Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with Human Rights?

The massive scale of the genocide that was known as the Holocaust was something that the whole world could not ignore. This caused a renewal or sudden uproar for Human Rights because of the horror from this, Shoah. The Nazi party used the Jews, among to others they discriminated against like gypsies and homosexuals, as escape goats for all the German’s problems to help take control of the German government and country’s people. These people that had to endure the Holocaust were put through what can only be described as Hell. With the events that happen during World War II, the Holocaust, all Human Rights were thrown out the window and not even second thought about.

After the war, the United Nations was created based off the previous organization, the League of Nations. However, the United Nations will not be the same because of the horror of the Holocaust. These events changed the view of Human Rights around the world. The Holocaust did not just include people of one state but people of an entire continent. This brings a new look on Human Rights in many different ways, no longer will Human Rights be considered on the state level but more on the global or universal level. So many Human Rights violations occurred that they are countless, even to the point where individual humanity was stripped from people.

Genocides have occurred in history before, but few were on this scale and there world was not as small as it is today, word of the Holocaust spread like wildfire all over the world. Another reason the Holocaust is a central point to the concern of Human Rights is the mind set of people today, or society. People today have a bigger since of rights and equality than centuries before. This event would not have the same effect on the world 500 or so years ago as it did 60 or so years ago. This event, Shoah, help set in motion the Human Rights laws or treaties or conventions that are around today. The Holocaust forever in our memories, Human Rights will grow and evolve to shape the world into something new.

Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with human rights?

The Holocaust, which is the genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II, was the most wrenching massacre of our Contemporary History and was also the turning point for Human Rights History.

The Holocaust is one of the most blatant violations of human rights in History. The Nazi doctrine, clearly states not to recognize Jews, homosexuals, Slavs as human beings. They are said to belong to an inferior race, as parasites and deserved no attention so they had to disappear.The Nazi thinking was that, all people were not created as equal, that there were “superior” groups and “inferior " groups. They felt that some people, especially Jews, were at the bottom of the ladder.The Nazi took it to the extremes when they adopted the "Final Solution", which was introduced in 1942. These ideas led to the drama of Holocaust .Over ten million people, including nearly six million Jews, were killed.

This massacre was a sort of catalyst for the process of Human Rights legislation and it led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This document officially marks International law and mentions the fundamental principles for any human being in the world. Thus, in the following decades, other projects emerged gradually and built little by little the History of Human Rights and created the first fruits of universal conception of humanity.

Even there are conventions, declarations or any other documents, which promote and encourage the conscience of Human Rights; it does not prevent dictators from misbehaving. There are clear rules that recognize violation of human rights and justice for the victims (trial etc).

We can talk about the Nuremberg trials (1945). Crimes against humanity were considered for the first time as a category of specific crimes. However, specifying a criminal act is not enough to prevent them from being committed. This is an important step forward in acknowledging the facts and the responsibility of criminals.

At the end of the Second World War, many countries considered that they had to act to prevent such cruelty from taking place again.
While deploring this situation, the international community remained inactive for a long time, wondering whether they should intervene in domestic issues or not. (Fear of interference).

(Other massacres took place in the 20^th Century such as the Armenian, the Cambodian or the Rwandan Genocides for example. What can be interesting to mention is, that the word “holocaust” (with a lower case) is now use for any sort of massacre or extermination of people)

Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with human rights?

The Holocaust exploded human rights into an international area of concern due to the fact that the genocide that took place covered an entire continent rather than within one country. Before this event in history there were no internationally recognized human rights or an active concern regarding human rights violations. Prior to the war there was no effort made to help Jews who were attempting to flee from the surppressing Nazi party. Even more surprising was those who did escape it hopes of seeking refuge were mostly turned away by the Allied governments. These same governments stood idle while millions of innocent human beings were being exterminated and brutally tortured and Nazi death camps. While all this brutality was taking place the rest of the world did not respond. The documentary “genocide” mentioned that articles about the genocide did not even make front page news in the United States, but merely a small article on page six that gave little awareness of the large scale slaughter taking place over an entire content. When the war came to an end and the horrific reality of what took place began to be exposed to the world through pictures and the press. Moral outraged and retribution against the Nazi party for the inhuman brutal acts of violence was being demanded from around the world.

