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Holocaust: How Does Media Affect the Memory of Survival?

Holocaust was the spontaneous, practical, state organized discrimination and killing of more than six million Jews. This was done by the Nazi government and its associates. When Nazi came to power, they believed that they were superior that the Jews hence this created the holocaust. Currently, the term survivor is understood in a number of ways according to different social and cultural studies. According to the German social and cultural studies, survivors are frequently recognized as those individuals who were mistreated as Jews by the Nazi regime. Moreover, they are understood as those people who escaped the war in Germany and parts of Europe that were occupied by the Nazi government.

Information obtained from the media has affected the memory of survival in a number of ways. For instance, interviews carried out to members of the family who were affected will always bring back the memories of those who survived in the holocaust. Without the interviews, the affected people would always want to forget and move on with their lives. Information obtained through various sources of media can be captured, accumulated, and later retrieved. This implies that the information will always stick in the minds of the readers. Therefore, media coverage on holocaust will constantly bring back the memory of survival to the affected individuals. Various videos and pictures of those people who survived the holocaust can be obtained by anybody across the world. Watching them will always bring back the memories of survival.

Such videos and pictures always create emotions which are considered to be having a powerful impact on memory. Therefore, the memory of survival would resurface after watching holocaust videos and pictures. According to a number of researches carried out, more than 40 percent of the people living in Israel are the survivors. It is believed that most of them are still living in poor conditions hence this has created strong and dramatic objection against the Israeli government. Without the presence of media, they could have not obtained information regarding how they were mistreated centuries ago thus the strong and dramatic protests could have been over by now. Through information obtained from social media and other sources, there has been rebirth of interest by the offspring of the survivors in looking for the fates of their relatives. In holocaust, there are a number of reported searchable database of more than two million names who are mainly Jewish victims. Without the promiscuous media, such memories would have not existed.

The activities of mass media in covering the holocaust have emotionally charged events. Individuals who have read the story, both Jews and non-Jews, have emotionally changed their perceptions towards the Germans and the Nazi regime. Media also affect the memory of survival by creating mental health conditions. Holocaust is recognized for the injustices carried out against the Jewish population. Therefore, obtaining more information from the media on how the injustices occurred can create mental disorder especially to those individual who experienced the holocaust. In conclusion, media has created both negative and positive effects on memory of survival. On the positive side, individuals have to memorize the survival so that they could pay their respect to those who were affected. In addition, the memory can also be used as a lesson to avoid the occurrence of the second holocaust.