Condemned to Remember
On the 16th of January all TYs and 3rd years were brought to the EYE cinema in Galway to see the documentary "Condemned to Remember". Its about Tomi Reichental, who is a holocaust survivor, and his life now as he spreads awareness of he holocaust and the actions that are happening in today's world that are similar to what happened then.
What struck you about the event?
What struck me about the event was that is didn’t realise there were still survivors of the Holocaust left in Ireland. Tomi didn’t look that old to me and if I saw him on the street I would never imagine that he was a Holocaust survivor. It’s hard to see him in person and accept that he was a part of such a big part of history that I’ve read about in the history books in school. The documentary didn’t focus on the actual events of the Holocaust as much as I thought it would; it focused a lot on how similar events are happening right now all over the world. It also looked at all the SS soldiers that are still alive today and showed one old man in his 90s getting arrested because he was responsible for about a third of a million people. It felt wrong to see such an old man getting sent to prison but obviously they deserve to be held responsible for their crimes.
What was surprising?
I was shocked by how much racism is still present in today’s society and how in countries like Slovakia there are things happening that are exactly like what happened in the holocaust. For example the persecution of a certain race/religion. There was one scene in the documentary where a muslim family were being aggressively shouted at in the middle of the town for being muslim. Things like “Get out of our country” , “We don’t want any muslims here” were shouted at them along with other abuse. There were two parents and 2 or 3 kids in the family. They were young children, maybe between 3 to 7 years old. The young girl was crying and holding her mother’s leg while the large group of grown adults were abusing her family. I found it hard to watch and hard to believe that someone could watch young children so distressed and continue to shout at and abuse them.
There was another scene set in the same town in Slovakia where a group of grown men were physically attacking a Jewish man. They were also shouting abuse at him like “get out of here jew”. This scene shocked me because I have never seen something like that happen in real life and I didn’t think this kind irrational hate existed. Obviously I know that there are some racist people in the world but I didn’t think that it happened at this big of a scale and against Jews anymore. I would’ve thought that being racist towards Jewish people doesn’t happen anymore because of the holocaust and what they went through. In this scene the police eventually broke apart the fight but they arrested the Jewish man. This also shocked me because even the law enforcement was showing obvious racism.
One of the most shocking things for me was when …….. Was telling us that his grandfather was a nazi soldier during the holocaust and in the 1850’s he told ….. that the only thing Hitler was guilty of was not killing all the Jews. I couldn’t believe that almost 40 years after the war he still thought that. After everything they did had been discovered and everyone was aware of how wrong the nazi’s actions were. It amazed me how deluded and brainwashed the soldiers really were.
What action does this inspire?
Seeing this movie and listening to Tomi has definitely made me more aware of racism around me and how we have to stand up for minorities and people being persecuted for no reason other than irrational hatred. This kind of hatred can easily build to possess a whole town/city/country like in Slovakia. If no one stands up against it and people are too afraid to speak out then it becomes accepted in the community and grows to a dangerous level.
On the 16th of January all TYs and 3rd years were brought to the EYE cinema in Galway to see the documentary "Condemned to Remember". Its about Tomi Reichental, who is a holocaust survivor, and his life now as he spreads awareness of he holocaust and the actions that are happening in today's world that are similar to what happened then.
What struck you about the event?
What struck me about the event was that is didn’t realise there were still survivors of the Holocaust left in Ireland. Tomi didn’t look that old to me and if I saw him on the street I would never imagine that he was a Holocaust survivor. It’s hard to see him in person and accept that he was a part of such a big part of history that I’ve read about in the history books in school. The documentary didn’t focus on the actual events of the Holocaust as much as I thought it would; it focused a lot on how similar events are happening right now all over the world. It also looked at all the SS soldiers that are still alive today and showed one old man in his 90s getting arrested because he was responsible for about a third of a million people. It felt wrong to see such an old man getting sent to prison but obviously they deserve to be held responsible for their crimes.
What was surprising?
I was shocked by how much racism is still present in today’s society and how in countries like Slovakia there are things happening that are exactly like what happened in the holocaust. For example the persecution of a certain race/religion. There was one scene in the documentary where a muslim family were being aggressively shouted at in the middle of the town for being muslim. Things like “Get out of our country” , “We don’t want any muslims here” were shouted at them along with other abuse. There were two parents and 2 or 3 kids in the family. They were young children, maybe between 3 to 7 years old. The young girl was crying and holding her mother’s leg while the large group of grown adults were abusing her family. I found it hard to watch and hard to believe that someone could watch young children so distressed and continue to shout at and abuse them.
There was another scene set in the same town in Slovakia where a group of grown men were physically attacking a Jewish man. They were also shouting abuse at him like “get out of here jew”. This scene shocked me because I have never seen something like that happen in real life and I didn’t think this kind irrational hate existed. Obviously I know that there are some racist people in the world but I didn’t think that it happened at this big of a scale and against Jews anymore. I would’ve thought that being racist towards Jewish people doesn’t happen anymore because of the holocaust and what they went through. In this scene the police eventually broke apart the fight but they arrested the Jewish man. This also shocked me because even the law enforcement was showing obvious racism.
One of the most shocking things for me was when …….. Was telling us that his grandfather was a nazi soldier during the holocaust and in the 1850’s he told ….. that the only thing Hitler was guilty of was not killing all the Jews. I couldn’t believe that almost 40 years after the war he still thought that. After everything they did had been discovered and everyone was aware of how wrong the nazi’s actions were. It amazed me how deluded and brainwashed the soldiers really were.
What action does this inspire?
Seeing this movie and listening to Tomi has definitely made me more aware of racism around me and how we have to stand up for minorities and people being persecuted for no reason other than irrational hatred. This kind of hatred can easily build to possess a whole town/city/country like in Slovakia. If no one stands up against it and people are too afraid to speak out then it becomes accepted in the community and grows to a dangerous level.