According to Martin Kitchen, a professor of history at Simon Fraser University and an internationally recognized expert on German and Austrian military and economic history, “the economy was making an astonishing recovery, unemployment was largely overcome, and Hitler was regarded as a major statesman…He was on the whole, admired.” Hitler at first was not widely accepted, but deemed as crazy. However this view point of Hitler drastically changed after he helped the country come out of the Great Depression. People began to see him as their idol. People acted on “faith” when it came to Hitler’s views on anti-Jew outlook. They had already seen the great things he had accomplished within Germany, so they believed him when he said “Jews were the reason for all things bad”. Anne Frank was right in saying “people are really good at heart” because people’s surroundings greatly influence their actions and beliefs.
Anne Frank gave a first hand account in her diary explaining the very details of what real hiding is. Although she was classified as an “animal” and “nonhuman” she still had faith in a better tomorrow. She watched family and friends pass away, and saw what starvation and turmoil could do to someone emotionally, mentally, and physically. It’s amazing and incredibly heart warming to know that Anne Frank thought that the Nazi and Hitler’s actions were justified not because they were right but because of mere bewilderment.
Much like Anne Frank, I too have have witnessed what pure hatred can do to a person and their ideology. There’s a boy by the name of Timothy in my old school who despised people of Middle Eastern descent, whether they were born in the United States or not. He called them names such as “parasites, dogs, vermin, terrorists, beasts, and murderers”. There were two people in my school who were of Middle Eastern descent, but were born in the United States. One was a boy while the other was female. The girl wore a hijab, a head covering worn by Muslim women. Timothy would walk behind the girl and try to reveal the young girl’s face while other students would make a mockery of the situation; however no one tried to stop him. The girl would scream when she felt him tugging on her hijab and began crying after he sprinted away. Timothy would chant horrid songs behind both the two children like “murderers you are, you hate Americans just like we do you, no matter though, you will die soon, don’t worry we’ll get you before you kill more.”
One day the boy became so fed up with Timothy that in lunch he blindly went up to him and confronted him not realizing that no one would be at his aid. To his dismay he didn’t receive the conversation he was anticipating. Timothy punched him square in his face and scolded him for having such disrespect to think he could talk to him in his face. The boy got up and a week later was never seen in the school again. The girl however remained in the school and her parents filed numerous complaints on Timothy, but the complaints fueled his fire and began promoting his “fun”. He now recruited eleven to twelve people to reprimand this girl for her ethnicity because people who looked like her terrorized the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
Although the incident in my school wasn’t as great as World War II where there were 63 million casualties, which is approximately three percent of the world’s population, it was still a massive conflict. This massive genocide however, commenced with one person and his beliefs much like it began with Timothy to eleven people. Hitler’s opinions spread throughout Europe, but began with him and his country of Germany. He convinced his entire country that Jews were worthless, and deemed them as “deficient humans”. If Timothy continued spreading his opinion on Muslims and the Middle Eastern, I assure you he would have gained support from many other people. However, students have learned from the mistakes people have made in our history, so Timothy wouldn’t acquire the amount o followers he was hoping for.
Although there will not be another genocide, the United States’ president has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of troops are now occupying these countries and implementing their laws and regulations. There have been many casualties in our “War on Terror” but the U.S. will continue to do what they think must be done much like World War II and Timothy’s assault on Muslims. Hitler had the mentality that Jews were the cause of the Great Depression, so he expressed his opinions and the amount of supporters grew. Timothy had the mentality that because of what occurred on 911 (September 11,2001; terrorist attack on the U.S.) all Muslims were terrorists and must be treated as such. The president of the U.S. has probable evidence to point to Iraq and Afghanistan for weapons of mass destruction because the U.S. is frightened of another terrorist attack. All these examples have a legitimate reason to be frightened, so they reacted the only way they knew how.
Anne Frank was right in saying “people are really good at heart” because people’s surroundings greatly influence their actions and beliefs. Prominent world leaders all make mistakes no matter how miniscule or massive they might be. In these cases, the suspects thought that they were right and gave probable evidence to support their claims. Some people supported them while others disagreed much like any conflict. The beauty of these cases were that we can either see them as ignorant or seem them as just influenced by authority or plainly wanting someone to blame. Whatever the case, they alone can not be blamed. “The environment we live in greatly depends on the person we will become”.(Psychology First Edition, Albert Reicner, 258).
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It's quite sad that Muslim girls are not allowed to wear veils and hijabs if they wish to. There are good reasons behind forbidding it, as many girls are forced to, but others just want to follow their religion.