Weed - Enron

Elie Wiesel’s Night, the Films (Conspiracy and The Soviet Story) and the Blackboard readings, allow us as readers and viewers to see different sides of the stories. Reading Elie Wiesel, we were able to see the toll that genocide played on an individual from his personal experience. In Conspiracy and the readings, we saw how an authoritative figure can silence anyone ranked below him because those who are silenced are worried about their own well being. The Soviet Story reveals the same, but shows a deeper connection to the Nazi beliefs and how they are still being practiced today.

The “Soviet Genocide in Ukraine” article was about something I wasn’t aware of previously. I knew that Stalin was killing his own people, but didn’t have any idea about what was going on the Ukraine. The idea that soldiers stood by as they watched children, women, and men revert to the most extreme circumstance in order to eat was difficult to understand, as was the fact that guarded behind a barb wired fence were storage units overflowing with grain and food. Also, reading that men and women were reverting to cannibalism and that they were forced to eat their own children proves how far people are driven when the wrong authoritative figure is in power.

During the SS meeting in Conspiracy, it reenacts the discussion to exterminate the Jewish population, and explores the plan to do so. I don’t know how much of this depiction was Hollywood and how much was actual historical reluctance of some of the members, but I’m going to have to assume that the reluctance of a few in the discussion was true for the most part. Basically, even though the reluctant few were still terrible people, it proved that they had to go along with the plan or they would lose their power or be accused of supporting the Jewish people.

Although our class is about genocide, I thought about how far people are willing to go and how people refuse to see the truth, as stated in The Soviet Story. Think of thousands of soldiers standing by while people were starving and dying around the era of World War II. Now consider why they did nothing. Basically, some people (in my opinion) stood by “to save their own skin” or others refused to believe or acknowledge the truth behind the evil. Also, think of the Western media constantly hearing the rumors about the Soviets and the starving people of Ukraine. Many people heard about it but they refused to believe of it. More recently, think of Enron and how thousands of employees knew that people around the world were being ripped off, but did nothing. One reason was the fear of losing their jobs, and the other was that they refused to believe that the executives were wrong.