The Holocaust: historical overview and significance

¶ … Holocaust stands as proof that humans are not as humane as they might be inclined to believe they are. A lot of apparently good people took place in making the catastrophe happen and failed to realize the extent of their actions. Not only were this men unable to gain a complex understanding of the condition they were in, as they actually came to believe that they were acting on behalf of society as a whole and that they were doing the world a service by going through with their horrible missions. Individuals like Primo Levi and Christopher Browning produced accounts enabling the social order as a whole to comprehend the complete version of how the Holocaust destroyed people on a series of levels.

Levi's book "Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity" emphasizes the horrible nature of crimes in concentration camps. The writer wants his readers to understand the gravity of the Holocaust as seen from a first-person perspective. Moreover, he hopes that by enabling his readers to look at matters this way they are more likely to acknowledge that the genocide did not only involved killings and torture, it also entailed a complex dehumanizing process that virtually destroyed individuals.

From the very first moments when Levi describes his journey to Auschwitz it becomes obvious that the Nazis were determined to destroy their prisoners' lives through every means possible. One of Levi's travel companions is a woman, an individual whom he knew very little about but who came to be one of the most important persons in his life during those moments. "Now, in the hour of decision, we said to each other things that are never said among the living. We said farewell and it was short; everybody said farewell to life through his neighbour. We had no more fear." (Levi 14) In just a matter of days the Nazis had succeeded to perform a first step in the process of dehumanizing their captives.

Browning sheds more light with regard to how many Nazis felt when they were assigned with the task to either torture or kill individuals considered to be 'sub-human'. By focusing on the German Order Police Reserve Unit 101, he made it possible for the readers to understand that they need to break away from considering stereotypes when coming across the idea of a Nazi or of a person who would be capable to get involved in the merciless killing of innocent individuals. The persons Browning discusses did not meet all of the requirements to enter the German military and were thus provided with the task to murder innocent individuals believed to be unworthy to be part of the Third Reich.

The battalion Browning refers to was actually composed mainly of working-class middle-aged individuals who felt that it was perfectly normal to play an active role in the conflict. One of the most intriguing aspects of this particular unit was that men were provided with the opportunity to leave their battalion if they considered that their tasks were too difficult or to cruel for them to take on. Only fifteen out of the approximately five hundred people initially composing the battalion left while the others stayed and continued to play an active part in the genocide unfolding across Europe at the time.

In spite of this case's gruesomeness, it is interesting to see how perfectly normal individuals who are not fanatical and who are not very well acquainted with the purpose of their mission put across an indifferent attitude toward killing innocent. It is likely that disinterested people killing innocent are far more horrifying than people who actually know why they are doing it. These people basically considered this to be no more than a mission and they saw nothing wrong with completing it successfully. They knew that they had to remove the 'sub-human threat' and they did not hesitate to do everything in their power in order to be successful.

Browning described how the individuals in the Reserve Police Battalion 101 were not necessarily indifferent to death, as they felt that it was their job to contribute in some way. If they failed to do so they apparently "risked isolation, rejection, and ostracism -- a very uncomfortable prospect within the framework of a tight-knit unit stationed abroad among a hostile population, so that the individual had virtually nowhere else to turn for support and social contact." (Browning 185) Regardless of whether these people were pressured or not, it is important to look at them from an objective perspective and understand that they were, to a certain degree, similar to their victims. These individuals were caught in a conflict that they did not believe in and they experienced a dehumanizing process that enabled them to get involved in mass-killings without actually feeling any regret as a consequence of their actions.

Both Levi and Browning focus on providing evidence that mass-murders committed during the Holocaust tend to draw the public's attention from other crimes. The Nazi system performed a complex dehumanizing process involving both prisoners and their captors. These people came to be indifferent toward what was happening all around them, as employing such an attitude would guarantee their survival and would enable them to be able to continue their lives without becoming direct victims themselves. Nazi leaders most probably considered that they first needed to destroy people in order for their system to be as effective as it could possibly be.

Although most people would believe that Levi's suffering is not even comparable to what individuals in death units experienced, the reality is that these people also went through horrible events as a result of their role. Having to kill innocent individuals or simply watching them being killed leaves irreparable damage and trauma. While people in concentration camps were both physically and mentally destroyed, persons in death units were primarily destroyed on a mental level, as they had to return to their families knowing that they took part in the killing of innocent men, women, and children.