1. Short Story
Isaac was a 37 years-old Jewish man. He was born and lived in Warsaw. Henry was a doctor, one of the best in Poland, and he lived with his wife Elizabeth and his 7 years-old son David. Isaac grew up as an orphan child, since his parents died of a weird disease that spreaded over Warsaw years ago, fortunately he wasn’t infected and he achieved to survive, and with this event he learned to appreciate life no matter what happened. Isaac was a wealthy man who lived in one of the best neighborhoods in Warsaw. However, he was a very kind man who helped people and often gave money to poor people. He lived vey calmly until the World War II started. When the War started, all Jews were asked to register in a government control list and days later he and his family, as well as all Jews, were taken out from their home and taken to a concentration camp. Isaac was separated from his wife and son, who were sent to a section in the camp for women and children. Since the first time he stepped on in the concentration camp, he was mistreated by the guards. First, all Jews were hit and ordered in a line so that each one could tell to an SS officer his respectively occupation. Those whose occupation wasn’t considered relevant for the concentration camp were immediately disappeared, nobody knew where they were sent until three days later, when they were told they were killed in gas chambers, once again Isaac achieved to survive because his occupation was really important. However, he got very worried for her wife and his little son. Isaac was sent to the camp’s infirmary to work as a doctor to help German soldiers and occasionally Jewish prisoners. He worked there the three years he spent in the camp, watching his people dying, being mistreated and hit, starving and even killed. Isaac was mistreated as a common prisoner but not killed. With the years, he got very skinny, he began to starve, he had to use dead people’s clothes and he got weak because of the hits he received. He thought that the only thing that kept him alive was the wish to see again his son and wife.One day, a new decree was published and the Jews began to be killed more often. Isaac got very scared when one day he was told that he was going to be killed the next day. Luckily, the next day American troops arrived to the camp and freed all the Jews. Isaac was extremely happy but at the same time he showed anguish and desperation in his face. He found out that the other prisoners were in the same or worse state than him. Isaac ran to the women and children section as fast as he could with hope and a huge fear. He looked for his wife and son in many places until he found them. He hugged them with the greatest happiness he had ever felt.When it all finished, Isaac and his family moved to Israel, where they passed the rest of their lives happily.
2. Which is the motto used by the survivors of the Holocaust?
"Never Again".
miércoles, 1 de abril de 2009
jueves, 26 de marzo de 2009
Fourth Delivery
1. Who proposed the "Final Solution"?
The Final Solution was a Nazi plan to kill all the Jewish people in Europe. It was the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. The final solution was proposed by Heinrich Himmler.
2. Which was the alternative proposed for this event?
The alternative to the "Final Solution" was the"Euthanasia Program". Bringing the killers and the victims eye to eye created psychological problems for the executioners, so this was the reason why this alternative was created. The physical setting of the concentration camps could be combined with the techniques learned in the euthanasia program. The euthanasia program known as T-4 was developed in Germany to kill the mentally and physically defective. The first gassing experiments were conducted in Auschwitz in September 1941.
3. What is the "D" Day?
The D Day or Invasion of Normandy was a 1944 Allied assault on Nazi-occupied northern Europe that assembled the largest force in the history of amphibious warfare and represented a major turning point in World War II . The Allied forces consisted of 20 U.S. divisions, 14 British divisions, 3 Canadian divisions, a French division, and a Polish division. On the first day of the invasion, June 6, about 120,000 Allied troops landed at five beach locations along the coast of the French province of Normandy after crossing the English Channel from bases in southern England. The Allies faced a force of about 50,000 Germans and suffered nearly 5,000 casualties on the first day alone but succeeded in securing the beaches from which they launched their offensive. Many historians consider the D-Day invasion the greatest military achievement of the 20th century.
4. Mention two important officers for the SS.
The Final Solution was a Nazi plan to kill all the Jewish people in Europe. It was the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. The final solution was proposed by Heinrich Himmler.
2. Which was the alternative proposed for this event?
The alternative to the "Final Solution" was the"Euthanasia Program". Bringing the killers and the victims eye to eye created psychological problems for the executioners, so this was the reason why this alternative was created. The physical setting of the concentration camps could be combined with the techniques learned in the euthanasia program. The euthanasia program known as T-4 was developed in Germany to kill the mentally and physically defective. The first gassing experiments were conducted in Auschwitz in September 1941.
