Berlin Memorial Blog

During our lesson going over what laws the Jews were given during the Holocaust, I learned a lot. What I learned was that there were numerous laws specifically given to all the Jews during Hitler's leadership. Of course, every country in the world has their own laws to keep everyone within the country in line and civil. For Nazi Germany, the Jews unfortunately had their own set of rules they were required to follow. Before learning about these laws, I didn't have any sort of clue as to how many laws the Nazis could possibly make up just to ruin these people's lives. Once I took a good long look every single card on the classroom walls, I realized there were a lot of them. I had no idea the Jews had to live by all these rules when Hitler was leading Germany. Hitler really wanted to take the Jews livelihood and freedoms everyone should have. To make things less consistent, Hitler didn't enforce a large number of laws every year. This still doesn't change the fact that Hitler truly wanted to try and make the Jews lives worse and worse.

Of course, any memorial is created to help people forever remember what had happened that created the memorial. For example, the memorial in Berlin was created to help Germany remember the terrible things that happened during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was one of those terrible events people just can't and should never forget. Not just people in Germany, but everyone around the globe. It doesn't matter it you lived through the Holocaust or had just learned about it. The Holocaust was part of our history. If you think about it, the memorial was created to show the mistakes our countries made that created this mess. America did have some involvement with the Holocaust. If only our country allowed the incoming Jewish refugees that were trying to escape from Germany enter our country, maybe things would have been different. This memorial in particular I feel was created not only for remembrance, but to show flaws within our countries decisions. Memorials can have other purposes for being created. I believe the Berlin Memorial had multiple meanings for its establishment.

What I noticed about the number of laws passed by the Nazis was how demanding they were and how strict they were. What really put me in awe was not just how strict the laws were, but for how discrete some of them were. I clearly saw how much Hitler wanted to make these people's lives as miserable as possible. There was literally a law for not allowing Jews to purchase books in 1942. Think of a society without any sort of literature. That law alone would really create drastic changes within how we basically live. Of course, a society without books would be very "unique," but wouldn't be the end of the world. A law that's even more worse then that were the laws enforcing Jews not to purchase certain foods/drinks just to live their ordinary lives. They weren't allowed to have eggs, milk, meat/meat products, and they were restricted from getting many items. In order to live, you need eggs, milk, and meat to feed yourself. Forget not being allowed to have books, what really was something the Jews needed to worry about was how to feed themselves. How are you going to eat if you can't buy essential items for your meals. This really shows how enforcing these laws were and how they wanted residents of their country to live life everyday.

Personally, a certain restriction that I would have a problem with dealing with was the law prohibiting Jewish actors and actresses from performing. Of course, it wouldn't be the end of the world for anyone if entertainment was taken away. Despite this, I feel entertainment is still an essential part for everyday life. Sure taking it away wouldn't be a huge problem, but entertainment is what keeps people occupied. Entertainment is essential for many things in people's lives. For example, it is essential to my life because I enjoy watching people act on television. It's just something something I enjoy doing in my spare time and keeps me relaxed. Taking away that privilege from me would be something that I wouldn't be to happy about. Being stripped of that privilege to me would affect me the most.