How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He recalled those students in his own history classes who had condemned the Jews for not taking the Nazi threat seriously, for not fleeing their homes and ghettos when rumors of the concentration camps and gas chambers filtered back to them. (15.100)
Here we've got another common question about the Holocaust that gets us into all kinds of complicated and sensitive areas. First of all, many Jewish people did resist the Nazis. Second, for many Jews, there were few places to run. Much of Europe was under Nazi control, and immigration policies made it very hard for fleeing Jews to enter countries not under Nazi control. Bottom line: it's important that we do our research before judging what happened in the past.
Quote #8
The film left Adolf Hitler and focused on the faces of the young Nazis who fought for him during World War Two. Many of them were only teenagers, some even younger than the students in the audience. (17.36)
Okay, you all remember the end of The Wave, where Ben tells his students that they've been acting like Nazis. He compares them to Hitler Youth, which, as its name suggests was made up of young people. While some young people joined Hitler Youth voluntarily, it was a mandatory program. Bottom line: Ben's kind of oversimplifies or even misleads his students about the complicated situation young people in Germany faced during World War II. We recommend that you check out Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief for a more balanced way of looking at it.