At this time in history the international community did not have any sort of system in place to properly punish the people responsible for this genocide. Not only did the Nazi party kill German nationals, they killed Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and anyone else they sought out to be unfit to their deaths throughout the majority of Europe. The Holocaust broke all state borders, which made it an international concern. This created a need for international standards for human rights and a need to establish organizations for protecting those basic human rights. The Nuremberg War Crime Trials was the first time that government (Nazi) party official were held responsible for “crimes against humanity” and were held on trial for crimes against individuals rather than by states.

Another factor lacking prior to the Holocaust was awareness and education of human right. Without awareness of the atrocities that were taking place it was easy for the world to turn a blind eye during that time.

Meeting Gilbert Michlin

Gilbert Michlin's moving story of his arrest in Paris in February 1944, his deportation to Auschwitz, and his struggle to survive his fifteen month ordeal as slave laborer in Nazi concentration camps tell us much about the climate in which the postwar Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted. Eighteen-year old Gilbert was stripped of the entirety of his political, civil, social, economic, and cultural rights not because of what he did but because of what he was—a Jew. Identified by the French and German regime as someone different from and inferior to the human race, Gilbert, like so many others, became the victim of a political ideology emphasizing not what humans fundamentally share with all others—their humanity—but what makes them superficially different—race, gender, ethnicity, belief, sexual preference, political belief and so on. Deportation, slavery and extermination were built upon the premise that no universal principles of civil law exist; that no individual has basic inherent rights; and that only dominant cultural groups or state authorities determine who is and who is not to be endowed with such rights. Universalism—the belief that all members of the human family are endowed with basic inalienable rights—is the starting point of our postwar concern with putting human rights on the international agenda.

Gilbert Michlin’s ordeal and story remind us that the appeal for universal values is also a call for protecting individual people like Gilbert himself, his mother Riwka, and his father Moshe from those institutions (e.g. state, cultural or racial group, religion, tribe, or family) that often see such people as subjects, and not objects, of the very group endeavors that define them.

What thoughts and feelings did Gilbert Michlin evoke in you as you watched and listened to him speak? What additional impressions or questions would you like to share with him now, a week later and after having reflected upon his life and past ordeal? Now that we know Gilbert Michlin personally, let's use the second person singular voice.

Why the Holocaust is Central to Human Rights

The Holocaust is a prime example of a catastrophe that completely lacked human rights. The countries involved in the Holocaust clearly had little to no regards for basic and inherent freedoms, or perhaps made the executive decision to completely ignore their existence. Each and every event that took place during the Holocaust involved a clear, and overt violation of fundamental human needs, ultimately urging countries to reflect upon their negligence.

The human rights that were violated during the holocaust are endless. The rights pertaining to freedom and life are more obvious, but other, perhaps more subtle freedoms were cruelly stripped from individuals as well. For example, the children that were victims of the Holocaust were unable to receive a proper education. The right to schooling is something that I believe is extremely important for a child’s development. However, during this time, they were unable to benefit from the traditional education that they should have received. The right to food, water, and clothing were violated as well. Victims of the Holocaust became extremely gaunt, and even died from malnutrition.

Although there were prior tragedies, the Holocaust was one of the first instances that ushered immediate attention from the rest of the world. In my opinion, human rights are essentially violated when any individual or group is ostracized. Therefore, the idea that fueled the Holocaust, even without any execution, was enough to completely disregard the idea of basic human freedoms. Presumably, it is no coincidence that the Declaration of Human Rights was created in 1948, shortly after the atrocities. Before the Holocaust, it may have been difficult to accept the necessity of this declaration. But after, it became clear that a written law was essential. The Holocaust conveyed just how corrupt the world was, how insignificant human rights were to many groups and leaders, and shifted the world’s focus towards improvement and change.

WWII impacting the need for stronger guidelines for Human Rights

The Holocaust was one of the first occurrences of outright hatred against a given group of people after the creation of the United Nations Charter for Human Rights. During the Holocaust, members of Nazi Germany invaded several European countries and exterminated millions of Jewish people simply because of their religion. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of gypsies, homosexuals, and people who identified with different social groups were persecuted and killed. This was obviously a gross breach of the simplest form of human rights. Post WWII it became increasingly evident that a much stronger body and incentive was needed to compel countries to abide by mutual standards of human rights to ensure the safety and quality of life of their citizens and to prevent any further genocides from occurring.

