"One death is a tragedy: a million deaths is a statistic," said Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately, this tends to be the truth. Numbers are a useful tool for measuring things that are too big for us to understand in any other way, e.g., how far it is from earth to the sun. But using numbers often blunts the reality of human tragedies.The Yad Vashem site tries to make the victims of the Holocaust something more than just statistics. Its database is an attempt to preserve a memory of as many individual victims as possible.
Browse through the database, and look through some of the individual pages of testimony. What do you find interesting/memorable in these pages?
I think that it is very interesting as to how all of the names of those who were killed in the Holocaust were found. It is also interesting to me as to how the deaths were determined. Obviously the names and type of execution were probably documented by the Nazi regime, however, it is still interesting as to how the names were found and documented onto a public website. I believe that it is a great thing to do to help remember those who lost their lives during the Holocaust. I also love the fact that the operators of the website are doing everything they can to find the rest of the names of those who lost their lives and give information on their lives. It is a great way to help honor those who suffered for no true reason.
ReplyDeleteDan Gallagher
I thought that the list of names in the databases makes the holocaust more personal. For example, I searched my last name and there were two people with my last name listed on the site. It made me think of my family and how it just maybe could have been us in that situation. It makes my heart feel more for the people in the holocaust when they are thought of more as a person like myself and my family rather than just a statistic and even in history.
ReplyDelete- Cody Martens