Example of Privilege.

      An example of Privilege can be seen in Religion. For example, during the Holocaust the Jewish people were persecuted for their religious beliefs.  Non –Jewish “blonde hair blue eyed” Germans were considered a “superior race” and not subjected to any of the atrocities suffered by the Jews. There was nothing to make the Jewish people different from the non -Jewish people. The Germans, for no other reason, were considered the “privileged ones.” The Jewish people were brutally attacked, tortured, and killed; their freedom was taken away completely, while many of the other religions went on living their everyday life. The non-Jews did not protest the unfair treatment of the Jewish people out of fear that they too may be subjected to the same treatment. They felt privileged that they were able to live above such treatment, so they just ignored it.

     The non- Jewish people were privileged, in the way that they were able to live their lives, while thousands or Jewish people were being killed in gas chambers each and every day. What gave the rest of German society the freedom to live their everyday lives free of torture and death while the Jews had to suffer tremendous injustices?

    Today as we look back and reflect on this time, it is hard for us to believe that this type of cruel and inhumane treatment of the Jewish people was allowed to happen. It should serve as a warning to us all that when anyone of us looses the privilege of their freedom at the hands of another, that we as a society all suffer. To be privileged in any way is to have something valuable that others are denied, that is exactly what happened with the Jews and non-Jewish people, in Germany during the Holocaust.