From the Bad Along Comes Good

After the Holocaust I was 14. I had no one. For years. I moved to Israel and met
my husband[now] I have an amazing family. We always had Friday night meals
together. Id say Everyone at this table is mine. Theyre all mine. -Shela Altaraz 1

On January 30th 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The
Jewish population was at 566,000. 2 Hitler served in the German army during
World War II. Like many anti-Semites in Germany, he blamed the Jews for the
countrys defeat in 1918. He joined the National German Workers party which
became the National Socialist German Workers party, or to English speakers,
Nazis. While imprisoned for treason for his part in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923,
Adolf Hitler wrote the memoir and propaganda tract Mein Kampf or My
Struggle, in which he predicted a general European war that would result in the
extermination of the Jewish race in Germany. Hitler was obsessed with the idea of
the superiority of the Aryan race, and with the need for living space for that race
to expand. After the death of Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler took power and
anointed himself as the Fuhrer. 3
The identical goals of racial purity and spatial expansion were the core purposes of
Hitlers worldview, meaning this was his reasoning for the concentration camps
1 http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/jewish_news.php?Itemid=16568
2
3 http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

and the extermination of the Jews. From 1933 onward they would combine forces
to form the driving force behind his foreign and domestic policy. At first, the Nazis
reserved their harshest persecution for political opponents like Communists. The
first official concentration camp opened at Dachau in March 1933, and many of the
first prisoners sent there were Communists. Like the string of concentration camps
that would follow and become the killing grounds of the Holocaust, Dachau was
under the control of Heinrich Himmler, head of the elite Nazi guard, also known as
the Schutzstaffel (SS), and later chief of the German police. By July 1933, German
concentration camps Konzentrationslager in German held some 27,000 people in
what was known as protective custody. Huge Nazi rallies and symbolic acts
such as the public burning of books by Jews, Communists, Liberals and Foreigners
helped drive home the desired message of party strength. From the year 1933 to
1939 many Jews that could leave would, while those who couldnt would live in
constant fear. 4
These past paragraphs are talking about why Hitler has done what he did. If you
look at it and start to study it, you can tell that he was doing what he thought was
right. The Nazis that followed him didnt know anything different. They believed
in his power and that what they were being told to do was correct. The Nazis
didnt know anything different than what they were being instructed to do to the
4 http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

Jews. They believed that this would do good for the country by getting rid of the
Jews and in a sense cleansing the country.
In September 1839 Germans rallied up Jews from Poland and put them into
Ghettos, taking their property and giving it to non-Jews that live outside of Poland
who are considered Germans. These ghettos were surrounded by high walls and
barbed wire fences and controlled by Jewish councils. These ghettos were
overpopulated which caused poverty, unemployment, hunger, and also caused
diseases such as Typhus. While in these ghettos many were chosen to be
institutionalized for mental illness or disabilities and to be gassed to death in a
program called Euthanasia. Hitler put an end to this in August of 1941, although it
still went on in secrecy. The holocaust would continue to take lives throughout
1946 when the allies held the Nuremberg Trials which brought Nazi atrocities to
horrifying light. Allied powers created a homeland, also known as Israel, in 1948
for the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The Jews that survived asked for
payment for the land that they lost while stuck in a concentration camp so starting
in the year of 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jews
and Jewish people as a way to show their responsibility for the crimes that were
committed towards the Jews.5

5 http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

Although this event seems so awful in everyones eyes, it lead to many great
lessons and important parts of history. Remembrance is the first lesson we have
learned from the Holocaust, we must always remember those who were lost in the
holocaust and those who survived it. They have brought us to know what can
happen and how strong we can truly be.6 Is there really good that can come from
something so horrific? Yes, after this has happened we have had a growth. Now in
the First Amendment to the United States Constitution it states ...prohibits the
making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there is no
prohibition on the free exercise of religion..7 This is telling us that we can now
practice any religion that we want without being told what to believe. We cannot be
punished for believing in the God, or figure that we do.
From the medical researches that Adolf has studied throughout the time of having
Jews, he found new advancements in the medical field. Many of the things we
have learned today has helped us to grow in the medical field and find tools to help
us with any medical need we have found. Hitler was doing experiments on the
disabled, twins, and mental patients trying to find ways to help people. We have
come a long way from then to gain the technology that we now have today. It was
hard work, but as I said earlier, Hitler was doing what he believed to be correct.8
6 http://www.aish.com/ho/i/7_Lessons_from_the_Holocaust.html
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
8 http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

The United Nations came to be on October 24 1945. They were working towards a
goal to make human rights shown. The founders of the UN established a number of
agreements and made it a charter that was said to be a vision of what the world
should be. The United Nations asked the countries to promote human rights, but
they personally can not enforce them. This showed growth towards the rights that
we now have today. We are able to do what we want, learn what we want, practice
what we want, and say what we want. We are fighting to stay away from this event
ever happening again.9
Now to introduce Shela, whom I shared the quote from at the beginning of this
paper. I will tell a little bit about her story, starting when she was born. Shela was born
1934 in Stip, Macedonia, the youngest of four children. On March 11, 1943 Shela and her
family were expelled to a city train station and robbed of their property. They were taken
to warehouses of the Monopol Cigarette factory in Skopje, and held in terrible conditions.
Shelas sister Bella was released because of her Italian citizenship. Their mother put
Shela in her sister's arm and told her to take her to Pristina. The family was murdered in
Treblinka. Later on Bella decided to take her life when her husband was taken. Shela
worked for a little while until she was taken to a concentration camp. After the Red Army
liberated the camp she was brought home and moved around a lot. In 1948 she was

9 http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/survival-and-legacy/did-the-world-learn-anything/why-wasthe-united-nations-established/#.WCTrDOYrI2w

moved from an orphanage to Israel where she later met her husband. They got married
and went on to have a family that Shela is happy to have, she finally got a family back. 10
We all go through tough times in our lives. It is not going to be as hard as the
holocaust and losing your whole family to it, but we can all learn from it and from what
Shela has said. We as individuals and as a country can be strong through the hard times
and grow from them. Shela came from a hard childhood and grew up to become happy
and grateful for those that were around her helping her. In my eyes we have been able to
go through a lot, but have been strong. After the Holocaust I was 14. I had no one. For
years. I moved to Israel and met my husband[now] I have an amazing family. We
always had Friday night meals together. Id say Everyone at this table is mine. Theyre
all mine. -Shela Altaraz

Works Cited:
Quote: (1)
http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/jewish_news.php?Itemid=16568
Information: (3,4,5,8)
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust
Lessons from the Holocaust: (6)
http://www.aish.com/ho/i/7_Lessons_from_the_Holocaust.html
10 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2015/altaraz.asp

Shela Altaraz: (10)

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2015/altaraz.asp
United Nations: (9)
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/survival-and-legacy/did-the-worldlearn-anything/why-was-the-united-nations-established/#.WCTrDOYrI2w
Timeline of events: (2)
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html
First Amendment: (7)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitutio
n