Why is the Holocaust central to the post WWII concern with Human Rights?

Laura Hall

Human Rights

Dr. Blair

March 6, 2011

Why is the Holocaust central to the post WWII concern with Human Rights?

After spending the past few weeks with my mind focused in on the Holocaust I still struggle with how to answer this question. The Holocaust shows multiple human rights violations. The obvious one being the right to life, one should not have to fear being executed and tortured. Others including the right to freedom of religion, right to adequate food, water, and shelter, the right to dignity, right to protection, and the right to security just to name a few. The thing that strikes me about the Holocaust and why I think it brought human rights to attention is that the victims were stripped of every basic human right. They had nothing, simple as that.

The Holocaust was not the first case of mass genocide and it has not been the last either. I think that it happening in a first world country also plays a part in its driving force behind human rights. I think it happening in Europe to a first world country made other European and first world countries see that they needed to take a stand, define, and defend human rights. Since this hit them so close to the heart that it was important to write it down and have people back the idea of it. It became an everyone thing instead of “us” and “them”. Then once people started taking human rights seriously and thinking about what it means and experiencing the violation of human rights first hand. I think that once you experience it you can more easily put yourself in someone else’s shoes and relate to human rights violations all around the world. Then see the importance of fighting for and defending human of everyone.

The Holocaust and Human Rights

In studying the history and evolution of human rights, it becomes clear that the modern understanding of and emphasis on human rights is based in the events of the Holocaust. Prior to WWII, the conception of human rights, while discussed by philosophers of the Enlightenment and inspiring to the French and American revolutions, had a  purely a national rather than international character. A notable exception to this is, of course, the first Geneva Convention of 1864, regarding wounded and sick soldiers in the field. As a general rule, however, there was no universal idea of human rights, and each nation viewed the rights of its citizens as a sovereign matter which would be decided in accordance with its specific social and cultural values.

However, with the end of WWII and the liberation  of the concentration camps, a more global view of human rights came into being. For the first time in history, a genocide was carried out on such a grand scale. Not only this, but the killings crossed borders, becoming an international problem not confined by lines on a map. And with the liberation of the camps and the dissemination of photographs and reports throughout the world, governments could no longer ignore the need for an international effort to protect what were recognized as universal rights. Though the world had already begun to move towards globalization after the total war of WWI with the League of Nations, it took the tragedy of the Holocaust, made public on a  wide scale by faster communication and an involved media, to force the conversation into a recognition of universal human rights.

After visiting La Memorial de la Shoah and exploring the exhibitions, the horrors of the Holocaust are even more solidified in my mind. The ease with which the Nazis played on existing fears, stereotypes and tense political climate to systematically dehumanize Jewish people and other minorities perfectly depicts the need for international human rights protection. It was these horrors that inspired the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enumerate rights such as life, liberty, security, freedom from slavery and torture among others. By creating binding documents, the international community has created a world standard, something which did not exist before the Holocaust. Perhaps because nations believed they were too different to agree on a set of universal rights, perhaps because nothing had threatened citizens on such an impossible to ignore, international scale, but only an event of unprecedented horror based on differences among people created an understanding of the universality of humanity.

Why is the Holocaust central to the post WWII concern with human rights?

After attending La Memorial de la Shoah and wandering the surrounding neighborhood, I have an entirely new understanding of how the Holocaust was central to the development of human rights. Obviously, the genocide of the Jewish population of Europe is clearly a violation to human rights but before this event occurred the need for a universal doctrine protecting such human rights was not thought necessary. Since World War II, the world has become more and more interconnected and, hence, smaller. When one country violates human rights like the Nazi’s did in Germany it affects the human rights of those all over the world, not just Germany. As a result, a universal declaration outlining and defining basic human rights became one of the most substantial aftershocks of the Holocaust.

