As a Jewish girl growing up in the United States, the Holocaust was an extremely large part of my World War II history education. In both religious school and public school, World War II became synonymous with the horrible atrocities and mass murders committed by the German Nazi party against minorities, mainly the Jewish people.

 Adolf Hitler of the Nazi party came into power as Chancellor of Germany in early 1933 and almost immediately began incorporating his anti-Semitic ideologies into German law. In the late 1930s, the Nazi German military, known as the SS began placing minorities, including Jews in concentration camps to separate them from the rest of German society. Auschwitz, known today as the largest and most brutal of all Nazi concentration camps, opened in Poland in May 1940. In its early years, Auschwitz was used as a holding camp for political prisoners and prisoners of war. Nobody, not even Hitler himself, nor his main assistant Himmler would have predicted that Auschwitz would swell into the largest site of mass murder in world history. Between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis expanded Auschwitz to a second site, Auschwitz-Birkenau, complete with two massive crematoriums used for the gassing and burning of the bodies of more than two and a half million Jewish people from all over Europe.

 For nearly three years, approximately 1942-1945, Jews and minorities from throughout Europe were transported by train to the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Upon arrival, those who Nazi doctors and physicians decided were “fit to work” were separated from those who were considered useless to the Nazi German state. The people classified as “unfit to work”, including mostly women and children were almost immediately stripped of their personal belongings, including clothing and even hair, and then sent directly to the gas chambers where they were murdered by gassing, cremated, and essentially disposed of entirely. Almost 65 years later, the site of these murders leaves behind and eerie feeling and leaves visitors of Auschwitz with a general state of uneasiness.

While living in Barcelona, Spain for four months, I felt it necessary to take the short trip to Poland to visit this important site in world history. Being Jewish, I not only feel a connection to the Holocaust itself, but also take great interest in World War II history and the crimes committed by the German Nazi military party.

Today, almost the entire Auschwitz concentration camp remains standing, open to the public as a museum dedicated to the memory of the horrible tragedy that occurred there and in the memory of the victims who were killed. People from all over the world travel to Poland to the site of Auschwitz to learn, connect, remember, and pray about what has occurred so recently in history. 

In today´s society, viral marketing is arguably the most successful form of advertising. With the expansion of the internet, social networking is also expanding. According to studies, the average person has a close circle of 10-12 friends and family. The internet is a useful tool for companies that allows people to quickly contact these friends and family to discuss a product, which can be considered the most successful form of free advertising. These people are also not necessarily evangelist customers. In the case of an evangelist customer, people could often contact their entire extended group of friends and family, which can include more more than 100 people. Social networking makes this extremely easy and possible. For example, individuals can dedicate their personal MySpace or Facebook page to supporting a specific product: anything from a band to a company to an athletic team. Six important forms of viral marketing include “send it forward”, viral, masked marketing, rumor marketing, social database, and invitations for a product. All are considered successful ways to take advantage of the internet and social networking in order to obtain free advertising. “Send it forward” allows companies to send out mass emails that encourage customers to forward the emails and information on to their friends and family. In my opinion, the only people who will definitely participate in this form of viral marketing are those who are loyal to the company and feel strongly about the products. Rumor marketing is extremely successful. When rumor or current news is posted and spread about a certain person or product, people are often very interested in remaining up to date on the latest details, and therefore, they become more invested in all aspects of the information, including the latest promoted product.

Exposure of sexual predators on the internet is prevalent in news media and even television shows like, “To Catch a Predator”. Young people are the main demographic that fall into a risk category for these predators. According to a CBS news report, adults who pose as teenagers online target young teenagers who are willing to post their personal information online. According to CBS, “When kids think MySpace, they think other teenagers. They don’t think there are adults pretending to be teenagers on there”. Furthermore, the article goes on to explain that The Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported more than 2,600 incidents last year of adults using the Internet to entice children. So maybe these young people should start thinking more about who could be looking at their information.

Parents can do a lot to keep their children safe online by setting up firewalls and website blockers. More important, however, is talking with them and educating them of the dangers online and how easily they can be exploited. Even still, some children will ignore the warnings and put themselves at risk for dangerous situations. Today’s generation of young people are much more internet and technologically advanced than their parents. Hence, firewalls and internet blocking can often only do so much to prevents exposure to internet dangers. 

I am constantly surprised by the information that my young cousins in middle school and high school post online. As if it’s not enough that 12, 13, and 14 year olds have Facebook, they are posting the time and place of their next activity. Websites like Twitter make stalking even easier. The up-to-date information of a minor’s whereabouts at any given moment can be accessed with the click of mouse. 

One of the scariest stories I’ve heard involved a teenage girl who posted a picture of her soccer team. A 40 year old man, who had already once been convicted of sexual assault involving a minor, through knowing the soccer team’s name found her soccer team’s schedule, and attended games regularly, and finally acted on his obsession, and proceeded to kidnap one of the players. Luckily, she was eventually found. Many others are not as fortunate. 

As stated before, the advantages of social networking on the internet more often than not outweigh the disadvantages, but the dangers that exist are serious, and need to be taken seriously by anyone exposing personal information online.