Connections
Adolf Hitler wanted to establish a "New Order," which included domination (and extermination) of many groups of people. As a result, millions of innocent people died in the Holocaust, including over six million of Jewish faith. This reminds me of the Hunger Games. While the Holocaust may not have been a public form of entertainment like the Games, the millions of children, women, and men who died were killed by those who were either forced to kill or it was their job and they willingly did it. These murderers may have been the victims' peers, or their neighbors, and maybe even their friends. Did they want to kill them? Did they do it because they had to or because it meant their life was spared? Or were they brainwashed by the political propaganda they were fed and believed they were superior to the Jewish people and other minorities? When you look at both perspectives, you see that Katniss and the other tributes are put into the same position many German soldiers and citizens were: kill or be killed. People can easily be persuaded to believe one group of people is superior over all others. It happens all of the time and it happened in the Holocaust and the Hunger Games. How would you react after being fed lies about a group of people, then asked to kill those people? Would you be the type to happily follow orders, or would you rebel against the government and try to help you're human comrades?
In The Hunger Games, we see both kinds of characters. Katniss is sickened by the senseless deaths of her fellow tributes and tries to find a way to survive without having to kill offensively. Other characters, like Clove and Cato, take pleasure in killing the other tributes. Therefore, I don't think it is a far stretch to view the actions of some of the characters (such as Peeta, Thresh, Rue, and Katniss) as similar to those who tried to protect the Jewish people during the Holocaust (such as Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family). Each one of these Hunger Games characters tried to protect another tribute from death: Peeta led the Careers away from Katniss and took on Cato so she could escape; Rue warned Katniss of the tracker jacker nest and became her ally; Thresh spared Katniss's life because Katniss had tried to protect Rue and was kind to her before she died; Katniss risked her life to save Peeta's at the feast and came up with the idea to fake their suicides so they could both live. They all risked their lives to protect others, just as Miep Gies and many others (like Oskar Schindler and Arstides de Sousa Mendes, who used their status to falsify documents or issue visas, risking their own lives in the process).
I think The Hunger Games, and certainly Catching Fire and Mockingjay, offer valuable connections to so many events in history, and even present day. Perhaps when reading Catching Fire, you will see similarities between the actions of President Snow and modern-day world leaders. Maybe even when reading Mockingjay, you will contemplate the reasons nations go to war and will think of other ways to solve the problems of the world.
In The Hunger Games, we see both kinds of characters. Katniss is sickened by the senseless deaths of her fellow tributes and tries to find a way to survive without having to kill offensively. Other characters, like Clove and Cato, take pleasure in killing the other tributes. Therefore, I don't think it is a far stretch to view the actions of some of the characters (such as Peeta, Thresh, Rue, and Katniss) as similar to those who tried to protect the Jewish people during the Holocaust (such as Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family). Each one of these Hunger Games characters tried to protect another tribute from death: Peeta led the Careers away from Katniss and took on Cato so she could escape; Rue warned Katniss of the tracker jacker nest and became her ally; Thresh spared Katniss's life because Katniss had tried to protect Rue and was kind to her before she died; Katniss risked her life to save Peeta's at the feast and came up with the idea to fake their suicides so they could both live. They all risked their lives to protect others, just as Miep Gies and many others (like Oskar Schindler and Arstides de Sousa Mendes, who used their status to falsify documents or issue visas, risking their own lives in the process).
I think The Hunger Games, and certainly Catching Fire and Mockingjay, offer valuable connections to so many events in history, and even present day. Perhaps when reading Catching Fire, you will see similarities between the actions of President Snow and modern-day world leaders. Maybe even when reading Mockingjay, you will contemplate the reasons nations go to war and will think of other ways to solve the problems of the world.
