Fisher - Good & Bent

Good, a play written by C.P. Taylor features an antihero named James Halder. He is a literary professor at Germany who has difficulties in life like any other man. These take a back seat after he joins the Nazi party. At first he can be considered the victim as he is forced into book burning and euthanasia of Jews by the SS party. At first he is the victim, however, after deciding to stay with the Nazi party, he assumes the role of the victimizer. He does this because despite his views on the Nazi's politics and proceedings and Hitler, he stays with the party due to the safety factor and is essentially is responsible for the death of millions of Jews. Instead of taking a stand for what he thought was right, he let it all happen in front of his eyes.

Bent, a play written by Martin Sherman, is about the persecution of the gays and Jews by the Nazi's during World War II. After World War I, Germany was considered a "safehaven" for gays in Europe. This all changed when the Nazi party came to power. Bent follows the story of a gay man named Max, who lives in Germany with his boyfriend Rudy. At first, Max can be seen as a victim, despite his cruelty bringing a German solider home with him to his place with Rudy. When the SS soldiers break into their home and kill the German solider, Max and Rudy are forced to flee. Now Max takes on a different role, he victimizes Rudy on the train by denying his sexuality and not helping him while he is being beaten, Max even helps beat Rudy, who dies on the train. Later, in concentration camp, he denies his love for Horst despite their true feelings toward each other. After Horst is shot by the guards, Max puts on a jacket with a pink triangle (signifying that he is in fact gay) and commits suicide by grabbing the electric fence, a victim of himself.

In Night there is no blurring of the victim and the victimizer. Elie Wiesel is the victim from the beginning of the story, along with the rest of his people. The victimizers are the Nazi's who subjugate and kill the Chosen People. Elie can be seen as a victimizer when referring to his feelings toward his dad, yet despite his feelings they support each other and Elie helps his father struggle until the very end. However, when his father is on his death bed he cries out for Elie, who never responds. Elie went to sleep that night only to wake up and find his father gone.

So we see that sometimes the lines between the victim and the victimizer can be blurred. Sometimes (in Good & Bent) it is difficult to tell one from the other. Other times it is very simple to point out who is the victim in each situation. In reference to Good & Bent, one should be true to oneself and stand for what is right despite any circumstances.

Coulter- Good, Bent, and Homosexual oppression in Nazi Germany

Like much of the policies that found a foothold in Nazi Germany the oppression of homosexuals, though started earlier, is broadcast under the guise of the betterment of the society and the national body. The articles we read for this week detailed the original ideologies during the Weimar Republic that were established for under moral obligations and social acceptability clauses. When the Nazi party took control these established laws under Summery 175 were expanded to a much greater degree that maintained the established objections to homosexual life but expanded it's reasoning with a more scientific rational. This same method was used by the Nazi party in their persecution of the disabled, Romani, and mentally handicapped peoples leading to the euthanizing of several thousands. The rational for these policies is clearly flawed by our understanding of homosexual life today; however, the rational presented to the public during the time "sounds" like a well thought out rational meant to preserve the status quo. This rational was relayed in the article by Stefan Micheler as, "'Homosexuality must be regarded as a threat to the Volk community, since homosexuals exhibit a tendency to form cliques, seduce the young, and, above all, undermine the natural will to life by propagating an aversion to marriage and the family.'" To an uneducated person during the 1930s being relayed this sentiment about a society that they knew nothing about, and coming from a christian background, the argument must have been quite compelling.

This type of compulsion is showcased in the play by C. P. Taylor, "Good," where the well meaning professor gets swept away by the Nazi propaganda as it slowly builds momentum. To John Halder his intent is to push the Nazi party towards humanity; however, as he dons his uniform and progress's down the path of the holocaust he feels himself no different from any normal man. As Halder himself says, "I do everything other people do-but I don't feel it's real." This type of lapse from reality is exactly what the Nazi party wanted him to feel, what the wanted the whole country to feel. The idea's that they fostered sounded logical while they hung in the air as little more than words, just so long as you don't pull back the curtain and see the reality of what is really being done.

This reality was well shown in the film version of "Bent." I thought this movie did a great job of pulling back the curtain on the life and world that the homosexual of Nazi Germany went through. Plus it had Mick Jagger singing in drag which was a laugh all on its own. While the roles of victim and the victimized were clear within the film, I couldn't help but feel that Halder from "Good" comprised both of these roles. Much as the common people of Germany who were dragged along with a nationalist pride were the victims of one of histories greatest propaganda machines, but at the same time were the victimizers of the social classes being destroyed.

Pendergast - Victim and victimizer two sides of same coin

The character of Max in Sherman’s “Bent” (the film) is similar to the character of Halder in Taylor’s “Good” (the play) in significantly meaningful ways even though their circumstances are drastically different. Both characters are afraid of being an individual. I feel this reluctance and inability to assert and/or define their own values and ideas when the values and ideas differ from those of the social majority or socially defined authority, is related to the human instinctual desire to be accepted and loved by others, the need to be loved, and the commonly held and erroneous belief that self-love and self-acceptance cannot exist without others’ love and acceptance.

This concept of self-love and self-acceptance, which is an affirmation of self-worth independent of others’ opinions of our worth, is closely tied and runs parallel to, as I see it, with the process of individuation which can also be called the quest for selfhood, the journey within, self-actualization, etc.

