William Brody Thomas

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1102-009
January 12, 2015

Wondering 1: My Knowledge of the Holocaust

Throughout my life and education Ive discussed, read, or watched many things about the
holocaust. As a kid I was always interested in the history of World War II, I also learned about
the holocaust. So I guess you can say I knew a little more than most kids when it came to the
subject. I also learned a good amount about the holocaust while in high school. I took two
different history classes that discussed it in detail but that was a while ago so I dont remember
everything. I have a good back ground knowledge on the holocaust but hope to learn more
during this class when studying and writing about it this semester.
As previously stated when I was a kid I was really interested in history, especially the
history of World War II. This big interest in history led me to educating myself on a lot of it
including the holocaust. I did this by watching TV shows and movies such as The Boy in the
Striped Pajamas. This movie was a real eye opener for me as a kid because it really showed how
badly the Jews were treated by the Nazi Party. Before seeing the movie I had read a few books
about the holocaust such as Night by Elie Wiesel, The Boy Who Dared by Susan Bartoletti, and
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. These books were all told from the point of view kids who
lived during the holocaust and even experienced it. My history classes in high school also

covered the holocaust. We had many discussions and watched a few films about the history of
the holocaust and Hitlers Nazi party who orchestrated all of it. My school invited a guest
speaker had a guest speaker who survived the holocaust come and talk to the whole high school
and middle school about his experience.
So Ive covered how I gained the knowledge about the holocaust I have today. I am now
going to talk about what exactly I know. So first off it all took place during World War II when
the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, had power. He had the idea of the perfect race, the Aryan
race. His main target in the takeover were Jewish people. Since everyone looked at Hitler as a
Powerful leader they never tried to put a stop to his rein until his ideas had gone way to far which
was capturing, all the Jews he could find with the use of his personal Army The SS. During the
capturing Jews were murdered, their homes destroyed, and everything taken from them. The
survivors of the round up were taken to concentration camps scatted across Europe to be worked
to their death or killed by gas chambers or shot by the Nazis running the camp. During the
holocaust there were around eleven million people killed.
Overall I feel that I have a pretty good general knowledge about the holocaust. I think
being interested in World War II had a lot to do with my current holocaust knowledge. From that
interest is where I read the books The Boy Who Dared, Night, and The Book Thief these books
really put the holocaust in perspective for me and also made me more interested in the subject.
The movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas did the same thing but instead of me having to use
my imagination it showed in detail what happened. Since Ive always found this subject
interesting I am looking forward to learning more about it from reading literature and also
writing about horrific event in history.