Nightmare by: Avenged Sevenfold
Nightmare! (Now your nightmare comes to life) Dragged ya down below Down to the devil's show To be his guest forever (Peace of mind is less than never) Hate to twist your mind But God ain't on your side The Jews believed in a different God than Hitler and the Nazis And old acquaintance severed (Burn the world your last endeavor) Flesh is burning They would actually burn the Jews alive in the camps You can smell it in the air In the movie, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, Bruno and his family could smell the bodies burning from the camps Cause men like you have Such an easy soul to steal (steal) So stand in line while The Jews had to stand on trains for days without food and water They ink numbers in your head The Jews got ink tattoos with numbers on their arms You're now a slave The Jews had to work hard every day in the camps Until the end of time here Nothing stops the madness, No one could stop Hitler Turning, haunting, yearning Pull the trigger The Nazis working in the camps were willing to shoot the Jews whenever You should have known The price of evil And it hurts to know That you belong here, yeah The camps were specifically made for the Jews because Hitler and all his followers thought they all belonged there Ooh, it's your f*****' nightmare The internment camps were hell on earth for millions of people (While your nightmare comes to life) Can't wake up in sweat 'Cause it ain't over yet Still dancing with your demons (Victim of your own creation) Beyond the will to fight After a while the Jews lost all the will to fight back Where all that's wrong is right Where hate don't need a reason (Loathing self-assassination) A lot of times during death marches the Jews would just stop so the Nazi soldiers would just kill them You've been lied to Hitler kept his plan a secret for a long time Just to rape you of your sight And now they have the nerve To tell you how to feel (feel) So sedated as they Medicate your brain And while you slowly Go insane they tell ya "Given with the best intentions Help you with your complications" The euthanasia program was made to “help” people with disabilities or “complications” You should have known The price of evil And it hurts to know That you belong here, yeah No one to call Everybody to fear Your tragic fate is looking so clear, yeah Ooh, it's your f*****' nightmare [M. Shadows laughing] Fight (fight) Not to fail (fail) Not to fall (fall) Or you'll end up like the others Die (die) Die again (die) Drenched in sin (sin) With no respect for another Many people fought over simple things like a piece of bread to try and survive. It didn't matter if they were family or someone you've never met before Oh Down (down) Feel the fire (fire) Feel the hate (hate) Your pain is what we desire Hitler did not care that he was killing innocent human beings, to him they were just another problem that needed to be eliminated Lost (lost) Hit the wall (wall) Watch you crawl (crawl) Such a replaceable liar And I know you hear their voices Calling from above And I know they may seem real These signals of love But our life's made up of choices Some without appeal They took for granted your soul And it's ours now to steal (As your nightmare comes to life) You should have known The price of evil And it hurts to know That you belong here, yeah No one to call Everybody to fear Your tragic fate is looking so clear, yeah Ooh, it's your f*****' nightmare Bodies by: Drowning Pool
Let the bodies hit the floor During death marches the Nazis would make the Jews walk and walk and walk until they died of exhaustion and left them on the ground Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floooooor Beaten why for (why for) The Jews didn’t know why they were taken to the camps Can't take much more The Nazis made the Jews walk until their bodies couldn’t take it and died Here we go! Here we go! Here we go! One - Nothing wrong with me The Jews and other victims of the Holocaust didn't know what Hitler thought was wrong with them Two - Nothing wrong with me Hitler and all the Nazis didn't think there was anything wrong with them either Three - Nothing wrong with me Four - Nothing wrong with me One - Something's got to give Two - Something's got to give Three - Something's got to give Now Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the flooooor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the flooooor Now! Push me again This is the end Some Jews would rebel in the camps and end up dead for it Here we go! Here we go! Here we go! One- Nothing wrong with me Two - Nothing wrong with me Three - Nothing wrong with me Four - Nothing wrong with me One - Something's got to give Two - Something's got to give Three - Something's got to give Now Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the flooooor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Skin against skin blood and bone Hitler came up with some really gruesome ways to kill the Jews You're all by yourself but you're not alone Over 6,000,000 Jews were killed but everyone felt like everyone else was against them and hated them You wanted in now you're here Driven by hate The Jews were forced to work because everyone hated them Consumed by fear The Jews worked because they were afraid to die Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floooooooor One - Nothing wrong with me Two - Nothing wrong with me Three - Nothing wrong with me Four - Nothing wrong with me One - Something's got to give Two - Something's got to give Three - Something's got to give Now Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the flooooor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor Let the bodies hit the floor |
Angel of death by: Slayer
