One Survivor Remembers: Gerda Weissman

1. What scenes or images were the most powerful for you, and why? What lessons or messages did these scenes offer?

I felt that the images of Gerda's family were the most moving. Many people would think that the scenes with many bodies of people or people suffering would be the most moving because of the things that those kinds of images they made you think of. I think that the pictures of her family were the most moving because they are depicting her family members that she was forcibly separated from. To think that she never saw her family again is really sad and is one of the worst parts of the Holocaust: the separating of loved ones and family.

2. How did the Nazis dehumanize Jews? How did Gerda Weissman work to overcome dehumanization, and who helped her?

The Nazis dehumanized all Jews by making them work with no pay, starve while they enjoyed comforts and luxuries, shaved off all their hair, gave them numbers instead of names, and at the beginning of a camp, they made Jews walk naked to and from different buildings. In Gerda Weissman's story, it doesn't say too many things on how they dehumanized her. I'm guessing it was just implied but what they did tell us for fact was that they made her work for long hours and also made her starve. Gerda Weissman overcomes these dehumanization tactics by living her life. She carries on and that is what helps her overcome these adversities. She is practically saying that no matter what they do to her, she is still human and will act normaly. Her friends that she makes along the way help her with this because having friends is part of a normal life.

3. During her ordeal in the Nazi camps, Weissmann says she fantasized about enjoying a simple morning with her family or deciding what dress to wear to an imagined party. What simple things in your own life do you think you'd fantasize about if everything were taken away? What ordinary things do you think you take for granted?

If I lived through the Holocaust like Gerda and everything was taken away from me, I would fantasize about one thing: a giant Thanksgiving feast. If I had no food and no water, that would sound amazing. You never really think about the food you are eating on Thanksgiving because you think, "It's Thanksgiving, eating like this is mandatory." But if everything were taken away, you would have nothing to eat on the day of thank. Another thing that I would miss a lot and the thing that I take for granted is my bed. It is very warm and comfortable and I sleep in it every night. It is where a person prepares for the following day. Without a good night's sleep, you are useless the next day. Its funny how things have very little value until none of it is for you.

4. This film focuses on the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust, but others also murdered, including Soviet POWs, Roma (Gypsies), gays and lesbians, and Communists. In what ways do you see persecution happening in today's world? What groups do you see being targeted? What can be done to work against such prejudice and intolerance?

In today's world, people that are persecuted are not killed like in the Holocaust, but it is not much better. Many people in today's world persecute gays to be "dirty" or not right in nature. Many other groups such as Blacks, Hispanics, mentally disabled, and communists are persecuted in racial and stereotypical ways. People say that African American and Hispanic people are bad news and always getting into trouble which is not true at all. These kinds of rumors and stereotypes are today's form of the Holocaust, but of course not nearly as bad.

5. In many ways, this film is about hope for the future. Who are the heroes of the film? What did they do that makes you hopeful? What can you do to help make the world a better place?

The hero of the film is obviously Gerda because she is the one whose whole family was taken away yet she still survived year after year of sadness and fear. Although she is the hero of the film, and her survival and her story makes everyone know that people can get through bad times, I think that the people who made me most hopeful were the people who voted for Gerda to win the Oscar. It shows that people really do care about what happened and are mortified that we almost let it happen if America hadn't acted quick enough. The people who voted gave her the Oscar not because of her great story telling, but to show her that the world is a better place, to show her that we do care, and to show her that we, the American people, will never let anything that horrible happen again.

If I Should Die Before I Wake Blog 3

In If I Should Die Before I Wake it never says where they are specifically. It doesn't say what exact time period that it is. It doesn't even say the importance of this family. It is just another unheard family's story of the Holocaust. My main character’s name is Chana and she and her family are forced to live in a ghetto. Her father is publicly executed, her grandfather dies from undernourishment, and the whole family has lost hope. Even her little sister, who could not be more than 9 years old is digging through trash heaps of human waste to find enough food for her family. The death toll is slowly rising in this Nazi ghetto. More Jews die every day from starvation and disease, and some even commit suicide. You may ask, "Why did they allow themselves to be captured? Why did they just stay at home when they knew what was happening to Jews all over Europe?" The problem is that they didn't know. Nobody ever knew what happened to their neighbors who just suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. People simply decided that they had moved without saying so. It is quite astounding, though, how the Nazis kept the secret for so long. Word must have gotten out somehow. But no, Chana's family never sees the free light of day again, or gets word out otherwise.

