Julia Saccamano- Response to: Quinn makes a comparison between slave trade and the holocaust and famine emigration early in the essay on to reject it later. Why?
Broken leg or amputation, both are extremely painful and debilitating. However, despite them both being injuries it is hard to compare the two. The months of repairing a broken bone is nothing when compared to the years of healing and adjusting to the disability of a lost limb. Similarly, while the Holocaust and the Irish Famine can both be considered injuries to ethnic groups they can hardly be compared. In the Essay: “In Search of Banished Children” Irish- American writer Peter Quinn makes a similar point. In his work, Quinn discusses Irish history, shares their struggles, and recounts his own family’s history. He also discusses the Holocaust and why the two shouldn’t be equated.
Many do find ways to compare the Holocaust and Irish famine. In his essay Quinn quotes Robert James Scally, a historian, when he compares Irish emigration to the stuffed boxcars of the Holocaust (48). Yes, in both cases there was a large migration of people. In both cases millions died. In both cases survivors didn’t wish to relive it through discussion (47). However, while over a million Irish died in the famine (44), over 5 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. While Irish survivors struggled to find ways to feed themselves and make money so as not to starve, Jewish survivors struggled to not get separated and murdered (in addition to not starving). While Irish immigrants did not wish to discuss the famine and its effects, the public was extremely aware. During the Holocaust there were people who denied its even occurrence. Moreover, the Irish famine was an environmental cause sparked by plant disease… The Holocaust was a deliberate horror that was caused and enforced by every single Jew’s murder. The Irish faced apathetic outsiders, the Jews faced murderous soldiers.
In his essay, Quinn makes all of these points which is why he declares:“ The Irish Famine of the 1840s and the Jewish Holocaust of the 1940s are very different events and should not be confused or equated”(53).
