Stackelbergs reading/vocab

Tara Finn

Hara

25 October 2007

RR #2

The Stackelberg reading on Hitler’s Germany described the atrocities that Jews were put through before and during the war. Even though the Jews only made up ¾ of one percent of Germany’s total population, Hitler, in his Third Reich, wanted to find a “solution” to the Jewish problem. It started with the Enabling Act of 1939 to restrict Jews from land and livestock. Soon, lawyers and doctors could not longer practice and businesses were transferred to non-Jews. There was much debate over those who had only one or two grandparents of Jewish descent and whether they should be counted as aliens. Jews were also restricted to movies, pools, and parks, limiting them to their own places to worship. People over six had to wear a Star of David, so that they could be identified. Germany supported Zionism because that way, the Jews would not be in Germany, they would have their own state. With the start of the war in Poland on September 1, 1939, Jews were no longer considered German at all. It is then that the barbaric acts really began. The solutions were ghettos and concentration camps. Not only were men, women, and children killed, those were not from Arian background were as well. The discovery of a quicker way to exterminate people and get rid of their bodies was the gas chamber that brutally and inhumanely massacred hundreds of people at a time; either with carbon monoxide or Cyclone B. What the Germans did to their own people, who followed different beliefs, was not only gruesome it was animalistic and was not stopped by anyone. It took a World War II to finally stop the mass killings in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union, and many other European countries. The Nazi’s sick and twisted view of the perfect race killed more people then any other war in world history. It is much like today’s genocide in Sudan. It seems that no country is doing enough to help those who are unfairly killed. Whether it is because of other conflicts or not, countries should not be afraid to protect others when something as wrong as this is happening. One would think we would have learned from the first genocide.

The Comic vocabulary was about the explanation of icons and how style can distract or enhance the visual appeal. Words are abstract icons that we automatically associate with certain sounds. Icons can beliefs, like a cross, or ideas, like a heart. We as humans are all self -involved and try picture ourselves in most situation like others see us. His example was if we smile how do we know if we smiled? Yes, we feel our cheeks squint and our eyes become smaller, but how do other see it. It is an icon of happiness to others. Icons are like symbols but can include cartoons and sounds that are familiar.