Maria, it is interesting that you touch on the fact that Hitler’s victims not only included Jews but also his own people-namely the Hitler youth who were unfortunately all that was left to defend Berlin against the Soviets at the end of WWII.
David, the fortunate prisonner
Can you imagine learning of your siblings’ deaths while being forced to carry 50kg cement bags on your back? Where do you find the will to keep living? You wouldn’t ever know for sure when you will be liberated, because you wouldn’t know exactly when the Allies will be coming to your rescue. Personally, I am very close to my older sister(although we fight a lot) and if we were to be placed in concentration camps and she ends up dying, I would be more than devastated; I probably wouldn’t even mind dying at that point. David, on the other hand, seems to be very strong-willed and I respect him for that.
I honestly can’t imagine people eating grass to stay alive… But then again, we saw that when people are desperate for food, they’ll even cannibalize children. I guess grass is better in that case.
My question for everyone is, if you were to be sent to a concentration camp and to be kept there for at least 6 months, would you rather starve yourself to death at the camp, or do all you can to stay alive?
I think it’s human nature to stay alive. It is in our blood, our instincts and our moral development to do anything not to die. On the other hand, if you grow deep into depression and have no strength or the mental capacity to continue thinking about the future, what may happen, what could come and save you… you may just feel the need to end your life because you feel as though you have no hope. I don’t believe I’d starve myself to death unless I was in that complete stage of darkness.
What I found interesting in this video was not only the speaker’s struggle for survival, but the whole host of events that where in fact occuring around the same time as their “Death March”. Perhaps the most striking of these is Hitler’s persistence in the war, and how he was unwilling to give up his Third Reich; so much so that he made his Hitler youth, children yet to reach adulthood, fight for Germany. It is not enough that men must go through the chaos and hell of fighting, but having the new generation going through that fight for survival… It is perhaps one of the most horrendous things “de Fuhrer” has done, besides the holocaust.
This essentially ties in with the speaker’s message of respect for human life: no matter the color, relgion, ethnicity, creed or age. And this is something that was destroyed in its enterity, during this period of darkness in our history, and is something that should never be repeated again.
It amazes me how Hitler would have put everything on the line to win the war. He tought children at such young ages that war was good and put guns in there hands. When David explains the “death march” you wonder how Hitler could have done this to people. It also makes you wonder what you would have done during that time. I belive David did the right thing by staying. Like he said, they had no where else to go
Maria, it is interesting that you touch on the fact that Hitler’s victims not only included Jews but also his own people-namely the Hitler youth who were unfortunately all that was left to defend Berlin against the Soviets at the end of WWII.
David, the fortunate prisonner
Can you imagine learning of your siblings’ deaths while being forced to carry 50kg cement bags on your back? Where do you find the will to keep living? You wouldn’t ever know for sure when you will be liberated, because you wouldn’t know exactly when the Allies will be coming to your rescue. Personally, I am very close to my older sister(although we fight a lot) and if we were to be placed in concentration camps and she ends up dying, I would be more than devastated; I probably wouldn’t even mind dying at that point. David, on the other hand, seems to be very strong-willed and I respect him for that.
I honestly can’t imagine people eating grass to stay alive… But then again, we saw that when people are desperate for food, they’ll even cannibalize children. I guess grass is better in that case.
My question for everyone is, if you were to be sent to a concentration camp and to be kept there for at least 6 months, would you rather starve yourself to death at the camp, or do all you can to stay alive?
I think it’s human nature to stay alive. It is in our blood, our instincts and our moral development to do anything not to die. On the other hand, if you grow deep into depression and have no strength or the mental capacity to continue thinking about the future, what may happen, what could come and save you… you may just feel the need to end your life because you feel as though you have no hope. I don’t believe I’d starve myself to death unless I was in that complete stage of darkness.
What I found interesting in this video was not only the speaker’s struggle for survival, but the whole host of events that where in fact occuring around the same time as their “Death March”. Perhaps the most striking of these is Hitler’s persistence in the war, and how he was unwilling to give up his Third Reich; so much so that he made his Hitler youth, children yet to reach adulthood, fight for Germany. It is not enough that men must go through the chaos and hell of fighting, but having the new generation going through that fight for survival… It is perhaps one of the most horrendous things “de Fuhrer” has done, besides the holocaust.
This essentially ties in with the speaker’s message of respect for human life: no matter the color, relgion, ethnicity, creed or age. And this is something that was destroyed in its enterity, during this period of darkness in our history, and is something that should never be repeated again.
