"Lets give a future to Memories"

 We all know that the Holocaust was the genocide of over six million Jews in Europe during World War II. The thing we didn’t know was what exactly went on inside the concentration camps.  Our class was going to get this remarkable opportunity to listen to a lecture by people who had family members survive the life altering situation and heartbreaking time of World War II.  I didn’t really know what to expect, but I knew that this day would be very meaningful to my life and the way I thought about history.  The first speaker was an older woman by the name of Giovana and the Holocaust played a huge role in her life because her mother was sent to a concentration camp. Giovana’s mother and her friends were split up when they choose who would go to the execution camp or who would go to the concentration camp. Luckily for Giovan’s mother she would be spared her life but endure incredible amounts of physical and emotional pain throughout the years.  In the camps the goals of Nazis were to dehumanize the prisoners and use them like they were machines. The Nazis would start to dehumanize the prisoners from the very beginning, which started by giving the naked medical exam. Then the prisoners would have to get butt naked in front of thousand other men and women.  The next part of this horrible process would be the women would get their heads shaved and all their belongings taken away from them.  After that they would have to put on clothes that they had been given that most likely didn’t even fit them as well as shoesThe worst part of this process is that they were branded like cattle by having a number tattooed onto the outside of their arms. 

 I can’t imagine how it would have felt to be one of these prisoners and for all of my rights to be stripped away in such a dehumanizing manner. It brings light to my eyes to think that some people that went through this were stronger than I could ever be.  It just makes me think how no matter what comes my way I can weather anything and when I see a fork in the road to keep my head up and keep going through life in a positive light.