Auschwitz, the meaning of pain The people in Auschwitz died from starvation, overdose, and other painful ways The way that I want you to die Slow death, immense decay There were many ways Hitler killed all those people, In class we saw a clip from a T.V. series and the U.S. soldiers had found a train car full of dead, decaying bodies. Showers that cleanse you of your life Before the Jews were killed they had to take a shower when they ended up gassed to death Forced in Like cattle The Jewish people had to stand in cattle cars while being transferred to the camps You run Stripped of Your life's worth Human mice, for the Angel of Death Four hundred thousand more to die Many people were killed each day Angel of Death Monarch to the kingdom of the dead There were piles of ashes from the people who were burned, it was like a kingdom of ashes Sadistic, surgeon of demise Sadist of the noblest blood Destroying, without mercy Hitler wanted everyone in Germany to be perfect, that's why he killed off so many people Surgery, with no anesthesia Feel the knife pierce you intensely Inferior, no use to mankind Strapped down screaming out to die Angel of Death Monarch to the kingdom of the dead Infamous butcher, The Nazis had butchered over 6 million people Angel of Death Pumped with fluid, inside your brain Pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes Burning flesh, drips away The Jews were sometimes burned in crematoriums in the camps Test of heat burns your skin, your mind starts to boil Frigid cold, cracks your limbs How long can you last In this frozen water burial? Sewn together, joining heads Just a matter of time 'Til you rip yourselves apart Millions laid out in their Crowded tombs During the T4 program, the workers would send home random ashes they scooped from a giant pile of human ashes Sickening ways to achieve The Holocaust Seas of blood, bury life Smell your death as it burns The Jews were burned alive Deep inside of you Abacinate, eyes that bleed Praying for the end of Your wide awake nightmare The entire experience was a never ending nightmare where they couldn't wake up Wings of pain, reach out for you His face of death staring down, Your blood running cold Injecting cells, dying eyes Feeding on the screams of The mutants he's creating Pathetic harmless victims Left to die Rancid Angel of Death Flying free Psychosocial by: Slipknot
Ooh, yeah! I did my time and I want out In Life is Beautiful, Gido was tired of working so hard in the extreme heat and wanted to leave So effusive - fade - it doesn't cut The soul is not so vibrant A lot of the time the Jews were too tired to rebel or take action because they had been working so hard The reckoning, the sickening Packaging subversion Pseudo sacrosanct perversion Go drill your deserts, go dig your graves The Jews literally had to dig their own graves Then fill your mouth with all the money you will save Sinking in, getting smaller again Hitler made the Jews feel small, like they didn't matter and couldn't do anything I'm done! It has begun! I'm not the only one! Hitler didn't just execute people of the Jewish religion, he killed gypsies and handicapped people as well [Chorus:] And the rain will kill us all... This reminded me of the showers the Jews had to take before they were killed, they would put pellets of gas inside the showers and then gas them to death We throw ourselves against the wall But no one else can see Nobody believed Hitler would/could kill all of those Jews for no reason, they all believed what Hitler would tell them The preservation of the martyr in me The Jews were martyrs because they were killed for what they believed in Psychosocial! [x6] There are cracks in the road we laid But where the temple fell Jewish churches were vandalized, robbed, and burned down The secrets have gone mad After the secret came out, a lot of countries weren't happy with Hitler for what he was doing This is nothing new, but when we killed it all People had known for a while about the camps, finally America stepped in and destroyed the camps The hate was all we had After Hitler came to power, a lot of people hated Jews. Mostly Jews thought nobody liked them, but they didn't know that everybody hated them Who needs another mess? The people at the concentration camps would burn the bodies and bury the ashes, so it was more organized and easier to hide We could start over After the camps were destroyed, the Jews had opportunities to start their lives over Just look me in the eyes and say I'm wrong Not many Jews knew why they were being sent to the camps, and they probably wanted to know why Now there's only emptiness After being ripped from their families and home, and then being worked to death, the Jews probably didn't have any hope left and felt empty on the inside Venomous, insipid I think we're done. I'm not the only one! America came and saved a lot of Jewish people from the camps, there were many people that had been saved and they were done working in the camps after that [Chorus] Psychosocial! [6] The limits of the dead! [x4] There were limits to killing all of those people, they couldn't die all at once because people would then really notice what was going on, they didn't have enough ammo to kill 6 million people at once either. After a while, it was getting harder and harder to hide the bodies Fake anti-fascist lie - (psychosocial!) Hitler had told lies about why he was killing Jews I tried to tell you but - (psychosocial!) In Night by Elie Wiesel, Moshe the Beadle tried to explain what happened at the camps but nobody believed him Your purple hearts are giving out - (psychosocial!) Can't stop a killing idea - (psychosocial!) Nobody could really stop Hitler from killing all of the Jews until the secrets had come out, but by then it was too late for over 6 million people If it's hunting season - (psychosocial!) Is this what you want? - (psychosocial!) Hitler did accomplish part of his goal, he ended up murdering over 6 million Jews I'm not the only one! [Chorus x2] The limits of the dead... [2x] |