Both Max and Halder are both somewhat conscious of their individual selves, and they even question their morality and their authenticity. Max: “I am a rotten person. Why do I do these things?” And Halder: “The whole of my life is a performance?” (5). Also, Max is at least living out his sexual orientation even though he isn’t fully able to embrace it. So in the beginning of their stories, they are both on some level trying to work out who they are, but perhaps they still haven’t embarked on the conscious journey of who they are regardless of who others want them to be.

Max at the end of his story is much further advanced on the individualism quest than Halder whose unconsciousness of self remains pretty much at the same level for the duration of the play. Max, in his final scenes, finally admits to himself that he loves Horst and feels love, acceptance and respect for himself despite the social taboo of his sexual orientation. After he tells Horst that he loves him, he angrily asks aloud, “What’s wrong with that?” Max perhaps found this insight and courage precisely because of the painful and demeaning circumstances in which he was placed. Suffering on this deep level can stir the soul and open doors that were formerly closed. Confronting death can also stir the soul and lead one to asking the bigger life questions. Max’s life was in constant danger and he witnessed the violent death of his beloved right before his eyes. Also, Max fell in love with Horst, a man who didn’t disown himself. Love can move the soul to greater heights and bring with it great insight into ourselves and humanity as a whole.

Halder had a very different set of circumstances from Max. Rather than being captured by the Nazis, he became one. He had the advantage (disadvantage from the perspective of personal growth) of avoiding this intense suffering, confrontation of death and love experienced by Max. Both characters were avoiding suffering, death and isolation, but only Halder was successfully able to avoid these things, hence why he didn’t grow.

In terms of victimhood and victimization, I see these two states of being as consequences of a person’s lack of self-awareness as well as lack of awareness of the interdependency of, “oneness” with, and responsibility to all of humanity. Both Max and Halder victimized themselves and others by denying their true selves. Both characters were afraid of pain, rejection, isolation and death and both believed that their best chance of avoiding these things was to do what they were “expected“ to do by society and/or by social authority. Both characters were not aware initially that the suppression of the true self, which includes an awareness of the individual self as well as the self’s relationship to humanity as a whole, causes the worst kind of suffering and isolation of all.

Asmussen-Eli Wiesel as the victim

In the book Night by Eli Wiesel, Eli is portrayed as the victim throughout most of the novel. He is a young teenager who was deported to Auschwitz with his father. Eli is clearly the victim in the book because he is party of the minority group at the time. Being Jewish during the Nazi regime meant he had no power whatsoever. Besides the fact that his family wasn’t wealthy and he wasn’t well educated, the fact that he was so young was a large factor for him being as easy target to victimize.

Since he is so young he deals with the fact that he is a victim very well. He feels more protected because his father is with him and his father seems to always know what to do. His father is a well respected man in the community whose opinion is always asked for in difficult situations.At the beginning he is naive and thinks that the war will soon be over. Towards the end he has lost hope and is frightened all the time of loosing his father.

While Eli is the victim in this story, it is sometimes difficult for the reader to view him this way because of his actions. When people are going to the front and Eli and his father decide to stay back it could appear to some that Eli is making himself more of a victim than he has to be. He is deciding to be under Nazi control instead of going to combat them. He could be in a position of power but he decides not to be. One scenario in which Eli ceases being the victim is towards the end of the book when his father has given up and is laying in the snow. To the outside reader it may be hard to sympathize with Eli because it is hard to put yourself in the situation in which you would be wishing that your parent is dead. In this situation the reader can no longer relate to him and he becomes less of a victim and more of a victimizer. He has the power to do something, to help his father but he has become selfish. While he does still help him, he has changed. He catches himself wishing that he could keep the soup for himself instead of sharing it. In the end he deals with himself being a victim by focusing only on his needs. He thinks of his survival. At the end of the book however, Eli goes back to being the victim because he describes the guilt that he felt when he was thinking only of himself and not his father. Once again he receives the sympathy of the reader.

Cardon - Bent & Good

“The victim stance is a powerful one. The victim is always morally right, neither responsible nor accountable, and forever entitled to sympathy,” (Zur Institute). When relating this definition of a “victim” to Max’s character from the film Bent, I wouldn’t necessarily say that it applies. In the beginning of the film I would say that Max bullied Rudy (his obsessive boyfriend of sorts) up until the point where they were captured. Even while Rudy was doing manual labor in the fields, Max wasn’t contributing in earning expenses for their escape. On the train ride to the camp when Rudy is being beaten, Max is told not to help because he will be killed as well. Here is where I find myself in a dilemma. Should Max have fought for his loved one? Or did he do the right thing, knowing that it wouldn’t actually help? Once he arrives at the camp, he opts out of being categorized as a “queer” because they are considered the lowest. I would consider this to be among the most cowardly things Max does throughout the entire film. Only after he had to submit to the Nazis did he become a true victim. One could even argue that Max didn’t become a true victim until he accepted himself as a gay man in the concentration camp by putting on Horst’s pink triangle shirt. I don’t think that Max was a completely shitty person, because he did perform some selfless acts. He went down on one of the officers in order to get medicine for Horst (making the officer believe he was the one who needed it). In Taylor’s play, Good, John Halder (the protagonist) is brought in by the Nazis to reaffirm the use of euthanasia. I believe Holder to first be a victim and then eventually turns into a victimizer. He felt that he had no other choice but to assist the Nazis (he being victimized). Eventually it appears that his “honorary” position goes to his head a bit, i.e. leaving his wife, abandoning Morris, etc. I don’t think that Halder was necessarily an evil man, but I don’t really see how he was a particularly “good” one either. It was much easier to empathize with his character in the written text compared to the movie version, although the audience ends of feeling the same about Halder at the end of both artistic mediums. The picture I have included is of Rudolph Brazda, the last known gay Holocaust survivor who just passed away this August. He spent his imprisonment at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Asmussen- Victim and Victimizer

There are certain characteristics that are always associated with being either the victim or the victimizer in a scenario. The victim is usually weak and therefore doesn’t have the means to fight his oppressors. He is always right and is continuously entitled to sympathy from outside parties. A victimizer is the “bad guy,” he has the choice to be in this position because he has all the power. No one feels sorry for the victimizer, he has chosen to dominate others.

