The movie “Sophie’s Choice” is a very well done film that shows the tragic story of a woman 

who is transported to a death camp with her two children and must pick one of them to live and 

one to be killed. How could someone? A mother who loves her children more than anything, 

must give one to death? The Nazi’s had no compassion and most of the time wouldn’t even 

let a mother pick either. The bond between families is the most powerful thing someone could 

have in something like the holocaust and death camps, the Nazi’s would separate families and 

ruin this. Elie took care of his father through every journey they encountered and kept him living, 

his father being sick helped Elie to stay alive as well. Without Elie’s father there, He might’ve died 

and without Elie, it is believe his father would have died much sooner. 

The Nazi’s made this woman pick one child and it was heart breaking to even think about doing 

something as hard as that.

 

Prisoners were to wear striped in-mate clothing in Death camps and they would lay 3-6 to a 

bed, with no mattress. They were fed but barely anything, they would receive broth and sometimes 

stale bread. The conditions in Poland and many other areas of death camps were freezing cold and 

the Jews were forced to work for their life in these cold conditions with barely any clothing, in return 

just for one more day of their life. It is horrible to think that men and women would be killed for not 

doing hard labor work, and if they were unfit to work they were killed. These people were treated 

like slaves by the Nazi Germans and it is sickening. So many lives lost to the holocaust, so many 

educated people and dreams, maybe somebody that could have cured diseases or even cancer.

 

Elie was transported by train to the Death camp in Auschwitz it was enormous, strange and 

nothing like hes ever seen before, on the entrance read “work will make you free”. Elie was separated 

from his sister and mother when they were told they were going to be put into showers. He was then 

alone with his father. He never saw his mother and sister ever again as they were to be killed in gas 

chambers. In “Schindler’s list” by Roman Polanski, the gas chambers are shown, how the innocent 

Jews are lied to so they will not be aware of what is to come. In the interview of Elie Wiesel with Oprah 

Winfrey you will actually be able to see the thousands of gas cans used to kill the Jews and how tragic it 

was when the people were killed so cruelly. 

  

The final months of the War,  Jewish inmates were to be put on trains from labor camps and then to 

be transported to another one, or march from camp to camp. this was known as a “death march”.

In order for the liberation of the Jewish people to be less of a number and more spread out. Elie 

Weisel was in a death march and witnessed many people dying all around him and the now skeletal 

beings that could barely even stand were marching to their deaths just in hope of living after this terrible 

event. They marched in freezing weather with light clothing on and only stopped for short while. Elie 

was with his father and they made it through the death march, Elie survived and his father died in Buchenwald. 

 is shown in “


Schindler’s list” That one of the first steps of the Holocaust started with Germans soldiers 

going to cities and homes of Jewish people to “size up” and find out how many people of the Jewish religion 

were living there. Then they began taking the Jewish from their homes and put them into ghettos or an organized 

concentration of people which would then be an enormous Jewish community so it would be easier to transport 

them to Labor Camps or also known as “Death Camps” because the majority of the Jewish people sent there 

eventually died from starvation or were killed, including infants and women. The German Nazi’s were under 

order of Adolf Hitler, a very sick man who lied to and brainwashed the people into thinking horrible things of 

the Jewish population, they did not think for themselves because they were being told they would be brought 

out of their depressed economy and were cruel beings who had no care for innocent Jews. 

Introduction

film “The pianist” Based on a book by Wladyslaw Szpilman shows the terrible trials Jewish people were put

through during the holocaust through one man’s eyes by losing his house, life, where he lived, his family and his

everything.  The Holocaust was a terrible, disgusting and tragic event that took place under the hand of Nazi Germans.

Millions of innocent people were put through terrible things and millions were tortured, forced to work and killed if

they were unable to do so. An approximate 11 to 17 million people in total were victims of the holocaust and over 6

million innocent Jewish people were murdered. Any children who were too young or elders who were as well were told

they were going to take a shower and then were murdered in gas chambers, or shot. It is incredible to think that

something would happen like this and nobody could do anything about it. Many Jewish people lost their faith

and religion and believed that if there really was a God, why he would let this happen. Most of those who still did

believe in Judaism believed that they were being punished for their wrong doings.