind when you think about the Holocaust? You may know what it is or you may not. Some parents choose for their kids not to learn about such gruesome events. Although, there is no denying whatever happened in those concentration camps were indeed horrible. Even if you don't want your child to know about the Holocaust, you need to understand that people have to learn about events like these so it won't happen again. == = = =6th graders need to understand what happened back in the time period of the Holocaust so it won't happen again. George Santayana says, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." Meaning if we don't learn from this tragic event, another Holocaust could happen. Some people even have the nerve to say the Holocaust never happened, even though the markings on survivors could clearly be seen. 6th graders need to know what the Jews had to live through and what amount of courage //and// pain it took to survive. =

==The Holocaust also informs 6th graders about famous Jews who sadly didn't survive or did survive. Anne Frank was a young girl whose painful diary during the Holocaust turned into a memoir that touched millions. Unfortunately, Anne Frank and her family, as well as other families, had been discovered one day and was transported to a concentration camp. Hannah Senesh, a young Jewish woman from Hungary wrote the eleven-year journal of living in concentration camps until her fatal end with a firing squad in 1944. One of the most touching, was a poem written by Jewish children in horrible camp conditions, receiving comfort from the art of poetry. ==

==After learning about the Holocaust, kids and adults would be more grateful of what they have. Maud Dahme, a guest speaker last year at our school, says that after experiencing the Holocaust, "Just to be alive is the greatest gift that God had given me." During the Holocaust, out of 1,600,000 Jewish children, only 100,000 of them survived. Most of the children who survived were hidden by people who risked their lives for the child's safety. In the Devil's Arithmetic, Hannah says that the dress Gitl had given her and how she called it rags, compared to nothing that the prisoners in the concentration camps were wearing. ==

==As tragic as the Holocaust was, ask yourself, has the world learned anything from the Holocaust? Renee Firestone, a survivor of the Holocaust said, "I wonder whether the world learned anything. The way you look around the world today you wonder - What did we learn from the Holocaust?" Do you honestly want another Holocaust happening again? Even though some 6th graders may not be mature enough to understand the tragedies of the Holocaust, 6th graders are mature enough to know and respect the people who died and to learn from what they experienced and suffered.==