In both Bent and Good, the main characters are categorized as either the victim or the victimizer, however, neither of these fulfill the stereotypical definitions of their positions. Handler’s character is in a position of power. He is well educated and holds a respectable position in society. He is a good Nazi party member and is party of the dominant majority in the society. He has powerful friends who come to him for his expert advice. However, throughout the play we come to realize that his character doesn’t adhere to all the characteristics of a victimizer. We are shown his human side and it is made easy to sympathize with him. His mother is ill and his wife is portrayed as being needy and useless in the household. He is in love with his student and on top of this he has been convinced to join the Nazi party which conducts events that make him uneasy such as burning books or violence against Jews after a German was killed by a Jew.

Handler has been forced to become the victimizer which makes it easier to sympathize with him. He didn’t want to become part of the Nazi party but his wife encouraged him to saying it would benefit the family. He doesn’t agree with all that is being done especially book burnings, he even said that he didn’t get a chance to read Einstein yet. There are moments when he wants to run away with Anne and leave his all the violence behind. He even has a very good Jewish friend Maurice. Although he doesn’t really make an effort to help Maurice escape, it is still made clear that he does care about him. In the end Handler somewhat justifies being the victimizer by saying that if the Jews were smart they would have left Germany already and that perhaps it is all the Jews fault that the country was in such a decline. Anne encourages these ideas which in turn reassures Handler that he isn’t entirely the victimizer.

In the movie Bent, Max is portrayed as the victim in the movie Bent. He is a homosexual and is thus in a low position in the society at the time. He is part of the minority that is looked down upon by the Nazi regime. He is easily made a victim. He doesn’t have a steady income and owes his landlord rent. All he seems to do is party, do drugs and have sex with men he meets at night clubs. He has no power in society so when the Nazis begin to persecute him he has no line of defense.

At first Max deals with being the victim by trying to remain positive about the situation. He is confident that his deals will go through and he will be able to escape and leave the country. On the train ride to the camp he begins to loose touch from reality and shuts down. While in the camp he once again tries to be in control of his situation and he believes he has figured out how to stay sane and alive. Towards the end he seems to believe what the Nazis do, that homosexuals don’t deserve to love. While Max clearly is the victim in the movie, there are moments where it is difficult to sympathize with him and he is not entirely the victim. He denies his friendship with Rudy and when asked to beat him by a Nazi officer he hits his friend numerous times.

Weed - Bent Survival

Good (by C.P. Taylor) is written about a man named Holder who is sent into a concentration camp to basically give input on what to do with the disposed. He clearly doesn’t understand what it is going on but joins the SS in order to protect himself. Holder is a good man, but feels forced into genocide. The reason why doing nothing does not make him a terrible person is because he didn’t have an alternative. Yes, he could have acted out, but during a time where everyone is searching for an enemy, one slip up can easily lead to death. When the wrong people are put in charge, they force good people to do terrible things.

In Bent, Clive Owen takes the roll of a homosexual. He attempts to deny his homosexuality, but eventually learns that he should not hide who he truly is. At first he denies that he is gay, so he could wear a yellow star instead of a pink triangle. He then finds his love after carrying rocks. After stressing that he doesn’t want to wear the pink triangle, he eventually learns that he should not hide who he is and kills himself.

Owen’s decision to not hide who he is was heroic, but unintelligent. Being surrounded by severally closed minded individuals with guns who persecute people that are different is unimaginably difficult. Why increase your chances of death? It is a wonderful movie. I understood the message but simply thought it was unintelligent, but if I were to analyze Owen’s character, he created problems that could have been avoided. He was a difficult character to watch, but had the right intentions while under stress.

Overall reading about the Holocaust is interesting to see how people react in different situations. From both sides, you see how others feel and react when they see other people being oppressed. Then you see how those being oppressed feel and react. All actions reveal what people do in order to survive. Most tend to hide on both sides, while a select few rebel.

The interesting part of these last two lessons is that we have not seen much rebellion. I’ve only read or seen people with the desire for others to stop. It is extremely difficult to find someone with similar beliefs when being vocal alone could cost you your life.

Dacula - Victim and Victimizer

In C.P. Taylor's Good and Martin Sherman's Bent, the line between victim and victimizer is blurred. Both protagonists in the plays transition from victim to victimizer, and for one protagonist, briefly reverts back to victim.

In Bent, the protagonist Max, a prominent gay man, does not initially seem reluctant to admitting his sexuality to himself or to others around him. Our perception of him quickly changes when a Sturmabteilung soldier that he sleeps with is brutally killed by SS soliders in Max's apartment.. He and his boyfriend Rudy flee from their home in Berlin, taking on new identities and leading a brief nomadic life in an attempt to cross the border. Max appears to be the victim at first, a man who is forced to flee his hometown because he acted on his inescapable sexual orientation. However, the fact that Max denies his own sexuality after this incident and denies professing his love to Rudy while they are runaways also puts Max in the category of victimizer. 