3. What is the "D" Day?
The D Day or Invasion of Normandy was a 1944 Allied assault on Nazi-occupied northern Europe that assembled the largest force in the history of amphibious warfare and represented a major turning point in World War II . The Allied forces consisted of 20 U.S. divisions, 14 British divisions, 3 Canadian divisions, a French division, and a Polish division. On the first day of the invasion, June 6, about 120,000 Allied troops landed at five beach locations along the coast of the French province of Normandy after crossing the English Channel from bases in southern England. The Allies faced a force of about 50,000 Germans and suffered nearly 5,000 casualties on the first day alone but succeeded in securing the beaches from which they launched their offensive. Many historians consider the D-Day invasion the greatest military achievement of the 20th century.
4. Mention two important officers for the SS.
- Gunter d'Alquen
- Albert Brummenbaum
5. S.O.S.
In 1944 summer, the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur arrived. All the Jews in the concentration camp gathered to celebrate the Rosh Hashanah praying. Although all Jews celebrated it, Elie began wondering if God really existed, because if he did he wouldn't allowed so much suffering, and he also wonder if there were good reasons to pray. He also thinks that God hates Jews and that he has chosen them to be killed. He also got to think that men are more powerful than God. Later that day, Elie talks with his father about the situation but he didn't find hope in his father but just desperation.
Around the Jewish New Year, Elie is separated from his father, and days later it is announced that there will be a selection. Elie gets very worried because he thinks that his father will not pass the selection. Elie got very shocked when he gets to know that his father didn't pass the selection and that he will be killed. Before seeing his father for the last time(or at least this is what Elie thinks) he gives Elie his only belongings, a knife and a spoon.
When Elie finished working, he found out something really wonderful, his father isn't dead, he wasn't executed. This was because there was another selection among the already condemned and Elie's father achieved to pass it. However, Akiba Drumer didn't pass the second selection because he had lost his hope to live and he's executed. Elie tells that despair has become so great among the Jews prisoners, that even a rabbi has lost his faith toward God.
When winter arrives, prisoners star suffering diseases. Elie is operated during this season because of a problem with his foot. During this season it appears a shine of hope, because it is known that Russian army is approaching to the concentration camp. But before prisoners could get happy, Germans evacuate Jews from the camp due to the Russian approaching. Elie and his father were recovering in the enfermery but they choose to evacuate the camp with the other Jews because they thought that people in the enfermery would be killed before the Germans left. Elie as a narrator tells that this was a mistake, because those who were recovering in the enfermery were freed by the Russians.
I think that in this part of the story, the war is about to be finished and be lost by Germany, that's why Jewish prisoners are started to be executed more frequently. Jewish despair is bigger than never. I think that the Russian takeover of the concentration camp was in the D Day. Desperation has also arrived to the Nazi.
lunes, 16 de marzo de 2009
Third Delivery
1. Why were the prisoners tatooed or marked on their forearms? Does this action have a religious implication or not? Why?
The numbered tattoos that Jewish prisoners have today become an identifying mark of Holocaust survivors originated in Auschwitz. After their heads were shaved and their personal possessions removed, the prisoners were officially registered. Beginning in 1941, this registration consisted of a tattoo, which was placed on the left breast of the prisoner; later, the tattoo location was moved to the inner forearm. This action did not have any religious implication. These tattoos were just one of the ways in which the Nazis dehumanized their prisoners.
2. Who were the kapos? Why did their fellowmen fear these leaders?
The Kapos were trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners and carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards in the German concentration camps. Some of these Kapos were Jewish. Their fellowmen feared them because they were as brutal as as their SS counterparts and they inflicted harsh treatment on their fellow prisoners. They did this duty because they were threatened to be punished or killed if they didn't do so.
3. Mention three characters who influenced Elie in the camp.
The numbered tattoos that Jewish prisoners have today become an identifying mark of Holocaust survivors originated in Auschwitz. After their heads were shaved and their personal possessions removed, the prisoners were officially registered. Beginning in 1941, this registration consisted of a tattoo, which was placed on the left breast of the prisoner; later, the tattoo location was moved to the inner forearm. This action did not have any religious implication. These tattoos were just one of the ways in which the Nazis dehumanized their prisoners.
2. Who were the kapos? Why did their fellowmen fear these leaders?
The Kapos were trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners and carried out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards in the German concentration camps. Some of these Kapos were Jewish. Their fellowmen feared them because they were as brutal as as their SS counterparts and they inflicted harsh treatment on their fellow prisoners. They did this duty because they were threatened to be punished or killed if they didn't do so.
