Emotion and Intellect in the Works from Terezin Essays -- Holocaust Li

Emotion and Intellect in the Works from Terezin In the quote opening Art Speigelmans Maus A subsister s Tale. I My FatherBleeds History, Adolf Hitler expresses his urge to rob the Jewish people of theirhumanity The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are non human (9D). Hitlersquote begs for a response What makes one human? Many scholars and scient ist wouldargue that it is t he ability to think and reason t hat defines the human species. I wouldargue that it is a combination of the ability to reason with the ability to feel. In ElieWiesel s Night, it is his passionate anger at his otherworldliness alongside his intellectualstruggle with that spirituality that screams out his humanity What are You, my God, Ithought angrily, compared to this afflicted crowd proclaiming to You their faith . . . (63). In the range of final solution literature, there is a range of emotion mixed withintellect, and this combination creates a picture of human beauty. One can witness thisrange in Wiesel s anger and disillusionment (62, 63) and in Speigelman s father s loveand frugality (157). It is the ability to think about and feel something towards one s particular that makes one human. In the painting Sailboat (56-57) and the poemBirdsong (80-81) fro m the collection I Never Saw Another Butt erfly Children sDrawings and Poems from Terezin tightfistedness Camp, 1942-1944, one can see how arange o f emotions combined with reason creat e an undeniable portrait of humanity. In Sailboat an anon. child artist expresses both emotion and intellectthrough color choice and subject matter (56-57). The artist portrays night as a mysteriousabyss followed by a teal-gray sky dotted w... ...r Saw Another Butt erfly Children s Drawings and Po ems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York Schocken Books, 1978. 56-57.Spiegelman, Art. Maus A Survivor s Tale, I. My Father Bleeds History. New York Pantheon Books, 1986.Stargar, Nicholas. Children s Art of th e Holocaust. Past & Present. Nov. 1998.Electronic. Expanded Academic Index ASAP. 10 February 2001.Weil, Jiri. Epilogue. I Never Saw Anot her Butterfly Children s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York Schocken Books, 1978. 101-104.Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York Bantam Books, 1982.Weissova, Helga. Lights Out. I Never Saw Another Butt erfly Children s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. Ed. Hana Volavkova. 2nd ed. New York Schocken Books, 1978. 22, 24.