We see Max changing from victim to victimizer in the train scene as well. Max and Rudy are eventually captured and placed on a train headed for Dachau. The SS soldiers brutally beat Rudy on the apparent basis that he wears glasses. As Rudy is taken away by the soldiers, he calls for Max to help him, but Max does not answer. In doing so, Max victimizes himself by making the decision to deny his true self. He destroys his own dignity by having intercourse with young dead girl to prove his heterosexuality. Max once again exemplifies the victimizer, defiling the dignity of the young girl and once again denying himself. Max chooses to be labeled as a Jew with a yellow star instead of gay with a pink triangle in hopes that the concentration camps will be less brutal if he labels himself this way. At the camp, he meets and falls in love with Horst, a gay man who helps Max realize that by acknowledging his true self, he can have dignity for himself. Horst is killed by soldiers at the camp, and Max puts on Horst’s jacket with the pink triangle and commits suicide. This action is symbolic of max reverting from victimizer to victim. For that brief moment before he commits suicide, Max finally regains dignity by admitting his sexuality to himself.

In Good, not only is the line between victim and victimizer blurred and shifted from time to time, but also the concept of what merits a man to deemed “good.” Is good defined as rooted in morality, or is good defined as obedient to our superiors? German professor John Halder begins the play as a man unsure of which side to be on, the SS and Nazi party or against them. In the end, he finds himself involved with the Third Reich, suppressing his moral conscience and unknowingly corrupting it. We see Halder indirectly help the Reich by assisting in the execution of millions of people, notably through his book on euthanasia. Halder is the victim at the beginning of the play, unsure of himself or where his moral conscience is telling him to go. Halder is a victim of the political and moral corruption that surrounds him, forcing him to choose between his morale and what society defines as acceptable and “good.” As the play progresses, our view of him as victim quickly diminishes. As much as Halder tries to convince himself that in spite of his involvement and in spite of suppressing his morals, he can still see himself as a “good” man, the audience is unconvinced.  Halder remains the victimizer by the end of the play.

Through these two works, we begin to understand that when it comes to the Holocaust, concrete labels for each person may not necessarily be easy to do. We learn from Bent and Good that not every person involved in this mass execution can be labeled as strictly the “victim” and strictly the “victimizer,” although that may certainly be true for the majority of people involved.

Otto-The Gray Area of Pointing to the Victimizers

Good, written by C.P. Taylor, and Bent, directed by Sean Mathias and written by Martin Sherman, each told the story of a man who, during the time of the Holocaust, was affected emotionally, and for one, physically, by the crimes that were being committed against large numbers of outcasts from Nazi Germany, their biggest difference, however, was that one became part of the victimizers while the other became a victim for who he was.

In Good, Halder is a professor who becomes involved in the SS and Nazi Party and eventually heads to a concentration camp where he will give input on how to dispose of the people who are forced into the camps. Throughout Good, Halder appears to be uncomfortable with what is happening to the people who are being sent into the concentration camps and he reluctantly joins the SS in order to be safe, however says that he will back out if he needs to. The sad part about this is that he never gains the courage to leave, he just goes into the camps leaving his wife, children, and lover behind. He considers this to be a horrible event and does not take into account the fact that there are millions begin put into concentration camps where he will decide who to put to death, when, where, and how. Halder wants to believe he is a good person but he ends up doing nothing to stop the violent crimes that are being committed to people like his good friend Maurice.

In Bent, the protagonist Max(Clive Owen) is a homosexual who was caught and is sent to a camp. Officials force him to kill the man he loved while on the train, however Max somewhat recovers and finds friendship and love with another man. Max is able to get a yellow star, signifying that he is a Jew, instead of receiving a pink triangle to prove that he is gay because he hears that this is the lowest form of human life. Max falls in love with a man while they carry rocks back and forth, all the while saying that he would not want to wear the triangle for fear of the consequences. In the end he realizes that he needs to fight for what he wants and wear a pink triangle to show who he really is.

Halder and Max, victimizer and victim, both wanted to be accepted. Halder became the villain, but in his own way also a victim because of what he gave up to do so. Max lied to others and himself that he was not a homosexual because he did not want to be persecuted in the ways that he knew would happen, yet ended up in a concentration camp anyways. Both of these characters relate to Elie Wiesel in his novel Night, in that Max and Wiesel were both regretting being who they were (Wiesel lost his faith in God/Max did not want to be attracted to men) and Halder and Wiesel were both trying to do the right thing by their friends and family. Halder did not succeed, but Wiesel kept his father alive as long as he could.

Pointing a finger at who the victim and victimizer is in a given situation can often be an easy task, however there is much gray area to consider. The emotions of each person and the effects that their actions have on others must be considered.

Shaw: What Would You Do?

I'm not sure how but I actually inverted this assignment in preparing for the class, so I actually watched Good and read Bent before the class began. Upon realizing my mistake, I decided to research both (in book and film format) in my research I found a site that reviewed the play by C.P. Taylor and the title was, "Good-The Ultimate Question of What Would you do?" I felt like this was an undeniably relevant question to both texts/films. 