The Holocaust cannot be described appropriately or accurately even with the language of human rights violations. The atrocities inflicted upon the Jewish population are arguably the worst in all of history because of the systematic and predetermined nature of the mass killings and destruction. The language provided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights only seemingly skims the surface of the atrocities the Jews faced during World War II but was the first document of its kind to outline the rights of a human. Before World War II, the world was smaller and countries were not as interconnected. Hence, violations in human rights were to be dealt with within the state itself, not mandated by an outside institution like the United Nations. With the elimination of 6 million Jews in less than 3 years though, the world was in need of new protections of human rights, clearly outlined and spelled out. The Holocaust provided the global community with a launch pad for necessary language to be written on human rights.

This tragic event was also pivotal to the implementation of permanent and spelled out human rights because the atrocities were largely ignored by the great world powers of the time. In an optimistic view, these powers had no human rights language or legal power to enforce a declaration against Hitler’s destruction of the Jews. Others may argue they were too selfish to care about the Jews but I truly believe that because of the new language provided to the world with the Universal Human Rights Declaration the protection of human rights has improved. Events like the Holocaust have occurred since the 1940s but because of the document, they have been stopped, or attempted to be stopped, by the global community. This is a step in the right direction, regardless of opinions on how effective this global community actually remains. The Holocaust is pivotal to understanding the development of human rights because it was the catalyst for what we know today as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with human rights?

The Holocaust is one of the most horrific and treacherous events that happened in European history. It does not even go far enough to say that the Holocaust was a human rights violation. It was a complete disregard by Nazis of almost every single human right that Holocaust victims possessed. The Holocaust delineates everything that a nation should not do to its people. As I look down my list of Internationally Recognized Human Rights, I literally cannot find one that was not violated during the Holocaust. It violated the most basic right to life, to an identity as a human being living on this planet Earth.
While walking through the Shoah memorial I became extremely emotional. I still cannot grasp how any groups of people are able to do some of the things that happened in the Holocaust to other human beings. What I don’t understand most of all about the Holocaust is how it went on for so long. I think the biggest human rights issue that may have to be noted is the lack of interference between nation-states and Nazi Germany. Instead of taking action when Global Powers became aware of what was happening at the concentration camps to millions of Jews and several other minorities, the Global Powers just turned their backs in order to avoid confrontation. I think that is the most immoral and flabbergasting occurrence of them all. Who could those victims turn to if the whole world turned their back on them until it was convenient to step in? This is an important message that I hope has been carried with all different nation-states around the world.
I am very grateful for this opportunity I had to further explore the treacheries of the Holocaust. It has opened my eyes to what I have to be grateful for, and how much the world still has to work on, until we can ultimately conquer freedom for all six billion of us.

Post WWII concern with Human Rights.

There are many reasons why the Holocaust is central to the post World War II concern with human rights. The Holocaust used propaganda to induce systematic mass murdering of millions of human beings. Also because it occurred in a developed country and all throughout Europe and was so “hidden” from the rest of the world. Personally I think that human rights became such a big deal because people needed an excuse to justify not responding to the urgency of the holocaust since there were many countries and world leaders that new about the concentration and extermination camps. After the Holocaust, everyone focused on “never again” and so human rights concerns developed rapidly.

One of the quotes used in the Shoal memorial was "Let us make it our own, live and build upon this crime and despite this crime". Despite the many genocides in the last century, the one that brought human rights to the surface was the World War II Holocaust. This genocide was one of the most systematic ever, and was carried out not only by civilians, but was organized by educated persons that held degree's. Most genocides have a certain amount of propaganda that organize people against a certain group, often using past conflicts to help rationalize it. The holocaust used centuries of anti-Semitism to organize mass murders. In 1943 in Birkenau, it became possible to gas 3,000 people simultaneously and burn nearly 4,800 bodies, all within twenty-four hours.

"They shed their blood for France in 1870 and again in 1841, as faith of their unfailing attachment to this country. Despite the humiliation and constant threats of roundup during World War II, french and immigrant Jews shared an unwavering attachment to France, to the revolution and to human rights."

Holocaust and Post WWII Concern with Human Rights

The Holocaust is an important event in history to remember all over the world due to the violations with Germany and other governments imposed on the Jewish population in Europe. Countries’ governments like the United States and France, did not seem to stand up against the German army but rather they avoided getting into conflict with the Germans. The concern with human rights post WWII was that the governments didn’t care and that there was nothing to rectify what happened. There were several human rights violations against the targeted Jewish population.

