Our Secrets

The holocaust, an event that has been debated upon for many years, lead to the death of millions of innocent people. It was an incident that was planed quite well, secretly. Evil people, you might call them, who do not deserve to be remembered. How is it that a countless number of people were involved in the holocaust and barely any people attempted to put a stop to it? Can an entire society be anti-Semitic? Can an entire society coincidentally be that ignorant? But really, it is these people that we must remember so that a massive destructive event like the Holocaust does not occur ever again in history. Susan Griffin’s essay Our Secret looks at the minds of various people, focusing the most on Heinrich Himmler. It is hard to deny that he is an awful man for what he did, but it is so easy for people to simply judge without knowing the facts behind his madness. Many may not realize this, but who we are today goes back to how we were raised as a child and who we had to look up to. Just as Himmler’s tough life reminded Griffin of her self-experiences, I myself began to think of my own observations in my own house. Writing this essay, I would like to take the chance to point out what could lead a person to being the adult they are today, and who my own brother could possibly grow up to be someday in the future. According to Susan, Germans had this general idea of how to raise kids. Dr. Scheber believed that “The pain and humiliation children endure are meant to benefit them. The parent is only trying to save the child’s soul” (Griffin 318). It was important to raise children to become proper and acceptable to the society. Things like the way they spoke and their posture when walking, standing, sitting, and even sleeping, counted. Just like the other German fathers, Gehard controlled every portion of Himmler’s life, which in Gehar’s eyes, was only for his benefit. Susan describes how he even controlled what was written in his diary. “Like the words of a schoolboy