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The Third Reich Propoganda’s Effects on the Average German

June 7, 2022 10:31 pm

By Julia Chamberlin, VI Form

The Third Reich Propoganda’s Effects on the Average German

Introduction

We were pushed through to the main gate, and once we entered there we thought we’d entered hell. There were bodies everywhere, and there were these watchtowers with machine guns pointing at us…this terrible grey ash falling around us. There were the barking dogs, viciously walking around, there were loudspeakers always and these SS men walking around, with shiny boots and guns on their back. I mean, we were just frightened out of our wits… You couldn’t fight, because if you touched the guard you were shot—right in front of me I saw that. You couldn’t flee because if you touched the barbed wires, you were electrocuted. When we took a shower, we didn’t know whether gas is coming out of the water…I remember a young boy. I think he picked up a potato skin or something. Whenever there was a hanging, we were all called out to watch it, and I remember us shouting, ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ A young boy hung because he picked some bit of food up.
Sophia Hollander, “Auschwitz Survivors Recall Harrowing and Heroic Moments from the Death Camps,” History, last modified January 26, 2021, accessed January 11, 2022, https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-holocaust-survivors-stories.

Five years. Six million Jews murdered. 232,000 children dead.
Natasha Frost, “Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers behind WWII’s Deadliest Concentration Camp,” History, last modified January 5, 2022, accessed January 11, 2022, https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-concentration-camp-numbers.

Those who implemented the Holocaust regarded Jews as less than human. Jews were transported in cattle cars and stripped of their names, clothes, hair, and any other remnants of their identity and humanity. Those in death camps endured unimaginable treatment, and survival was a game of luck. Nazis’ and SS officers’ cruelty was horrific and unimaginable. So how did this happen? The only explanation for a long time was “a few bad apples”; Hitler and his high-level subordinates were awful people capable of awful things, but it was just them, right?

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“Das Brotchen”: The ‘Flouring’ of Culture All Across the Globe

April 30, 2019 8:21 am / 1 Comment on “Das Brotchen”: The ‘Flouring’ of Culture All Across the Globe

By Alan Gao, VI Form

“Das Brotchen”: The ‘Flouring’ of Culture All Across the Globe

“Das Brotchen.”

I remember learning this phrase in one of my first German classes. This word could be separated into two parts, “Brot” for bread and “-chen” for referring to smaller versions of things. “Das Brotchen” just refers to little bread.

Yet when my German teacher, Frau Wells, told my class that word, it seemed to carry much more than the simple meaning. She told us with great excitement about her time in Germany when the sweet smell of the roasted fresh wheat flowed over the streets and the bakeries presented their newest baked bread. As an American who had no family relations with Germany, she amazed me with her love and passion for German culture. At the time, I was surprised how this daily word created such a deep impact on her.

Before then, bread, or pastry, didn’t mean much to me. Although Shanghai is a very international city with chain bakeries like Paris Baguette and Lilian Cake, I never paid much attention to them and bought them only in times when I’m rushing down subways and hurrying to classes, paying no attention to their characteristics. (more…)