What makes the Holocaust such an important topic when speaking about human rights is that the Holocaust shows how much the world disregarded human rights during that time. It let itself disregard the human rights of a population and what repercussions came about ignoring them were devastating. During the Nazi occupation of Germany and its surrounding countries, the Jewish population had virtually no human rights as the government convinced the people that Jewish people were destroying the country. Even as citizens of a certain country like in France or Poland, as the German government began taking over, they no longer cared that they were citizens, they were just seen as Jewish and . The French government allowed for the Nazis to come and take over part of the government. They allowed for the French people and the French police to help round up the Jewish population to be sent off to the concentration camps. Basically, the French turned against the Jewish and turned a blind eye to what was happening to them after they were deported to the camps.

The Holocaust doesn’t just signify one or two violations of human rights but several violations to a specific population. The Memorial de la Shoah, was very depressing to say the least. Millions of Jewish people were killed in extermination camps via gas chambers, others from experimentation, others from beatings, starvation and several other things. One of the quotes that stated clearly what the Jews were forced to do: “A Jewish deportee was not there to work or die, but to work and die.” They were rounded up and basically worked until they died with very little clothing in the cold, beatings and a lack of food, it was not a surprise that millions of Jews died via working to death. No one should ever have to go through what the Jewish people had to during this period in time. Clearly, this is a violation of several basic human rights.

Human rights are a very important concept and to overlook the Holocaust would be ridiculous. There were so many violations and it was important after WWII to make sure that these violations didn’t happen again and that there was a consensus to what pertains to the rights of a human. From the Holocaust we can see what basic human rights were violated, like the right to life, food, water, shelter. There needed to be protection for what people went through and post WWII, the concern with human rights and the protection of these rights are very high.

Memorial de la Shoah

Elyse Saretsky

Memorial de la Shoah Blogpost

When faced with the question, “Why is the Holocaust central to the post World War II concern with Human Rights?,” I feel as though I have many answers. Most obviously, the Holocaust is a clear illustration of human rights violations during World War II. As we read and heard about from Mr. Michlin, as well as from other victims and historical and religious experts, millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazi’s during the Holocaust. The Holocaust represents a clear moment in history where human lives were sacrificed for no reason other than hate. According to the documents handed out in class, out of the 50,000,000 who perished during World War II, 6,000,000 were Jews. This is a very high number – almost 12% of people who died in the war were Jews. I have learned about the Holocaust for my whole life – both in my public school education and my Hebrew school education – however I find that I can always learn more about the topic, and this assignment proved that sentiment. Traveling to the Memorial de la Shoah was a very meaningful experience for me, and helps to visually solidify the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Before the entrance of the memorial, I was especially moved by the wall names listing the French victims of the Holocaust. Seeing the number of French Jews’ lives taken as a result of the Holocaust is truly saddening and also shocking. It is shocking that entire walls of stone can be dedicated to the names of the deceased. This made me think about how lucky I am that none of my grandparents were affected by the Holocaust. My grandparents immigrated to the United States from Russia and Poland before the Holocaust started.

Also in the memorial I was intrigued by the boxes full of identification cards, listing the names and descriptions of French jews’ who died during the Holocaust. I remember reading on one of the informational boards about how it wasn’t until the 1990s that the French government admitted their involvement and responsibility regarding the Holocaust. I found this to be particularly notable, because I would have expected the French government to recognize this long before. Michlin also spoke about the French government’s admittance in his memoir, and although I was not present for his lecture, this is one of the questions I submitted to ask him.

Because the Holocaust has such close ties to the human rights issue, I thought it may be interesting to take a look at the documents we were given in class and apply them to this situation. In 1948, after the Holocaust ended, the United Nations released the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first line of this declaration states, “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…” To me, this statement means that every person on the earth should be treated with the same respect and dignity as any other person. I believe that after the Holocaust there was a great need for such a document.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this unit, and after studying in class I feel as though I have a better understanding of how the Holocaust is a prime example of a violation of human rights during the World War II.