Although this story is fiction, many children like Chana were living in the Lodz ghetto. Some Holocaust survivors spoke to the National Holocaust Memorial Museum on some of the horrors that actually happened to those people only 50 years ago. One person said that the majority of deaths occurred when people tried to run, not to get free, but just so the soldiers killed them. It’s really unbelievable to think that people would actually want others to kill them. That is how bad the Holocaust was in real life, not just in books.

The Holocaust is nothing like the stuff in books that you read about. The survivors’ stories are their own primary sources. The grandfathers of our generation were only children back then and didn’t know what was going on and only 10 maybe 20 years later did they understand. One woman even remembers asking her friend in the ghetto, “Why are we being separated from all the other people when we do not look nor think differently from anybody else.”

If I Should Die Before I Wake Blog 2

In school we are reading a book called Night by Ellie Wiesel. It is a memoir on Ellie's life as he experiences the Holocaust. We have only read a little bit so far but from which we have read, I can determine that Ellie is strong, loving, caring, courageous, and a little naive. Yet at the same time, I am still reading If I Should Die Before I Wake and the protagonist, Chana, is very similar to him, not physically, but mentally.

Ellie and Chana both share the same motivation. Ellie and Chana both love their families very much, as any person would. They are both Jews during the Holocaust and they are trying to survive along with their families. This is what motivates them to do things that they normally wouldn't. They both do not want to suffer or die but with their families. Despite this motivation, both of them eventually lose their fathers. And even though they are so motivated to survive, many other conflicts arise during the stories

The Holocaust drives people to do insane things that they would probably not do before. This drives Ellie and Chana to question their own religions. They think that if they are being killed because they are Jewish, then why can they not just switch religions and not tell anyone that they were Jewish in the first place. They are suffering from internal conflict caused by this and other things as well. They do not want to suffer but what can they do? They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are forced into labor but cannot do anything about it because then they die. They do not know what to do and only continuing reading will reveal what they do about it.

If I Should Die Before I Wake Blog 1

I am reading the book called If I should die before I wake. It is about a girl named Hilary who is in a Hitler supporter group. She has a boyfriend named Brad and she goes for a ride on his motorcycle one rainy night. The next things she knows she is in a hospital bed in god knows where and being tended to by a Jewish nurse who she despises. Yet she finds that she cannot move and that she cannot even talk and she does not know why. She is very angry and confused when all of a sudden; she starts to spin away into unconsciousness. She becomes a Jewish girl named Chana living in a small community and witnesses firsthand the horrible things that the Jews went through during the Holocaust. She is confused and does not know where to turn. At one moment she is talking to a Jewish nurse who she hates, and then she is a Jewish girl experiencing their hardships, and then straight back to having to hate the Jews. She does not know what is happening and what to do.

There are many characters in the story so far. There is of course Hilary/Chana. Then there is Hilary's mother and Chana's mother and briefly her father. There is the Jewish nurse and some German soldiers. Hilary's story mainly takes place in a hospital bed but Chana lives out her life as a Jew in a small community. I have not read much of the book yet but I can tell that it will be good and the Hilary will discover the evils of the Holocaust by the end of it.

Excerpt from Night By Ellie Wiesel

This excerpt from Night by Ellie Wiesel is about a person who has been taken from their home during the holocaust. The person seems to know what the holocaust is due to the phrase, "There was a labor camp on the site." The main character says this so the person must know what a labor camp is, therefore knowing what the holocaust is. This person must also be of middle age, maybe 20-30 because he refers to the children he is confined with as 'the young ones'. He could be older but it is unclear. They were probably taken abruptly and by great numbers because the story states that the quarters were cramped and that a woman was separated from her husband. The main idea is unclear but there are still some things you can learn be inferring like it is about the holocaust because they mention Jews being kept prisoner under the German Army.

