One Survivor Remembers Blog

Today in class we watched a video about Gerda Weissmann and her experience of the Holocaust. The scene that was most powerful to me was when she was explaining the split of her family. Her brother was sent to fight, her father was sent to work, and her and her mother were separated very early in her captivity by Germans. Out of all of that, the thing that I am still thinking about is when all the others girls that were separated from their mothers were put on a truck, and Gerda’s mother was going the other way her mother said, “Where to,” Gerda replied, “I don’t know,” after this she jumped off the cart to go with her mother but a man there quickly picked her up and put her back on the cart saying, “Your too young to die.” I think that all of this stuck to me because if that was me I wouldn’t want to live with myself. The message that I think the scene offers is that we shouldn’t take family for grant net and because when you want them the most they may not be there. The Nazi’s dehumanized Jews by shaving boys and girls hair. They also gave them numbers and so that they wouldn’t have a name. I think the Gerda overcame the dehumanization with the help of the pictures of her mother, father, and brother that she put in her boots. Also I think that her friends that she had and that she made helped her to be strong. Also I think that Fruetcluder helped her by saving her life while working in the factory. If everything were taken away from me I think that I would fantasize about my family, friends, my dogs, school and my house. I think what we all take for granted is a nice house with a bed, food, school, family, clothes, and freedom. I think that Muslims would be the ones most targeted by prejudice as a result of the tragedy of 9/11. Muslims have been singled out for extra security in airports, mosques that have been damaged, and all Muslim people are treated like criminals. The problem is that acts of terrorism continue and the majority of terrorist are Muslim. People have a natural fear relating to Muslims because of the terrorist acts. To stop this prejudice people need to become more educated as to the fundamental good performed by the vast majority of Muslims and to realize that the terrorists are the minority. I think the heros in this film are Suse Klons, Kurt Klein, and Fruetcluder the women that was in charge of them at the factory. I think that Suse was really hopeful because she became an older sister to Gerda and was there with her the whole until the end. I think that Kurt Klein was a hero because he was her liberator who later became her husband. Kurt was the light at the end of the tunnel that she had been waiting 6 years for. Fruetcluder I think was a hero because like Gerda said, “She turned out to be the hope, inspiration, and the knowledge that perhaps not all Germans were bad. She was a decent, wonderful, warm caring human being. Her looks completely blight from what was underneath the door.” I think that to Gerda this meant that she could make it till the end. If she had anyone else has their supervisor I don’t think Gerda would have made it. I think that to make the world a better place we need good leader ship and equality between everyone. We need to be able to help one another in a time of need and not discriminate because of what someone wears, someones beliefs, and what someone looks like.

If I should die before I wake Blog #5

The article that I will be comparing my book t, is a dairy of an anonymous Jewish girl that was taken to the Lodz Ghetto. This dairy was found in 1945 after the allies liberated Lodz. They do not know the name of the girl that wrote the dairy because only a portion of the diary was found, and what was found had no identifiable marks. What they do know is that it was written by a girl in the February and March in 1942 timeframe. Because of historians reading the dairy they know that she had a 17-year-old sister and a 16-year-old brother. In reading the book I know that Chana and this girl were at the Lodz Ghetto at the same time. Like Chana in my book If I should die before I wake this girl talks about the food shortage, how her life has changed, and the factories. Both girls talk about how hungry they are and they can’t get it off their mind. They both also talk about the significance of the fence, and how it separates them from the rest of the world. They both hope for freedom and dream of the days before Hitler and the German invasion. They wonder if they will be able to return to the life that now seems to be a dream.

If I should die before I wake Blog #4

My two books were Boy in the Stripped Pajamas and If I should die before I wake. These two books are similar because both take place during the Holocaust and both books reveal the realities Jews experienced during the years under Nazi control. In the book If I should die before I wake there are two protagonists; Hilary with her anti-Semitism attitude and Chana who struggled to survive the loss of her family and friends. In Boy in the Striped Pajamas there are two protagonists as well; Bruno with his naive outlook and Shmuel a 10 year old, living his life in a death camp. You can connect Chana and Shmuel because they were both Jewish and were living under Nazi control. Chana in the Lodz Ghetto and Shmuel in Auschwitz. You can also connect Hilary and Bruno because they were both naive in their beliefs about Jewish life. Hilary had a lack of understanding about the impact Hitler and the Nazi’s had with killing millions of Jews. While Bruno was completely oblivious as to why Shmuel and the other Jews were at Auschwitz. I look forwarded to reading more of my book to see if the protagonist will have more in common.

If I should die before I wake Blog #3

Today in class we were put into our new book clubs. The book I am now reading is If I die before I wake by Han Nolan. The book is about two teenage girls named Hilary and Chana. Hilary, who hates Jews, is in a Jewish hospital because of a motor cycling accident that she got into coming home from her Aryan Warriors meeting. Chana, a Jewish girl, is struggling to survive the Lodz Ghetto. Hillary often finds herself going in and out of living Chana and her own life because of a coma. There are two settings in the story. The first is in a Jewish Hospital that Hilary was taken to after the motorcycle accident. The second setting in the story takes place in the Lodz Ghetto, in Poland. Hilary, although in a coma, continues to generate hateful remarks about the Jews but she recognizes the irony of her being in a Jewish Hospital and Jewish doctors who are working to save her life. Hilary's problem in the story is that even though she hates Jews, she finds herself in a Jewish hospital and sees herself continually transporting between her life and Chana's. Chana's problem in the story is that she is living in a Ghetto and losing family and friends quickly. Another problem is that at any point in time the Nazis could come and take her family to a death camp. Chana is also struggling with the harsh accommodations that they have to live with. Will Hilary get better and live only one life or will she stay in the state that she is in. Another question that I have is whether or not Chana will be able to survive the life that she has recently been put into.