I figured that since my book revolves
around the social issue, racism. I’d explore Adolf Hitler, the Führer (Leader) of the Nazi party,
and his ridiculed ideas, later formulated to be known as the Nazi Ideology. It
is a main topic that has blossomed in my book, Daniel
Half-Human by
David Chotjewitz, quite a few times now. It sheds the importance of equality
for every human, and disregards their rights as German-Jews. Hitler fabricated
the ideology that human beings could be classified as “races”, differentiated
by physical characteristics passed on through genetics from the first human
beings in prehistoric times. He ordered that the “lowest” common racial
upbringing would deteriorate an Aryan person’s characteristics, attitude,
abilities and behaviour by interchangeable “mixings”. It was the Nazi party
that grew accustomed to the Darwinian evolutionary
theory, that “survival of the fittest” had to be applied to Aryans to produce a
‘race’ that was the purest of them all. The purest would lead to becoming the most
dominate race the world had ever seen. Striving past difficulties, only the
lesser races would face.
The Nuremberg Race Laws, links located below, orders that any interbreed marriage with a ‘parasitic vermin’ and full-blooded Aryan is forbidden. Full punishment will be held for those unfaithful to the laws, exceptions granted to those with a higher ranking above the average German, then they and their Jewish company was granted immunity for some time. The Nazi party looked down on other races, besides Jews, including Roma (Gypsies) descendent, the disabled, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and Afro-Germans. Their goal was to rid Germany of the ‘social outcasts’ then move to get them eliminated from elsewhere.
The
protagonist in my book, Daniel Kraushaar, is faced with confronting the
Nuremberg Laws in his Gymnasium(high school). He is now beginning to
realize that what he really wants to do, which is ignore his half- Jewish side
and agree with the Germans. Is not right and is something in which he should
not do. He starts to question the actions of the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party, more famously known as the Nazi party. Daniel said, “But to
claim that others were subhuman seemed a bit exaggerated, didn’t it?”(Pg. 162)
The protagonists’ mother, Sophie Kraushaar, is an example of the Nazi party’s obedience and loyalty to their new laws. In the book, every Jew and Jewess, fifteen and older not emigrated was ordered to carry a special identification card with a large yellow J on it. Sophie Kraushaar had to take a passport photo with her hair pulled back and head bent forward, exposing the left ear. From Nazi research had indicated that the shape of her left ear was evidence of racial origin. To differentiate the connections between Jewishness and criminality, a fingerprint of every remaining Jew was in order. Stated in the book, “Sophie was made to press her left and right index fingers on an ink pad, then on the identity card.”(Pg. 250) Then to strip the remaining Jews of anymore personal identity. A law placed in August of 1938, demanded that all Jewish males take “Israel” as their middle name and all Jewish females, “Sara.”
The Nuremberg played a huge part
in Daniel Half-Human, it was the very nature that kept Armin
Hillmann, Daniel’s best friend and Miriam, Daniel’s Jewish cousin, apart when
they began it form romantic relationship. It forced Daniel to switch schools,
so that their precious Christianeum be “one hundred percent ‘cleansed of Jews.”
It affected the way Daniel and his family lived their life. It was almost as if
they, were living in a jail cell, subjected to regulated routines, with very
little freedom. The only thing that separated them from that kind of life, was
that Daniel’s father was a full-blooded Aryan that was awarded the Iron Cross,
giving his son and wife limited security from the SA (Sturmabteilung or
Storm Troopers).
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007695- The
Nuremberg Race Laws
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007903 –
Translation: Nuremberg Race Laws
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/DEFN/sturmabt.htm -
Definition of SA
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007457 –
The Holocaust
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-nurem-laws.htm -
The Nuremberg Laws