It seems that generally, when we are presented with literature or media regarding Holocausts we often see the hardships bared by one group and the unforgivable cruelties perpetrated by the opposing party. When questions of morality are presented in reference to those that are being victimized, I find it is much more difficult to have an objective opinion. In these circumstances it seems that any bad is simply bad and those who were not aiming to shield their fellow victims from cruelty and injustice are morally reprehensible. However, I think what's truly difficult is understanding the mindset of a human being who exists for an extended period of time solely in "survival mode." 

For example, it seems that Max's actions towards Rudy were completely unforgivable, but at the same time Max was simply a human being trying to survive. Whether it be by lying, manipulating, or performing sexual favors, he did every single thing he could to stay alive. Not that I'm condoning these actions, but I think it's naive to place judgment on Max's behavior if one has never been faced with the circumstances of preserving their own life. 

Using the same logic, it would seem that we should avoid placing blame on John because he was simply the victim of the manipulations of the Nazi party. However, John was in a very different place than Max, he was a non-Jewish, straight German man. He had very little to fear in this environment other than his own ideals that conflicted with the Nazis. I think this are two very different places to be stationed within a society that is exterminating its own people. Not that I believe John could have revolted and fought against the Nazis, but I simply think he had many more options than Max did. 

I think in reading/watching and analyzing these two texts, we must ask ourselves, "what would I do in this circumstance?" Would you fight for your life, would you comply with the Nazis, would you flee, would you hide, all are choices that had to be made during this period, and all led to indeterminable, yet extreme futures. 

Campbell- Opfer und Täter

After watching Bent and reading Good, I can see how on one hand, John Halder is the victimizer and Max is the victim, but on the other hand, I can really see Halder as the victim and Max as the victimizer.

John Halder is the victimizer because he wrote a book about euthanasia. He started the idea of euthanizing Jews with this book, but like I said before, I see him more as a victim than a victimizer. He wrote a about practicing euthanasia with compassion, not just willy-nilly killing people. Also, he wrote a book. That’s it. He didn’t force the Nazi Party to read it and put it into practice. The Nazi’s were the victimizer’s, not Halder. He is most definitely a victim not only because of his book being put into practice, but also because he was dealt a bad hand for life. He has an unstable wife, a senile mother, and two children that need him more than usual because of their mother. He definitely gets my sympathy vote, but Max? Not so much.

Max is a victim because he was a victim of the Holocaust. He was taken from his home and sent with the Jews because he was a gay man. He went through a lot, but I have a hard time seeing him as a victim in any other sense than that he was singled out by the Nazi’s. From the beginning, he treats others poorly. He brought a soldier home to sleep with while Rudy was there. When they are fleeing from the Nazi’s, Rudy is working and Max just sits around and works on “deals.” Eventually the Nazi’s find them and put them on a train. On the train, Rudy is beaten and cries out for Max, but what does Max do? Nothing. No, he actually beats on Rudy when he is told to and actually loses it while beating on Rudy. Rudy dies on the train and Max, from the on to the end, cannot remember Rudy’s name. A little later we find out that Max has a yellow Star of David instead of a pink triangle because he didn’t want people to see him as a gay man. Really? His friend Horst, who took the place of Rudy, told Max that he loved him, but Max deliberately said, “Do not love me.” At the end of the movie, Max realizes that he loved both men, but it is too late to do anything about it, so he touches the electric fence and kills himself.

Both characters can be seen as a victim and victimizer. In my opinion, however, Halder is more of a victim and Max is more of a victimizer.

Miller-Gay in the Holocaust: One Man's Journey

As a gay male, Bent was very emotional for me at times. The movie opens with Hollywood’s interpretation of what gay life in Germany was like before the Nazi regime: seedy nightclubs filled with gay men having sexual intercourse in the back crevasses of the clubs themselves. Max, a gay socialite, brings home a very good looking German soldier from the club, much to the dismay of his boyfriend, Rudy. The German soldier is killed by SS troops, and both of them flee to Berlin, where they meet up with Max’s uncle, who has arranged papers to get Max out of the country, but has no plan for Rudy. Max refuses to leave Rudy behind, and ultimately, they are both captured by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps.

The Nazis used a system of pink triangles to identify homosexuals, while using yellow stars to identify those of Jewish faith. On the train to Dachau, Rudy is identified as a homosexual and is brutally beaten to death, calling out to Max one last time for help, who is of course unable to offer assistance. Max, believing that his chances for survival will be better if he is identified as a Jew, receives a yellow star. Aboard the train, Max meets Horst, a homosexual who has received a pink triangle. Among other things, he teaches Max lessons in survival, the most important being not to feel, as this is what the Nazis use to try and break down their prisoners. Ultimately, Max falls in love with Horst; however, Horst is eventually ordered upon an electric fence by a Nazi official. The movie ends with Max putting on a jacket with a pink triangle on it and throwing himself on the electric fence, committing suicide.

There are several overarching themes, including one that we discussed last week in class, that are applicable here. The theme of betrayal is especially prevalent here in a number of ways. Perhaps most clear is when all of the prisoners are being sorted with pink triangles and yellow stars. Rudy is given a pink triangle, yet Max claims he is a Jew, hoping to increase his chances for survival. This is betrayal at its most prevalent point; betraying your own identity. Victimization is of course a prevalent theme as well in this film; the Nazis, in paragraph 175, demonized and decided to go after homosexual males, comparing homosexual behavior to bestiality. It is important to note, however, that similar views against lesbian females were not advanced. Another instance of betrayal is actually present in the relationship between Max and Horst; until the very end, Max wears a yellow star, gaining the ability to work with Horst on a regular basis through bribery.

