Choices
The Following are extracts from a booklet aimed at students:
Righteous Amongst the Gentiles describes those individuals who saved Jews from the Nazis. The Exhibition is about some of those individuals, identified by Yad Vashem, who made a choice to save lives even at a risk to themselves or others.
The Nazis ruled by terror: people often survived by betraying their friends.
We all have to make choices. As a baby we made choices on what food we liked and disliked. At school we make choices whether to behave or misbehave. Choices on who we liked or disliked.
As we become adults, decision making becomes sometimes more difficult. Some choices may be harder to change. A choice may to lead to good or bad times.
In Germany after World War 1 people were hungry and often had no jobs. Some were very angry. The Nazi party promised Germans a better world. But only by separating out Germans into “pure” superior ones and other groups who they defined as inferior. In particular they blamed not only German Jews but all Jews worldwide as responsible for economic hardship.
The Nazis took power in 1933 and ruled Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. They created a state based on fear. Neighbours would spy on each other. Children had to spy on their friends and yes their parents too.
The Nazis proclaimed Germans as the master race and enslaved other people like Poles or Russians. But the Jews were to be exterminated.
But some people were appalled by Nazi ideas and propaganda.
Some of those made a choice: to help save Jews. They could face torture before death. But also their family and friends would also be at great risk.
When the Holocaust occurred there was no European Union and each country had very different situations. So the Jews faced different situations as did those that wanted to help them. Additional paragraphs will provide background on some of those countries mentioned in the Exhibition.