3. Mention three characters who influenced Elie in the camp.
- Juliek
- Elie's father
- Yosi and Tobi
4. S.O.S.
When they arrived to Buna, Eliezer is ordered by the Kapo to serve in a unit of prisoners whose job is counting electrical fittings in a civilian warehouse. Elie and his father are sent to live in a block inhabited by musicians. Here, Elie meets Juliek, a violinist, and his two brothers called Yosi and Tobi. Elie and Juliek's brothers (who are Zionists) start planning to move to Palestine when the war finishes. In Buna, people who have gold crowns in the teeth are called by a dentist who takes the gold crowns out from the prisoners' teeth. As Elie had a gold crown, he is called by the dentist, but he pretends to be ill and his operation is postponed. Later, it is known that the dentist have been hung for trading the gold. Eliezer's kapo, who was called Idek, was a mad man and one day he hits violently Elie without any reason. Due to the state in which Elie finishes after this violent treatment, a kind French girl helps Elie. Then, Elie tells the readers, that years later, he found this girl (already a grown woman) in France and that she told him that she wasn't a prisoner but a laborer and that she was a Jew pretending to be an Aryan.
Another day, Idek had another attack of craziness, and he attacks his father. Elie didn't get angry with Idek but he did with his father for not having done anything at Idek's attack. Elie tells the reader that at that moment he only cared for him and for his survival.
One day, the prison guard called Franek, found Elie's gold crown and he asks for it. Elie refuses to give it because his father advised it and because of that, Franek beats Elie's father for having told him that until Elie agreed to give it to him. Another day, Elie caught Idek having sex with a Polish girl, so he beats Elie in front of everybody until he falls unconscious.
One day, there was and Allied air raid on Buna, and all the prisoners were sent to their respectively block. Two cauldrons of soup were left without supervancy during this attack, and everybody saw how a man went to these cauldrons and when he stood up to eat soup, he was shot and killed. Days later, the Nazis hung in the public square a man who wanted to steal something during this air attack. They also hung two men and a boy who were part of a resistance. After this, almost everybody began wondering where was God and if he really existed.
I think that in this point of the story, the desperation of people has increased so much as well as the cruelty against them, that they don't have faith anymore. These Jews that believed in God begin wondering if he's real because a good God wouldn't allow his people to suffer that much. The story has reached a point in which the Jews are already being extermined.
jueves, 12 de marzo de 2009
Second Delivery
1. What is a ghetto? Where did the Nazis settle these ghettos?
A ghetto is a poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restrictions. The most known ghettos are the Jewish ghettos, established during the World War II by the Nazis, to control and segregate Jews. German constructed about 1,000 The nazis settled the ghettos inside the cities and they looked very much like a neighborhood.
2. What is the difference between a concentration camp and an extermination camp?
Concentration camps were camps used as places of incarceration and forced labor for a variety of enemies of the state; the Nazi label for people they deemed undesirable (principally Jews). Jews were then deported to the extermination camps, that were camps established to kill prisoners delivered there, so they were mainly settled to facilitate Jewish genocide.
3. Bergen-Belsen: Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp near Hanover in northwest Germany, located between the villages of Bergen and Belsen. Built in 1940, it was a prisoner-of-war camp for French and Belgium prisoners. Jews with foreign passports were kept there to be exchanged for German nationals imprisoned abroad, although very few exchanges were made. About 200 Jews were allowed to immigrate to Palestine and about 1,500 Hungarian Jews were allowed to immigrate to Switzerland, both took place under the rubric of exchanges for German nationals.
Auschwitz: it was the largest of Nazi Germany's extermination camps. Almost 3 million people were killed in Auscwitz. It had Jews from almost all European countries. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz's gas chambers; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".
Dachau: Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the Nazis in Germany. The camp was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau. Dachau served as a prototype and model for other Nazi concentration camps that followed.
Treblinka: a camp hidden in the remote forests of northeastern Poland, along the western border of the Bialystok province. Around 850,00 people ,more than 99.5 percent of them Jews, but also other victims (among them 2,000 Romani people) were killed there.
Buchenbald: was one of the largest concentration camps established by the Nazis. Buchenwald first opened for male prisoners in July 1937. Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until 1944. The camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence, watchtowers, and a chain of sentries outfitted with automatically activated machine guns.
S.O.S.
