Resistance, Imprisonment & Forced Labor: a Slovene Student in World War II by Metod M. Milac is a memoir and primary source of his experience as a non-Jewish person during the Holocaust. Told through the perspective of Metod, his experiences between 1934 to 1950 allowed readers a glimpse of what it was like for non-Jewish victims experiencing Nazi occupation and encroachment in their homeland. Like another notable Holocaust figure, Anne Frank, both had to deal with incredible hardships brought on by an army that disregarded human rights, yet for someone like Metod, who was a student at the time, he had to deal with such difficulties in the open and with little hope for solace or comfort. The Jewish victims of the Holocaust had to hide or perform illegal actions to evade capture and imprisonment. Non-Jewish victims had to deal with the armies and the brutal treatment they would often receive from the soldiers. Both classes of victims suffered, but in different ways.Milac offers in the first two pages of his autobiography an explanation of his preoccupation:
Official histories of World War II, or any other calamity of that nature, regardless of how many details they include, cannot describe the totality of human suffering, especially by those not directly involved in the conduct of the war.... The deceptions during the war years were most depressing for me. Not the planned military deceptions, which are as much part of the strategy as anything else, but deceptions in interpersonal relationships (1-2).[footnoteRef:1] [1:
Milacc, M. M. Resistance, imprisonment & forced labor: A Slovene student in World War II. New York: P. Lang, 2002.]
This was an excellent representation of those that suffered that were not part of the main characters of World War II. While many Jewish people were brutally killed and tortured and made most of the atrocities committed in World War II, other people endured violence and torture as well. The German armies and their allies occupied many countries during the world war and Milac's story is just one of many from the non-Jewish perspective.
The beginning of the story provides much of what non-Jewish people had to contend with during the Holocaust, and that is a confusing and often jarring political life. Milac explains his experiences with Fric Novak and the group of Partisans he led, including political life in Ljubljana. Similar to Anne Frank's account, Milac describes his life through immediate family and other personal aspects of his identity with the exception that Milac's family experienced a political division.
Milac's brother decided to join the Domobranci or 'Home Defenders'. Milac chose the pro-Anglo-American underground organization. Such a choice led him to Auschwitz. Regardless of which organization an individual chose in that area, many Chetniks and Home Defense men died with his brother...
Holocaust is a catastrophe orchestrated by Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. It was an organized and systematic murder with the outcome being the brutal killing of approximately six million innocent Jews during the Word War II (Longerich 2007 p. 29). State involvement in the murder complicates the whole affair as it was contrary to expectations. This was in deep contrast by all standards given the reality among
Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is a place that is both dark and light, from the perspective of a visitor and the emotions that one feels on being in a place like this. The darkness results from the facts and photographs that are on display. It is very difficult to believe that these events took place just over seventy years ago in Europe, and that Adolf Hitler's Nazi party conducted
Holocaust The name "Holocaust" has its root in a Greek word that means burnt whole or totally consumed by fire. Between 1939 and 1945, approximately six million Jews and five million non-Jews died in the Holocaust as Adolph Hitler sought to create a "perfect nation." All of these deaths were premeditated mass executions. In September 1939, Hitler started World War II with a rapid air and land attack on an unprepared Poland.
For one, the cover art used for each of these media formats is remarkably -- and perhaps not coincidentally -- similar. Spiegelman's graphic novel cover depicts a large white circle front and center. On this white circle is a Nazi swastika with a cat face at its center. The title "Maus" is written in a bloody red font, and below the white circle are characters -- perhaps Vladek and
For example, the essentially female nature of the author's suffering is embodied in her tale of Karola, a woman who cleverly hides the age of her daughter, so she will allow the child to be admitted through the gates of Auschwitz by her side. Sara Nomberg-Przytyk implies that a woman will have a special reason, as a mother, to be clever and devious in avoiding the horrors of the
This may also account for Eliezer's interpretation of Moshe's account of the slaughter at the hands of the Gestapo: he feels that the man must be lying -- he also believes that the rest of his town rejects his story as well. However, it is quite likely that many of the older citizens fearfully believe Moshe, but do not want to publicly acknowledge it. Nonetheless, from Eliezer's young point-of-view,
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