Holocaust

1. Project created by Soňa Kurillová Michaela Ibošová Katarína Kianičková Ľubica Mladenovová Peter Šrůtek Daniela Baroková MiroslavŠafárik Fromclass Q.A 2007/2008 Holocaust The dark moments of European history

2. Content What was holocaust? Holocaust and Slovakia The Daughter We Had Always Wanted – Unbelievable Story Story of Marta – our feelings Everything is Illuminated – comic and tragic story Thoughts about the film Conclusion

3. What was holocaust? The Holocaust was the genocide of more than 6 million Jews during the Second World War by Nazi Germany led by National Socialist regime on head with Adolf Hitler. Jews were sent to a extermination camps by trains – some of them were killed during the journey and some of them were killed later in the gas chambers. Germany marked people who were sent to extermination camps as undesirables – they included Jews, Roma, disabled people and homosexuals. The most marked was Poland – there were 7 main exterminations camps in Poland (Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibór, Maly Trostinets, Auschwitz-Birkenau) where over 3.8 million Jews were killed. These 3.8 million was entire Jewish population of Poland.

4. Holocaust and Slovakia First dangerous moment happened in summer of 1941 – experts chosen from Slovakia went to Poland to see concentration camps. Germany prepared for this visit very carefully, and so these experts saw only those concentration camps which Germans wanted them to see. The main character of deportation of Jews was Moravek who wanted to have a good connections with Hitler, but the main aim of his was to become very rich and very popular in the political sphere. Moravek later became a leader of Economic Office of The Chair Government. The main aim of this office was to solve the main problems of Jewish Question. It hadn’t taken long time and Moravek soon enforced a publication of the edict by which all Jewish fortune could’ve been captured by government. Later, in 1940, Jews were taken passports, so they couldn’t travel to another countries and soon the prohibition came to force by which Jews weren’t allowed to live in the streets called after Hlinka or Hitler. After all this events, deportation of Jews to the concentration camps started on the March 25, 1942. There were 3 people who could possibly stop the deportation of Jews to the camps – those were Tuka and Moravek, and of course, Tiso. But these exceptions, as they were called, were not given to Jews very often and so thousands of Slovak Jews ended up in the concentration camp of Oswiencim and in many othersaswell.

5. The Daughter We Had Always Wanted Unbelievable Story The main character of the story was Marta who had survived much more than any young person of the 21st century. She was living happily with her mother Netty, father Iisrael, aunt Lunia, grandfather and grandmother in a small city Czortkow. One day, the Second World War broke out and Marta left apartment with her family and they moved to a ghetto. Because Marta’s mother loved her daughter as much as she could, she tried to save her by taking her to a pharmacy where she worked and than giving her daughter to Lydka and her family (Schultz). Marta had to pretend new identity – she was Christian girl Kryshya and her mother was sick and being unable to take care of her. And so Marta moved to Warsaw and spent some very good time in there. On summer day, Poles tried to revolt against the German Occupation. Mr. Schultz was never seen from this point forward and Marta had to travel away with Mrs. Czaplinska who was like her grany. They both got into the concentration camp, but they got out because Mrs. Czaplinska had some money spent and she used them to reach freedom.

6. The Daughter We Had Always Wanted Unbelievable Story After and of the war, Mrs. Czaplinska revealed to Marta that her mother had died. That was first shock for Marta, second one was that her grandfather looked up her and kidnapped her. Marta didn’t want to stay with her grandfather and so he gave her into the orphanage. Here, Marta found out that her destiny was much more better than destinies of the other children. Marta spent some time in orphanage and in 1946 she travelled with nanny who took care of children to the Germany. There she met her grandfather and aunt Lunia. Marta travelled to the state of Israel, but Lunia and grandfather were deported to Cyprus camp. When Marta was 8 years old, she started to attend school in Israeli town of Magdiel. On Sabath, Marta was often left in the village alone, but she soon met one family who adapted her, because it was the daughter they had always wanted. This is a short content of Marta’s story. Now, she is an old grandmother, having 2 sons and one daughter named after her mother. She married Amos Goren and they live happily in Katamon.

7. Story of Marta – Our Feelings The Story of Marta was really unbelievable to all of us. A little girl survived much more than any other person of 21st century. Surviving a terror of the Second World War, leaving own mother or pretending to be someone else, those are the hardest things person can actually do, and I think that many modern people would die if they were in Marta’s position. The whole story was even more sad at the end – Marta wasn’t the only one who had lost her mother or father, but there were other children who lost all their relatives – after the war, they were left behind, supposed to take care of themselves without any help. But it’s still unbelievable – they made it and many of them live happily now, having children and grandchildren. The story of Marta is a living proof of human’s pride and hate during the Second World War. It’s only up to us, whether we’ll allow to happen such a tragedy again or we’ll live in a peace, enjoying every single day.

8. Everything is Illuminated – comic and tragic story Story is about young American named Jonathan SafranFoer who journeys to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Hiring a young Ukrainian named Alex whose greatest gift is his wild-and-crazy mangling of the English language, Jonathan embarks on an initially comic tour through the post-Soviet scrap heap, with Alex's cranky grandfather and a mongrel named Sammy Davis Junior, Junior along for company. These three (plus the dog who was considered to be crazy) burrow further into the Ukrainian landscape, getting lost, going off-road, and eventually nearing the edge of the map, beyond which is Trachimbrod. At this point, "Everything Is Illuminated" becomes heavy with the ghosts of the past. They're invisible under fields that have been plowed over and replanted, but they're there, and even Alex, goofy rapper-wannabe that he is, can't miss them. The grandfather doesn't have ghosts; like all survivors of war, in a sense he is one. The movie finally comes to ground at a house surrounded by sunflowers, in which lives a very old woman.

9. Thoughts About the Film The film was very specific from many points of view. Holocaust was pictured in the film very unusually, considering that main American character came to the Eastern Europe which at those times could’ve been called “the second world”. Not eating the meat was something totally unimaginable for Russians, but totally normal for Americans. Sleeping in small rooms without furniture or driving in small and old cars – all of those things make contrasts between American and Eastern European world. I think that the director of the film did a good job. The film was a combination of jokes and funny moments and than real, tragic moments. But it was specifically because of these combinations why film wasn’t extremely sad and psychically dangerous for not so strong characters. In the film there was almost no brutality or aggression – and that’s why I liked it.

10. Conclusion European Studies were little bit different from the European Studies of the last 4 years. This year, we were doing many projects where our creativity showed up and we were learning about the shadows of our history. I’m a history fan, so I consider history as a really important thing – not just because of treasure and culture that had been passed to us from the historic times, but mostly because of bad things we can learn from it. Two world wars of the 20th century were definitely for nothing, because many innocent people had died. Fascism and genocide of the Jews are specifically those parts of the 20th century which should’ve been never forgotten – and thanks to European Studies, we were able to learn more about these shadows. Having subject like this is very important – not just we train English all the time which is going to be useful one day in the future – but we are also grown up to be better than those who are responsible for dark moments of the 20th century. Besides creative things, we learnt some theoretical things as well – for example architectural orders which can be useful for those who want to graduate from history. Learning about European Union was very important as well – after all, we make up the EU as well and so we should know at least basic things about it. By my opinion, ES were definitely great this year and I’m glad a could actually learn a lot of new things from history, even if they were not happy at all. Thank You for Your Attention