Micah Rose

4/23/2016
Rhetoric of the Holocaust

The Greek meaning behind Holocaust is sacrifice by fire. From the early 1930s to the
mid 1940s over 11 million human beings were murdered due to the prejudices of others. The
Holocaust is the most infamous genocide to occur in history. The Holocaust is a brutal reality of
how extremist can be overcome with power to do horrific things to people, literature, and more.
The Yad Vashaem archive not only contains digital collections, but also background information,
research available to anyone, remembrance, and information on the survivors of the Holocaust.
This archive goes beyond with current Holocaust news, and updates on survivors of the
Holocaust. Even in todays time, Nazi solders are still being prosecuted for their role in
murdering millions of people. This archive shows the history of the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler,
while displaying the the historic events that occurred during this time period.
Digital archives serve to share stories, provide information through pictures, videos,
articles, and personal narratives. There is rhetoric presented in just about everywhere we look but
especially in digital archives. Digital archives are created for many different reason, but they all
share SOMETHING Di and in digital archives there are The Yad Vashaem is a memorial
dedicated to the Holocaust victims, family members, and Jewish people. By having a digital
archive, future generations will be able to learn about the Holocaust; the digital archive has a
whole section on personal narratives so generations who will not have the privileged to be alive
when survivors are still alive, will be able to hear personal accounts of the Holocaust by the

survivors. It is one thing to read about the Holocaust in a textbook, but it is another to visually
experience the Holocaust.
The exigency, or the urgency, of the Yad Vashaem archive, is to inform past and future
generations about the Holocaust, how it affected so many lives, and the history of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust has made a huge impact on history, not only in Germany, but across the world.
This digital archive reflects the hatred and power that destroyed many of lives. We, as a World,
need to learn from the Holocaust and make sure something like this never happens again. The
argument, a reasoned discourse that seeks that seeks to persuade by presenting support for a
position(91), is presented with ethos, pathos, and logos in this digital archive. The strongest
appeal used in this digital archive is pathos. Pictures can mean a thousand words, and looking
through and seeing dead babies, tortured human-beings, and the gruesome bodies spread all over
the place is enough to make the average person care about the Holocaust. Though there is never
an argument stated in the Yad Hahuijk archive, it is pretty clear. Prejudice and hatred motivates
people to do horrific things, and if we allow people like this to run our governments, no one is
safe. Lets not repeat history.
Through out the digital archive, there are many symbols, or representations of something
(5). One of the most famous visual symbols presented is the Star of David, the symbol Jewish
people were forced to wear. Seeing the Star of David could evoke emotions depending on the
audience. . The Star of David has a connotation, or emotional attachment to it. Some could take
the Star of David as offensive while others could take it as pride for their religion. Memory is
shown in this digital archive on a personal level and as a culture. Public memory, a particular
type of collection memory type of of collective memory that combines the memory of the

dominant culture and fragments of marginalized groups memories, and enables a public to make
sense of the past, present, and future,(21) is presented in this digital archive. Personal Memory
is also different for different nations. In America, many of Americans identify the Holocaust
with Anne Franks diary because Anne Franks story has been presented to Americas through
public education. This digital archive is a collection that many people have put together through
monuments, and memorials to represent Germanys past. These monuments and memorials
supports public memory, making arguments about how people think about the identities of a
particular groups (75). one from my generation has personal experience with the Holocaust; our
memory is constructed by the education my generation has learned about and the historical
images we have seen.
Language is powerful and can be used to influence people. During many of the personal
narratives there were times when a type of doublespeak was used, euphemism. Euphemism is
described as a word that avoids connotations of harshness or unpleasantness (51) Rhetors in
these personal narratives used words like taken from me, or passed on instead of using the
words murdered or dead. With using the term taken from me, or passed on it takes away the
bruta lbess of the Nazis. . For the rhetors, this may be a way for them to cope with the reality of
a love one being brutally murdered. When using words that does not show the true harshness of
being murdered, it may sound more attractive to an audience and shields them for the pain these
people are feeling. This digital archive also has a great examples of truncated passives,
sentences that use in order to delete the agent of action (52). When students from a school
came to talk about ways to get survivors to talk about their experienced one of the directors
states,

As young people, you have a special role...you may meet Holocaust survivors who
dont want to talk about their experiences, but you must urge them to speak up, while they still
can. The silence must be broken.
The rhetor in this statement is essentially telling young people that it is their duty to
force survivors to speak out about they went through. This can be a away to manipulate survivors
into telling their stories by getting the young people to do the dirty work in a sense and to push
boundaries to get a story out of it. Many survivors are outspoken about their experiences during
the Holocaust and for those who do not want to talk about it, shouldnt have to.