Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (12:00 p.m.) The Burn Journal | Page 8

Anger in Action
Author: Theresa Raths
Adolf Hitler once said concerning the Jews, “Don't think you can fight racial tuberculosis with-
out taking care to rid the nation of the carrier of that racial tuberculosis. This Jewish contamination will
not subside, this poisoning of the nation will not end, until the carrier himself, the Jew, has been ban-
ished from our midst (Stein).” One must ask how a seemingly normal, civilized society such as the Ger-
mans, could allow themselves to reach such a point of anger in order to both carry out and turn a blind
eye towards one of the most famous and deadly genocides in history. The answer to this question lies in
both the history of and the portrayal done by a Holocaust survivor who was brave enough to paint his
experiences. The artist, Jan Komski, depicts his time spent in the concentration camps erected by the
Germans through his work. One such painting titled Murder by the SS depicts Lagerführer Altmeier, the
chief officer of Auschwitz, murdering Jewish men at the execution wall known as the Black Wall, by
way of shooting them with a rifle at the base of their neck. 20,000 people were murdered at that wall,
most of whom were shot by Altmeier (Simply Responsive). The Holocaust, as represented by Jan
Komski, was a horrific example of anger and hatred allowed to flourish on a mass scale; in order to fully
understand the anguish behind this painting, one must also understand the history behind the Holocaust
and the intentions of the artist in his depictions of his work.
The events leading up to the Holocaust began all the way back in World War I. Germany suf-
fered huge losses from the war, including thousands of able-bodied, working age men and an enormous
economic collapse. After the war, most of the western world fell into the Great Depression along with
America (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Germany, in particular, suffered extreme loss
due to the Treaty of Versailles, signed after World War I. Essentially, it made Germany pay for much of
the damages that resulted from the war, plummeting Germany into bankruptcy (Kaiser). After that, the
Great Depression quickly followed. This made the German citizens feel hopeless, frustrated, insecure,
and scared for the future. They needed a change to bring about hope for a better future, and Adolf Hitler
was just charismatic enough to take the country by storm. Quickly after his nomination, he began to tar-
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