Professor Denis' lecture.

On Wednesday, January 20th, I sat in on Professor Denis' lecture on the Holocaust. I had already had a lot of background knowledge about it thanks to my high school's AP Modern European History class, but there were some things that still shocked and amazed me. For instance, I knew that the camps existed, but I had no idea what life was like for those that were forced to live in them.
Professor Denis started off by showing us some very disturbing, and almost scary, pictures. The people that they portrayed no longer looked like people, but skeletons with a thin layer of skin. They looked hollow, beaten, and defeated. Why were they being punished? Professor Denis informed us that the Jewish people had committed the crime of merely existing. He went on to say that in the beginning the men and women were separated into two lines. Anyone who appeared too weak to work (elderly, young children, pregnant mothers, etc...) were unknowingly sent straight to their death. Those who could work were tattooed, so that their bodies could be recognized should they die.
The goal was to break their spirits and turn them into slaves. However, apart from back breaking labor in factories, the Jewish people suffered from hunger, thirst, and the pain of loss. Professor Denis showed us a piece of art that was drawn by one of the prisoners that portrayed a guard holding a young child at gun point. He then went on to explain that young children were used for experimentation a lot of the time. This personally struck a nerve for me, because I simply can not imagine a world where someone who is mentally sane can look deep in their heart and find the strength to kill a child.
Something that was very interesting (and I mean this in a thought and emotion provoking way) was when Professor Denis showed us the drawings of Christmas day in the death camps. The Jewish people were hung and used as ornaments to decorate the camp. Personally, I thought that this was something too sadistic to even be imagined by the average person.
Thanks to Professor Denis' lecture I could really get a feel for exactly what was going on in the camp in Night. It completely changes my reaction, because now I have a mental picture of what our main character and those around him look like, where as before I had to use my imagination and since I knew little about the camps before hand it was very hard. I'm more attached to the characters now than ever, and I can feel the emotional strain with every page that I turn.

(Picture credit.)

As the lecture was coming to and end Professor Denis, with tears in his eyes, left us with this emotional quote:

"Racism, tolerance, and hatred are choices."

- Tia Lambert '13