Though you can infer a lot, it is still very unclear. Like how was he taken? Was it a mass invasion or a simple kidnapping? It says that this is page 23. What happened before that? Why are they being taken to a labor camp with quote 'good conditions' instead of a concentration camp? And why were the conditions so good when Hitler was known for his harsh savagery? Also, what about the person's background? Where was the person from? And one more question. Why have they, at the end, been taken to an execution camp? It says, "In front of us those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived in Birkenau." Is this a execution camp and are they burning Jews? But early in the passage, it said they were taken to a labor camp to work, not die. It is hard to fully grasp the story and its plot with only a few pages from the text. The only ways these questions can be answered is by reading the whole book. But you can infer from this small passage what the rest of the book will most likely be about. This is the beauty of inference and using for much larger texts has always and always will be very helpful to me.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Part 1

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a 9 year old boy named Bruno. In the beginning, there isn't a lot of information but what I know is that Bruno and his family are forced to move out of their house in Berlin. It says that they are moving because of Bruno's Father's job but I doubt that is why. Bruno's mother says that they must move quickly so it might have to do with something bad happening. Bruno comes home one day to find his mother very upset and stressed and she tells him to pack his things. Their family is very rich and has multiple servants and he packs his things with the maid, Maria. We have not heard of his father but we know that he has one for the book mentions 'Father' living with them on multiple occasions. They arrive at a house somewhere (not sure where) and Bruno hates it. It is horrible and unfamiliar. Also, outside his window, he can see 'children' from what he calls it. When Gretel, his sister, looks out the window, we can see who they really are. They are not children but a group of people varying in age from young to old. That is the end of the portion of the book I have read so far.

There are many characters in the book that we have heard of so far. The main character is Bruno with his sister, Gretel, and his 'Mother' and 'Father'. He has three best friends for life that have been mentioned but not been fully explained by the author. These people are Karl, Daniel, and Martin. There is also the maid, Maria, and the butler and waiter and all the servants. These are all the characters that have been revealed in the story so far.

The beginning, before they move, takes place in Berlin. We do not know where they have moved but it will probably be revealed shortly enough. The problem is that Bruno is only 9 years old and that his family is moving without an explanation. His mother becomes particularly harsh and he has no idea why. The problem for the reader is that they don't really know the problem. Sure Bruno is confused about the move but there is probably an underlying problem that has not been exposed. I am a little confused and can't wait to read the next part to help with my confusion on the book.

Michael Vey Book Review

Recently I read a book called Michael Vey The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans. I have never even heard of the author, yet the book is incredible! It is one of the best books I have ever read. The age range for this book is 7th-10th grade. It is about a boy who has strange electrical powers that he really doesn't understand. But then a girl from his school tells him that she has powers too. They go on a journey to an academy for special children in Pasadena, California. They discover that there is more to their powers than meets the eye. It is an awesome read and I recommend it to anyone in the age range and with half a brain!

The Flower Garden's Style

The Flower Garden is a story about a middle aged woman named Mrs. Winning who meets her new neighbors, the MacLanes. The MacLanes are a small family with just Mrs. MacLane and her son, Davey. They are friendly to each other at first, but near the end of the story, they begin to grow apart and become less friendly to each other. Mrs. Winning and the whole town for that matter seem to suddenly distrust and dislike the MacLanes.

This story is broken into two sections. The one at the beginning is about friendship and the other is about distrust, fear, and hatred. I am noticing that the author of this story (also the author of The Lottery) has used this same kind of structure/style for both of his stories. This is no coincidence; it is simply his style.

This style that the author uses is a kind of trickery. For the whole of the beginning, he leads you with good fortune, trust, happiness, and friendliness. But the story then takes a shocking twist toward distrust and anger that you wouldn't really expect, but that is how he keeps you interested. One example of Mrs. Winning's friendliness to Mrs. MacLane is a quote from the story. The author writes, "As the weather grew warmer and the first signs of green showed on the trees and on the wet ground, Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane became better friends. They met almost daily at the grocery and walked up the hill together..." The author comes out completely saying that Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane are becoming better friends. Now this quote appears on page 114 of the story. This is relatively the beginning of the story so you can see how the author leads you in the beginning with happiness, friendship, and trust. But then as the story continues, they seem to grow farther and farther apart to the point that they are just neighbors, nothing more. At the very end of the story, the author writes, "Mrs. MacLane waved and called out, Hello! Mrs. Winning swung around without speaking and started, with great dignity, back up the hill toward the old Winning house." As you can see, at the very end of the story, Mrs. Winning even refuses to converse with Mrs. MacLane and simply walks away. They are obviously no longer friends, proving my point.