The Holocaust :: essays research papers

"If we were not an eternal people before, we are an eternal people after the Holocaust, in both its very positive and very negative sense. We consecrate not only survived, we have revived ourselves. In a very real way, we have won. We were victorious. But in a very real way, we have lost. Well never recover what was lost. We cant assess what was lost. Who knows what beauty and grandeur six million could have contributed to the humanness? Who can measure it up? What standard do you use? How do you count it? How do you estimate it...? We lost. The world lost, whether they know it or admit it. It doesnt operate any difference. And yet we won, were going on." This quote is from the testimony of Fania Fenelon. The signs and symptoms that are among the Jews because of the Holocaust definitely characterize abnormality. These abnormalities include the physical effectuate, the spiritual effects, and the second generation.          The physi cal effects were enormous among the Jews. The conditions of the camps defy description. The nutrition was worse than inadequate and the results being the wellhead-known "musselmen" skeletons covered by skin. After the Jews in prison camps were freed, their diseases were treated as well as could be treated. Premature aging was one of the most prominent disabling effects of survivors. Digestive tract diseases were also very common because of the stirred up disturbances and inadequate diet during their incarceration. The experience also placed them at risk of coronary diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and arteriosclerosis. All of this was consistent with the premature aging and the atrophy of the essence muscle due to the extreme undernourishment during captivity.     Spiritual concerns also followed the survivors of the Holocaust. The Jews had to face up to one of the most painful realities of all...What it means to be a Jew. They had to dissolve whet her or not to remain a Jew. The Holocaust had threatened the Jewish people near extinction. A anger directed towards the Non-Jewish world was intense because they had been persecuted by Gentiles. The Holocaust had caused an apparently irreversible rupture in the Jewish-Christian relations. Jews felt and still feel enraged because their expectations of a decent world were shattered into pieces by the most, supposedly, cultured people in the world. "Where was God?" wrote Elie Wiesel, a question asked many times among the Jews. They felt