Social & Cultural Context

Social Context:

During the time in the story before the war actually began Vladek was living pretty well. He had money; he had a career and a company that was taking off. His wife’s family was also very wealthy and helped him to grow his business. His family was growing, moving in with his in-laws, having a child and creating a good reputation for himself among the community. Being a Jew in that time it was important to have many friends and connections that were on your side. Not a lot of people would risk hiding a Jew due to the punishments they could face themselves. This helped him a lot when the war began, having the amount of connections he did allowed he and his wife to hide and eventually escape Poland.

Cultural Context:

Poland had many religions during the time before the war and Jewish was one of them. The attack against that particular religion was the decision and doing of one major man, Adolf Hitler. Being of the Jewish faith meant your rights, your believes and in the end your life was taken away from you. Jews were put on parades in the street wearing yellow stars so anyone who passed would know and were made a spectacle. Many people didn’t want to follow the ways of the Nazi but the punishments that were given to anyone at the time made helping or standing up for what is right very hard to do. It seemed like those people discriminating against the Jews had no morals as to what they were actually doing and the end result of basically genocide of the Jewish people. Every one had a side to be on and even not taking a side still meant you had taken a third side against helping to bring the world back to peace.

This video gives a brief coverage of World War II and how it began, starting with the invasion of Poland.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B63DPFxZ4Ns

Reference List

British Pathe. (2014 Apr 13). Germany invades Poland (1939) [Video file]. Retrieved Apr 5, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B63DPFxZ4Ns