P.S. The above picture is of a Gay Holocaust memorial in Sydney, Australia.

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.

Fuhrer - Wiesel: Genocide and Indifference

The notion of Genocide is often depicted as one of the most base and cruel blows humanity could ever inflict upon itself. For someone like me, who is fortunate enough to only have been exposed to it by secondary means, the idea of surviving through one seems unimaginable.

That is why the testimonials of survivors like Eliezar Wiesel is so important. The destruction caused by the Holocaust and those like it, should not be allowed to be forgotten or worse become indifferent to. This what Wiesel speaks out against in his Nobel Acceptance Speech. "Indifference Works for the enemy" He says and it seems this idea of indifference is a central theme in "Night." However, now the indifference no longer concerns the world but rather himself. His traumatic experiences during his capture and imprisonment make him numb to the fear,and pain of the situation.His descriptions of himself become similar to his descriptions of the "Musselmanner" from his Nobel Acceptance speech.

"Unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it."

From this quote it becomes clear that Wiesel equates the lack of one's own identity with that of indifference and that being made to feel such indifference in spite of one's circumstances might as well be equated to death because what else is there to live for after that? Having said this, Wiesel's works also bring hope. His own individuality was not destroyed despite what he has suffered and his words and life become sources of inspiration and testimony for generations to come.
 

Keller Fisher

Hello everyone. My name is Keller Fisher and I am a senior at Loyola. My major is English, Film and Digital Media with a minor in Business Administration. I took Ms. McCay for Introduction to Film and Digital Media. I graduated Jesuit High School in 2008. My hobbies include sports, writing on the internet, and being a southern gentleman. I am familiar with the Holocaust and have decent knowledge base stemming from literature and documentaries. I look forward to reading all of your blogs and learning more about the Holocaust. Sorry for posting this late, I received the email to join the blog Friday afternoon.

Fisher - Elie Wiesel: Discussing Indifference

Night is a retelling of Eliezer Wiesel's journey as a 15 year old Jew living through the Holocaust. His survival allows for this retelling which has opened the eyes of so many individuals. It is a blessing that he survived, as he provides a first-hand witness to the atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust. His account, is one of many that is needed and necessary in order that we never forget what happened during that time. It is an account of human failure, struggle, and strife that should never be shelved nor forgotten. This is why Elie Wiesel is deserving of his Nobel Prize, he bears witness to a bloody, horrific past that every person should be conscience of and held accountable for.

Night begins on the eve of the war reaching Elie's town of Sighet, toward the end of 1942. The people were warned of the war crimes being performed by the Nazi's in concentration camps by Moishe the Beadle, yet they ignored his pleas. For Elie, the ensuing journey through the ghettos and camps, being separated from his mother, and the death of his father, caused him to shut down. He became completely "indifferent" to his surroundings and walked the borders of reality, insanity, and death. It was not until two weeks after he was liberated that he was able to look in the mirror and greet a complete stranger that he would be forced to carry in his chest and in his eyes, until the day he died.

What stands out in Wiesel's Nobel Price Acceptance Speech and in his speech for Clinton's Millennial Lectures is his description and awareness of indifference. He says during his Millennial speech,

"Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten"

Indifference works for the enemy, who is crime to humanity. By doing nothing, turning away, or simply rejecting these crimes we are in a sense helping the enemy. No man or woman should stand aside and allow for genocides like the Holocaust or mass starvation of the Kulaks by Stalin go unchecked. By doing nothing, the enemy has already won. Simply wasting one minute of time with our heads turned, allows for the waste of another life. And in that sense, every single life should be treasured; because one man/woman can make a difference, and Elie Wiesel is a perfect example.

Shaw: Genocide and Liberation

First, I am so sorry to post late I was mistaken and thought the weekly posts were due on Saturdays. It definitely won't happen again. 

The exploration of genocide in terms other than the Holocaust is a difficult journey. It seems much simpler to say that genocide existed as a singular, systemic mass extermination of European Jews and was an embarrassing stain on the history of human existence. It is much more difficult to acknowledge that genocide was carried out even after the world witnessed the atrocities committed by the Nazis. What is even more difficult is the reality that the Allies who fought tirelessly against Hitler’s regime, were fighting alongside an equally terrible leader. It is through ignorance and the concealment of truth that lessons are forgotten and liberation is sacrificed. In, Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, Night, and the film, A Soviet Story, we see how shrouding the truth in darkness is used to manipulate, control, and exterminate (physically and emotionally) the existences of countless populations.

From the concentration camps in Germany to the mass starvation of 7,000,000 Ukrainians, both stories portray how groups come to power and maintain control by limiting the dissemination of information and preventing dissent. It is by these methods that countless dictators and regimes have controlled societies and exterminated any groups that challenge or threaten the success of these “pseudo-sciences and sociologies” (A Soviet Story). In discussing these issues in retrospect, it is easy for an observer to ask “how” or “why” these atrocities were permitted, but what is easily forgotten is how quickly these communities were stripped of their freedoms and any tools they once had for liberation. When communities are prevented from learning, challenging, and debating ideas and concepts, they lose the cornerstone of freedom: the ability to choose. There was no choice in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, there was either survive or relent, and these methods have no place for informed opinion or democratic process.

