Article Comparison

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/jordan-hosts-80000-syrian-refugees-15793667#.T0p7SXKH-uI

The audience of this article is never made clear, however it is safe to assume that the article is directed toward people who are not in the area of the conflict and ill-informed, like people in the United States.  The claim of this informal article is that the violence in Syria is causing refugees to flee to Jordan.  They support this by stating that approximately 83,000 refugees have fled from Jordan to Syria since the conflict started 11 months ago.  This can be approximately guessed because about 10,000 of the refugees have entered Jordan illegally and there is no way to know the official number. 

In the book, this article is well reflected early on when many Jewish families leave for the Gouvernement.  Like many of the Syrian refugees, the Jewish families wanted to flee the conflict that was coming, or had already made its way to their country.  Like the refugees in Syria, who were in Jordan without jobs or a place to stay if they did not have friends or family awaiting them, many of the Jewish families arrived in the Gouvernement without any means to provide for themselves and had make due as well as they could.

Letter for All But My Life

9168 Rolling Greens Trl.

Miamisburg, OH 45342

February 17, 2012

Dear Gerda,

                I was writing in response to your decision to not stay in Sosnowitz.  Even though it was your choice to make, I must say I do not agree with your decision.

                Do not get me wrong, I do understand why you chose to leave.  You did not want to feel as if you were being forced into a marriage you didn’t want.  You believe that by accepting the help from Abek’s family that you would be obligated to marry Abek after the war.  For this reason I can understand your choice to leave.  In your mind, you would rather have an uncertain future, then a future in which you would be safe, but would not be happy.

                However, I believe that you should have chosen to stay.  By staying in Sosnowitz, you would have been guaranteed safety from the Nazi’s, at least for an extended amount of time.  By choosing to leave Sosnowitz, you were condemning yourself to an uncertain future.  You could not be certain if the camp you were going to was a labor camp or a death camp.  If you had chosen to stay, you could have been certain that you would have been safe, and even then your marriage to Abek would not be set in stone.

                However, given that your decision is already been made, I wish you luck on the path that you now follow.

Sincerely,

Jonathan

All But My Life stages of genocide

In the beginning of the book All But My Life by Gerda Weissman Klein, the stages of genocide are presented in small examples and concepts.  However, the stage of polarization is one of the most prominently displayed stages.  Though all of the stages except denial are present, polarization is the only stage that has a key part in the beginning of this story; all of the other stages are displayed in quick moments or only talked about.  Polarization is when groups of people are separated by the government or extremists through the use of propaganda, discriminatory laws, or by actually physically separating the groups.  These groups are often either the targets of the genocide and the perpetrators of the genocide or subgroups of the targets, often men and women.  The first time polarization is presented to us is when Gerda’s older brother, Arthur, is forced to register, as was every Jewish male between the ages of 15-50 by Nazi orders, being told that he was to be “taken deep into Poland to rebuild what was destroyed by the bombs” (Klein, 1957, p. 16).  This event was an example of Polarization because it was an order created by the Nazi’s that was designed to separate the Jewish males that would more capable of working and possibly fighting from the rest of the Jewish community.  This fact is given greater notice when it is believed that many of the men who registered were killed by the S.S. who “beat and shot them at random” (Klein, 1957, p. 30).  The separation of Jewish men from the community was again enforced by the creation of a boy’s camp by the S.S.  Another good example of the polarization is when Jews were forced out of their jobs and no longer allowed in their own gardens so that the area could be given to Germans.  This example demonstrates the Nazi desire to remove the Jewish community from the rest of society.

Aid Agency

I believe that Satellite Sentinel would be the best choice for our class to give our money to.  One reason is that Satellite Sentinel uses its satellites to prevent mass murders.  Sentinel uses evidence of impending violence it gains, either by tracking military movement or seeing an increase of military, to take action against the violence.  This fits with our class because we often are angry over inaction to prevent genocide.  Another reason is that Satellite Sentinel helps those affected by genocide and mass murder.  Satellite Sentinel has used its satellites to locate citizens displaced by the destruction of villages so that they can be assisted.  This works with our class because we want to help the victims of genocide of mass murder and war violence.  Preventing genocide and helping the victims of genocide should be our goal, so we should donate to Satellite Sentinel.

Syria

I don't believe that the conflict in Syria is legally considered a genocide.  The government in Syria is mostly concerned with protesters and rebels in Syria.  Though civilians ave been killed by Syrian soldiers, they are mostly protesters and anti-Assad rebels.  In most cases, the killing of a specific group would be considered to be a genocide.  However, the killing of political groups is not legally considered to be a genocide.  Since the majority of people killed in Syria are protestors, defectors, and anti-Assad rebels, the murders are being committed for political reasons, and cannot be considered an act of genocide.

Who's Responsible

I believe that the Hutus, the Tutsis, Belgium, the U.S. government, and the U.N. are to blame for the Rwandan Genocide.  Belgium is responsible for giving the Tutsi minority special privileges, which further increased the hatred from the Hutus.  The Tutsis are responsible for using the special privileges, also adding to Hutu hatred.  The U.N is responsible for failing to prevent the genocide when they had information about what was going to happen but refusing to act.  The Hutus are responsible for resorting to violence in response to the discrimination.  The U.N. and U.S. are then responsible for refusing to act in order to end the genocide, despite having plenty of resources that they could have used. 

Assessing Responsibility

I believe the proper response of one of the people who was marked guilty, i.e. the man who pulled the lever for the gas chamber, should have refused to pull the lever and tried to free some of the Jewish prisoners.  The U.S. should have acknowledged what was happening in Europe and do what ever they could to help Jewish refugees enter the United States.  Today, the international community should do whatever they are capable of to halt the progress of a genocide whenever the possibility is present or has already begun.