The Truth Behind The Collective Memory

When looking through the pages of history, without any doubt one will eventually find themselves reading the detailed recounts of crimes committed during War. When read from the perspective of those who experienced the events, we can feel their pain, desperation and helplessness. From those who enforced these ordeals onto others, we delve into their minds and see the world as they did; what drove their actions and how they felt.

Throughout the latter 1930s and early 1940s, many individuals experienced persecution. As Goldhagen mentioned in his novel, “Social death is a formal status...It is at once a culturally shared concept of the socially dead people and a set of practices towards them” (Goldhagen, 168). In Germany specifically, individuals part of a specific race were deemed to no longer be a human being in the eyes of the “superior race”. The social death of individuals such as Jewish people was obtained through the use of blame for problems faced and then the dehumanization of these individuals. Once the status of social death is reached, it is much easier for people to treat others in a degrading and violent manner. Those facing persecution, such as the Jewish, during World War II, faced immense atrocities. For individuals who were not killed themselves, the vast majority saw their friends and family killed, were stripped away from their homes and identity, were faced with torture, meager living conditions, and immense amounts of labor. On the opposite side, many individuals who took part in performing these atrocities against humanity were cognizant on some level to what they were doing, but were also obstructed

The rise of World War I caused millions of casualties and was yet another demonstration of how supposedly civilized nations could be led into a chaotic war of power over lands and people. Since the beginning of civilization, war has been the way of the world. However, with major advances in technology, this idea of war has since become mechanized and deadlier. There is no doubt that the powerful men who lead wars often don’t care to think of nitty gritty of war, to them, rather, it’s a matter of power and legacy. In Remarque’s novel, the particular story of Paul and his comrades is a perfect example of how a generation can be used and manipulated to drive the agenda of power- hungry men. Through Remarque’s own personal experience and unparalleled writing ability, this novel presents many first-hand experiences into the living conditions of soldiers and peoples.

War is always the worst tragedy of mankind in the world. We, as human beings, were experienced two most dolorous wars that were ever happened in our history: World War I and World War II. A young generation actually does not know how much hardship the predecessors, who joined and passed through the wars, undergo. We were taught about just how many people died in the wars, how much damage two participations in the wars suffered or just the general information about the wars. We absolutely do not know about the details, and that’s why we also do not know what the grief-stricken feeling of people joining in the wars really is. But we can somewhat understand that feeling through war novels, which describe the truthfulness of the soldiers’ lives, thoughts, feelings and experiences. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, which takes World War I as background, is the great war novel which talks about the German soldiers ' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the hopeless of these soldiers about the “future” – the time the war would have ended.

In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque progressively shows the brutality of war through the eyes of soldiers claiming their innocence, and also the effects of war on the people in the home front . In this essay I will be discussing the effect of war on both the combatants and non combatants in this novel.

We all, as a people who have not seen the real war, are left in a state of confusion and uncertainty, when it comes to think about the war times, without real information and impressions of the combatants. Of course, looking from the bigger frame, there is no any event that had demolished the valuable heritage of humankind. But if we get closer, “we cannot, indeed, imagine our own death; whenever we try to do so we find that we survive ourselves as spectators”. People often try to imagine a war, in which 18 years olds had been killed mercilessly for the sake of their land, mothers of the soldiers lost the piece of their hearts and women had waited for their beloved ones even if they knew that they will not come. We are the people who did not

On his writing, Browning shows how “ordinary” men can change their beliefs and their common sense because of the influence of others. In this book, soldiers of the WWII were influenced by the government of Hitler. Browning called it "atrocity by policy” because the damage caused by soldiers wasn’t spontaneous but indeed planned methodically by the government, they had calculations and plans. In addition, Browning explains how members of the police battalion (a Nazi paramilitary formation) slowly started enjoying the idea of murder and torture innocent people. “As in combat, the horrors of the initial encounter eventually became routine” (Browning 1992, p. 161).

War has been a terrible driving force throughout history. One can come to the conclusion that war is a gruesome experience that causes one to become blinded by anger, regret their actions, and feel immense amounts of sorrow for and towards others. The works of literature written by Erich Maria Marque, Thomas Hardy, and Denise Levertov help to shed light on these horrors of war.

In Maus, the German Nazis not only use physical violence to isolate and persecute the Jewish people, but they also take advantage of political propaganda to spread various ideals of Nazism, which include racism and anti-Semitism. The dual use of violent and non-violent means by the Nazis to promote intolerance against the Jews has effectively helped them create a homogenous society in which only the “superior” remains and the ones deemed to be the inferior are filtered out. Particularly, the wide spread of anti-Semitic messages through media, books, and public education has created false, erroneous images of the Jews. The non-Jews become the targets for these messages; they subconsciously internalize the immoral values and beliefs,

In Giles MacDonogh’s After the Reich, the author attempts to reshape the way that we view World War II and its subsequent aftermath in history. Once Germany is defeated in 1945, many tend to think that the end of World War II in Europe finally brought peace back to the ravaged continent. However, as MacDonogh is able to convincingly examine and prove, the end of the war was just the beginning of suffering for millions of Germans spread across Europe. In the book, he sets out to offer a comprehensive view of what happened to the German people when the tables had turned, where they now found themselves defeated and under Allied occupation. In the title, he includes “The Brutal History”, and the author is able to detail and display just how

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.

Collective memories are important because “they are constructed, not simply reproduced”(5). Historical memories “transmit selective knowledge about the past”(5). Simply, collective memories are we chose to remember the past, while historical memories are the facts, albeit selective facts, of history. One issue of collective memory stems from the ability to selectively remember and forget the past(6). Historical memories face issue of being misrepresented or misused by those seeking to create a certain memory(12). Collective memory can also be misused to appear to represent the majorities memory, often used in the form of “public monuments” that are either owned by the public nor have been erected with public consensus(13). Historical memory

Memory is a very special thing to have, especially for the community. The people of the community do not have memory. The citizens of the community do not have memories for very special reasons and rules. If the world's history was all erased, then many people would think that many other people and countries would be nicer to each other. There would be no racism and no different religions. There would also be no war. Everything in the world would just be the same. It would be better to have individual memory and instead of collective memory because there are worse things that can happen with collective memory.

Narratives are the culturally historical symbols and “memories” nation’s use to uphold modern values, customs, and practices. Through the course of history and the collective memory of the people, a variety of narratives are formed; and while some last in the mainstream, other narratives fade into the background of the national and practiced culture. However, these narratives do not necessarily disappear, and some remain relatively strong in the mentalities of the public―even in times of legitimate and/or long-lasting hegemonic values that stand in opposition. This paper will examine the influences of official and alternative narratives, how they are selected through historical and collective memory, and hegemonic impacts through the narratives

However, the context of war and riotous massacres was a constant desire in the military force, in a motive to portray a brave and a ‘nothing-but-stalwart-nation’ image of the country. Their beliefs stated that the turbulence of violence and mass wars helped the nation to face the complex vile and plights that couldn’t be exterminated otherwise.Thus, this plays upon the views of people regarding the ‘black or white’ conspiracy in emphasis to the battles and that the war took a large extent of World War I, regardless of societal morals, where one marks it as “crows devouring another crow’s skeleton”, where another marks it as “the revolution and war to end all wars and conflicts”. To sum it up, World War I (The Great War) was a renowned fight for all the violence and prejudicial themes and wars that led to bloodshed and to more homicides, and one cannot deny how it still affects today’s contemporary