The occurrence of genocide in a community is not only a horrific act of inhumanity, but also an opportunity to regain and solidify humanity.  Individuals devoid of ethics and morality will continue to exist and few will occasionally rise to places of supreme power, this cannot be controlled. What can be controlled is how the rest of society reacts to these occurrences, and how the legacy of these events is carried on. Do we let genocide become defined solely by one act in human history, or do we continue to educate ourselves on what is currently happening on our own planet. The reason that is is absolutely imperative to study genocide through literature is the human connection that is undeniable. To read another man’s experience and understand just how easily the most minutely and majorly terrible occurrences in one person’s life could have easily been our own, is not only terrifying, but simultaneously liberating. To view the emaciated corpses and tears of victims who choose to retell their stories through a medium we frequently use for entertainment, is not just a wakeup call, but a call to action. As a society of human beings, whose suffering is interdependent, it is imperative that all people are continuously exposed to the most evil actions in order to educate, prevent and liberate in the future.  

Pauli - HUSH!

Elie Wiesel's, Night is a first person narrative that accounts for his horrific experience during the Holocaust. In the book, Wiesel is a young boy living with his family in Hungary. The author in the beginning is extremely religious and often seeks counseling from Moshe the Beadle, who works at the Hasidic synagogue. Life is ordinary until people are deported including Moshe. Moshe returns later to tell of his experience about almost being killed and witnessing others being murdered. He sees his escape as a message of God and he wants to warn the others. However, no one will believe his story, not even Eliezer. This is the beginning of a long history of silencing.
Later, the Jews are slowly ripped of their freedom and belongings by the Hungarian officers. Even this does not scare the naive young author. Members of the Jewish community and Weisel's family are determined to remain positive but their efforts are useless when they are forced into concentration camps. It is in these "hell holes" that Weisel loses his family and relationship with God.
Night is told from the first person which allows the reader to "experience" what is happening in the novel. While "listening" to the young boy one can sense his unreal state. It is as if the author cannot fathom the events that are taking place. However, once Weisel can grasp reality he does not see God. The author questions God's presence and eventually loses complete faith. It is ironic how nobody who listen to Moshe the Beadle the same way people deny the Holocaust.


Conspiracy, allows viewers to delve into another perspective other than the direct victims of the Holocaust. The movie shows the Nazi perspective. Multiple men in high positions are called to the Wannsee Conference "discuss" problems about the Jews. However, later in the film one understands that this meeting is only to give direct orders to massacrer Jewish people. This is the only solution they have arrived at with dealing with "the Jewish problem." It is obvious that several of the men at the meeting do not wish to go through with this idea but they silence their inner morals and agree because of fear.

Soviet Story, reveals the Soviet Unions role in helping Germany during the Holocaust. The film exposes the allied power for taking part in the genocide and murdering its own people.

All three of these mediums for the Holocaust show betrayal and various forms of silencing. In Night, Weisel denies Moshe the Beadle, his father, God, and himself. He is betrayed by God, the Hungarian officers, and others who participated in the Holocaust. In both of the films people betrayed the Jewish community and allowed their morals to be silenced. It is this silencing that allowed such a horrific event to occur. Evidence was thrown away, people were murdered, and their remains disposed of to "silence" the crime. The genocide was about stripping people of any sort of power. For example, people were stripped of their belongings, home, family, morals, faith,  even their title as humans, and eventually their life.

Otto- Forgetting the Past Will Do Nothing

Elie Wiesel’s Night is a chilling recollection of World War II and the Holocaust. For a child who is torn from his home, he deals with the many terrors of the Holocaust as one may expect. Many children were torn from parents and families. Attempting to stay by his father’s side, he cannot believe what is happening to the hundreds of people who were with them. His actions and dialogue seemed to be that of a person who was stuck in a surreal dream, however when reality set in everything became about keeping himself and his father alive.

When Elie and his father first arrive, Elie said to his father “that I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the would would never tolerate such crimes...” (Wiesel, p. 33). As soon as the Jews had gotten into Auschwitz, Wiesel describes “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. All this could not be real. A nightmare perhaps...” (p. 32). How a human being could do such horrible things to another was the question that arose in Wiesel’s young mind. In the film Conspiracy(2001), directed by Frank Pierson, the recreation of the Wannsee Conference was dealing with the ultimate solution to what they call “Jew Problem.” Both sides of the Holocaust, where one was in need of help while the other appeared to be brainwashed, are shown through these two works.

The final solution created at the meeting of the Conference was to gas the entire population of Jews. These Nazi and SS leaders gathered to discuss what to do and although “fixing” the Jews to where they could no longer procreate was suggested, Reinhard Heydrich(Kenneth Branagh) and Adolf Eichmann(Stanley Tucci) eventually convinced through conversation or threat that the best thing to do would be to exterminate the population by gas. These men appeared to have no human rationale concerning the Jews, and considered them to be of a different race, when in reality Judaism is the religion that they practiced. Race is merely a social construct that is used as an excuse to create “the other” or lesser group.

The involvement of the SS provided help to Germany, even after they were considered Allies, but today there are still those that do not admit it (The Soviet Story, 2008). With so many denials and people believing that they were helping the world, the Holocaust became one of the most bloody, remembered, and guilty times in human history. In is not hard to see why, through Elie Wiesel’s memory, it is important to remember this point in time. In his acceptance speech Wiesel explains “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor” (Wiesel). Many documents and films are there to remind people the difference help can do, and that as a human race, there is no reason to eradicate a group of individuals, and we must teach people to include.

