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.