Hope During the Holocaust

Hope during the Holocaust…How many people had it? How many people can say they would have it? We all like to think we could be brave and hopeful if something horrible, like the Holocaust, happened to us, but what is the relationship between bravery and hope? Bravery is being strong or bold in the face of danger. That is what many prisoners in concentration camps were: brave. However, were they hopeful? In my opinion, there is no way they could not be.

Everyone has hope, for themselves, their family, their friends. Hope is always in the back of our minds and in our hearts. Even when someone says they have given up hope, they still cling to it a little bit. Hope for some people is like a lifeline, one we refuse to let go of, no matter what we may hear or even say. For some, hope really was the only thing that kept them alive.

There was one hope that every victim of the Holocaust had: that they would live to be free. They probably kept this hope in their subconscious mind up until the very end. Maybe they hoped they would suddenly be liberated on their way to the gas chambers. Maybe they hoped the SS officer would show mercy on them and put the gun down. Maybe they hoped that, for some reason, the flames in the furnaces would die, unable to be rekindled, and they, along with many others, would not be burned.

Others might have become so selfless that they no longer had hopes for themselves, but for just their family. They might have hoped a close relative, thought not with them, was alive, maybe even prospering in a safe place. Others might have hoped that friends and people they met would make it out alive, even if they themselves could not, and lead wonderful and memorable lives.

These are all the big hopes that someone could possibly have had, though. The hopes so big it seemed almost impossible they could ever be filled. They had other hopes, too. We would hardly consider them a hope at all, but a want that we could easily get. For us it is a simple want for more bread at dinner, but for the prisoners in the concentration camps it was a hope for a small, dry crust of bread. For us it is a want for an extra thick blanket on a winter night. For them it was a hope to survive the freezing temperatures without getting frostbite or an illness because of the thin material of the clothes they wore.

Still, everything I have mentioned was a hope someone had during the Holocaust. It proves that even during a time when people were enduring such cruel treatment, they were still able to have a little bit of hope.