Dacula - The Individual Experience

In the two films and Elie Wiesel’s Night the overlying theme of the individual experience is portrayed. Often, when I inform myself more about the happenings of the Holocaust, I discover just that: information. I read about the details of the Holocaust in textbooks and see documentaries about the Holocaust from a historical perspective. However, Wiesel’s Night as well as the film Conspiracy deters from that general, sociological perspective. In Night, Wiesel narrates from the first-person point of view, and this narration makes my journey as a reader with him all too real.

The Holocaust remains our most vivid example of hell on earth because individual lives and individual memories were forever changed.From Night, I was able to dive into the thoughts of the individual person experiencing and witnessing such hatred and evil among men. I was able to empathize with Wiesel when he recounted seeing babies and children meeting their death at the camps. I was able to empathize with the Jewish people who clung on to hope and waited for an absolution that, at the time, did not seem to ever be coming. In Conspiracy, I witnessed the pressures of the political system and how simple rhetoric could not have been the only factor into the German soldiers supporting this mass extermination of Jews. On the German side, psychological issues and outside influence from those in political power played a major role in the decisions that the Germans made and the hell the Jews went through. These factors are not in any way an excuse for these German soldiers to have implemented the cruelty they had, but they do help us in realizing their mindset at the time.

Genocide killings are much more than a case study of the extermination of a group of people. We do not sympathize and empathize with what we read about the Holocaust because a group of people suffered and died; we sympathize and empathize with this mass extermination because each person suffered and died. Each person’s way of living was destroyed. Each person’s outlook on life was forever altered. Each person developed a reason to doubt and be angry with their God. And all of this as a result of the crime against humanity: destruction of a sect of humanity on the unjustified basis of being themselves.

Campbell- The Affect on the Individual

Elie Wiesel’s, Night, retells the story of a boy named Eliezer and how he dealt with his own morals and religion during the Jewish genocide. This book gives the Jewish perspective of the Holocaust being a cruel, merciless act of the Nazi’s. Eliezer struggled with his own faith because the acts of violence around him made him question God. If God is everywhere, then where is he when babies are hung, sons are killing fathers, man is killing fellow man? He saw two separate occasions where a son either abandoned his own father or killed him for food. With the genocide, Eliezer steps away from his faith and at one point falls into a pit of self-preservation just like everyone around him. He gave up on his faith and chose not to partake in any holidays because he needed to survive. He struggled with his morals of staying with his father and caring for him when in actuality, there was nothing Eliezer could do but be there. When the time came that his father needed him the most, Eliezer can do nothing. Once his father dies, Eliezer is relieved to be left alone and be unburdened with caring for his father.

The movie, Conspiracy, gives the Nazi perspective of what they called “The Jewish Problem.” While Wiesel’s book shows how genocide affected a boy, this movie shows how several men in positions of power handled hearing that the Jews needed to be gone. At the beginning, it seems like all everything is about is power and control, but as the meeting starts, it is clear that some of these men are highly uncomfortable with this meeting, almost showing that they did not want to partake in the mass killings of Jews. Dr. Stuckart actually made me laugh with a comment about how subhuman Jews are when; in fact, I believe that all those men were subhuman. They sat there and banged on the table like monkeys, but the Jews are subhuman to them? Each individual at the meeting reacted to the genocide as if it was necessary. There were the select few who did not agree with it, but for fear of being ousted, kept silent.

Individuals are affected by genocide in many ways. Fear and duty ruled over the political men in Conspiracy. Some felt that it was there duty to the Fuhrer to terminate the Jews, while others feared to let there true feelings be known. Eliezer was overcome with self-preservation and survival. He gave up on his religion, father, and finally his morals to survive even though he did not know what the future held.

Chandler Allen-The Systematic Destruction of One's Humanity

In Elie Wisel's novel, the reader is given the perspective of being uprooted from a homeland and being sent to a concentration camp. Wiesel's intimate description of this process renders the experience of being in such a situation unmitigatedly; taking pains to convey each part of his journey in vivid detail. The system employed by the Germans to extract every Jew from their native land and then move them to sequestered death camps is appalling in it's efficiency and effectiveness. The critical object of such a large-scale operation was more than just the movement and slaying of the Jews, it was a process of stripping them of all comforts and familiarities of human life, so that they would come to yearn for death long before it would be given to them. In reading the novel, I took particular notice of how frequent attitudes shifted from optimism to despair then back to optimism at the first sign of promise. An individual in this situation befalls all manner of disorienting shifts of mood that would not regularly seize them in typical life.

The atmosphere of the concentration camp was designed to eliminate one's certainty of anything, to make one constantly vulnerable to the harshness of sudden change. Unable to predict or expect anything about one's situation, in addition to being deprived of any information before arriving to the camp, keeps the captive in a permanent state of disarray. This method was used be the Germans to ensure a much slimmer chance of revolt or resistance from the prisoners while they systematically killed them. If the Germans were to try and kill the prisoners in bulk, it would instill the unquestionable realization that they were being killed, hunted even, by their oppressors. It would be inefficient on the part of the German's agenda to allow such a realization to be fixated in the minds of their prisoners, for such certainty might cause the prisoners to discard any resignations about being gunned down while revolting. No, instead of immediate execution by gunshot or explosive or the like, the Germans relied on economically efficient, psychologically caustic, means of mass execution.