Holocaust Essay Winner, Division I (7-9 grade)

All across the world today, society condemns the atrocities committed on Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass.”

While many show empathy to those who bore the brunt of the unspeakable atrocities committed on that dark night, few try to understand how such a horrific incident could occur in a civilized nation.

If, however, we want to honor the memory of the brave souls who suffered those wounds of hatred, we must understand the causes of Kristallnacht and take steps to ensure that our posterity need not suffer the horror of generations past. In effect, we must try to mend the glass that shattered on that fateful night and prevent it from breaking yet again.

The turning point of an evil apocalypse, Kristallnacht represents the ability of a civilized nation confronted by poverty and starvation to dehumanize a section of its own population; it will occur in different forms throughout the world unless governments take the aggressive measures necessary to combat the poverty that breeds this kind of senseless, horrific cruelty and violence.

The first of many blows aimed at the Jewish people, Kristallnacht marked a turning point in world history, as a group of lunatics began to think that they possessed the power to persecute other human beings.

The actual causes of Kristallnacht, however, can be traced back to the Treaty of Versailles. At the close of World War I, Britain and France imposed a series of repatriations on a defeated Germany that ruined its economy and dashed any hopes of an effective democratic government.

Their livelihoods destroyed, the German people began to listen to racist extremists who preached messages of hatred and revenge: the Nazis. Within five years of their ascension to power in 1933, the Nazis and their sadistic leader, Adolph Hitler, consolidated power and silenced all opposition, revoking the rights of Germany’s Jewish citizens whom the bigots despised.

On Nov. 9, 1938, claiming the assassination of a German official in Paris as an excuse, the Nazis and their followers went on an orgy of death and destruction, slaying 300 Jews and destroying thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and over 1,100 synagogues.

When dawn finally came, a shocked world realized that a maniac ruled a mad nation but failed to take action. In the war that followed, this maniac attempted to wipe out the Jewish people in an epidemic of genocide on an unimaginable scale.

By the time the world reacted and put an end to the destruction, over 6 million Jews and over 7 million other individuals lay slain while the “Great Powers” looked away in shame.

Never again, the world promised, would it make such a terrible mistake and allow such an apocalypse of hatred. The horror Kristallnacht seemed too overwhelming to be repeated.

Unfortunately, the ghastly pattern of events triggered by Kristallnacht repeats itself around the world as poverty-stricken individuals turn to hate and fear to meet their basic need.

The people of the Middle East, for example, find themselves in the midst of another Kristallnacht. Extremists from various religious groups target their victims based solely on their beliefs, just as in Kristallnacht.

Overcome by extreme poverty, the masses turn away from corrupt governments and towards the mosque for salvation, unknowingly making themselves ideal targets for fundamentalist ideas.

Not all modern-day equivalents of Kristallnacht, however, feature individuals who practice religious discrimination. In some situations, various ethnic groups compete for economic resources in scenarios that often turn violent as they did in Rwanda in 1994.

Angered at the discrimination they faced at the hands of the Tutsi tribe, the members of the poverty-stricken Hutu tribe went on a rampage, killing one million innocent civilians and destroying the lives of countless others.

Driven insane by their pathetic condition, many Rwandans actually heeded the calls of their leaders who spewed out virulent messages of hate and genocide and blamed tribal discrimination for their poverty.

This cruel cycle repeated itself again in the Sudan, where Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweedslaughtered over 500,000 Black farmers while the world watched in shock but failed to act.

Debilitating poverty, yet again, made members of both ethnic groups angry at their plight and willing to go to any extreme to secure the fruits of prosperity for themselves and more importantly for their families. The slaughter of innocent millions that occurred during those horrific epidemics of violence will continue until and unless society stops it.

Past societies often managed to prevent such episodes of bigotry, but in order for this horrific cycle to stop, governments and society as a whole must examine the causes of such hatred and extremism and treat those causes in the most effective manner possible.

The root cause of this problem, poverty, can be easily diagnosed. Its excruciating symptoms and effects deprive individuals of the will to live and convince them to commit violent and often atrocious acts, but they can be treated.

In order for this menace to be crushed, governments must take action by increasing jobs, increasing agricultural production, lowering the cost of living, controlling inflation, and improving the standard of living for its people.

Although this task may seem daunting, the experiences of many nations, including the United States, clearly show that it can be accomplished.

During the 1920s, the New York Stock Exchange crashed, bringing the world’s economy to a halt and leaving one in four Americans unemployed. Led by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, however, the United States Government began a series of sweeping new reforms and programs known as the New Deal that created jobs for thousands of Americans, revitalized the U.S. economy, and restored the faith of the American people in their democratic system of government.

This helped prevent the spread of Fascism and Communism in the United States, since the American people once again became prosperous and content.

Although many successful programs such as the New Deal remained successful mostly in developed nations, some developing nations, such as India, took note of their success and implemented them as well.

In 1947, as they rejoiced after their nation’s independence and reeled from the horrors of the Indo-Pakistan Partition, India’s leaders, led by Prime Minister Jawarlal Nehru, implemented many reforms and programs intended to alleviate the suffering of India’s poor.

While these programs did not meet with the resounding success of the New Deal, they did restore the Indian people’s faith in democratic government, and, like the programs of the Founding Fathers in the U.S., paved the way for future efforts to ensure that poverty would be eliminated forever.

Such examples of government assistance in times of need show that the horrors of hatred can be prevented and treated.

Unless society learns from its mistakes and attempts to fix them, the cycle of hatred that sowed the seeds of Kristallnacht will never stop.

If, however, society comes together and governments aggressively tackle the evil menace of poverty that breeds such hatred, future generations may joyfully proclaim that the people of the world overcame the horrors of the Holocaust and mended the glass broken on that fateful November night in 1938.

First and second place winners in each of the two divisions will receive a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and their schools will receive a gift of books. Winners will be presented at the community-wide Yom HaShoah-Holocaust Commemoration on Sunday, May 4, 2 p.m, at the JCC.