After being taken away from the small ghetto, Elie and all his family are taken to a train station and they are kept into cattle cars. The cattle car is relatively small, considering that there were many Jews, and it's very dark. Later, it got worse, because people began to get get hungry and thirsty and there was a tremendous heat. Because of these conditions some people began to loose their minds. Then the train stops in the Czechoslovakian border, where a German soldier appears and tells everybody that he's taking charge of the train and that if somebody doesn't give his belongings he'll kill him and that if somebody escapes, he will kill all the Jews inside the car. After having said this, the German locks the door of the car with nails. In the train there was a woman called Madame Schächter, that had a ten-year-old son, that becomes crazy because of the conditions, since one night of traveling, she suddenly woke up and began screaming that there was fire outside the car. Everybody checked but nobody saw even a gleam. After days of traveling, the train finally stops in Auschwitz station, and all the Jews were taken down from the car. They were lead to a camp (this was a concentration camp called Birkenau) and they were told that they were going to work there and that they would be well treated, everybody got calm because of this news. In the camp, Elie and the Jews say several constructions with chimneys that were working all day and they noticed a horrible smell that they recognized as the one of human bodies being burned.
I think that such treatment against human beings is intolerable, because they just cheated them and gave them false hopes and because they also were treated like animals (enclosed in dark rooms with no food or water). They also exploided them because they were made to work in an insane way to be killed later. I think that this was a really unfair treatment due to the lack of ideological tolerance.
A ghetto is a poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restrictions. The most known ghettos are the Jewish ghettos, established during the World War II by the Nazis, to control and segregate Jews. German constructed about 1,000 The nazis settled the ghettos inside the cities and they looked very much like a neighborhood.
2. What is the difference between a concentration camp and an extermination camp?
Concentration camps were camps used as places of incarceration and forced labor for a variety of enemies of the state; the Nazi label for people they deemed undesirable (principally Jews). Jews were then deported to the extermination camps, that were camps established to kill prisoners delivered there, so they were mainly settled to facilitate Jewish genocide.
3. Bergen-Belsen: Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp near Hanover in northwest Germany, located between the villages of Bergen and Belsen. Built in 1940, it was a prisoner-of-war camp for French and Belgium prisoners. Jews with foreign passports were kept there to be exchanged for German nationals imprisoned abroad, although very few exchanges were made. About 200 Jews were allowed to immigrate to Palestine and about 1,500 Hungarian Jews were allowed to immigrate to Switzerland, both took place under the rubric of exchanges for German nationals.
Auschwitz: it was the largest of Nazi Germany's extermination camps. Almost 3 million people were killed in Auscwitz. It had Jews from almost all European countries. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz's gas chambers; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".
Dachau: Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the Nazis in Germany. The camp was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau. Dachau served as a prototype and model for other Nazi concentration camps that followed.
Treblinka: a camp hidden in the remote forests of northeastern Poland, along the western border of the Bialystok province. Around 850,00 people ,more than 99.5 percent of them Jews, but also other victims (among them 2,000 Romani people) were killed there.
Buchenbald: was one of the largest concentration camps established by the Nazis. Buchenwald first opened for male prisoners in July 1937. Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until 1944. The camp was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence, watchtowers, and a chain of sentries outfitted with automatically activated machine guns.
S.O.S.
After being taken away from the small ghetto, Elie and all his family are taken to a train station and they are kept into cattle cars. The cattle car is relatively small, considering that there were many Jews, and it's very dark. Later, it got worse, because people began to get get hungry and thirsty and there was a tremendous heat. Because of these conditions some people began to loose their minds. Then the train stops in the Czechoslovakian border, where a German soldier appears and tells everybody that he's taking charge of the train and that if somebody doesn't give his belongings he'll kill him and that if somebody escapes, he will kill all the Jews inside the car. After having said this, the German locks the door of the car with nails. In the train there was a woman called Madame Schächter, that had a ten-year-old son, that becomes crazy because of the conditions, since one night of traveling, she suddenly woke up and began screaming that there was fire outside the car. Everybody checked but nobody saw even a gleam. After days of traveling, the train finally stops in Auschwitz station, and all the Jews were taken down from the car. They were lead to a camp (this was a concentration camp called Birkenau) and they were told that they were going to work there and that they would be well treated, everybody got calm because of this news. In the camp, Elie and the Jews say several constructions with chimneys that were working all day and they noticed a horrible smell that they recognized as the one of human bodies being burned.
I think that such treatment against human beings is intolerable, because they just cheated them and gave them false hopes and because they also were treated like animals (enclosed in dark rooms with no food or water). They also exploided them because they were made to work in an insane way to be killed later. I think that this was a really unfair treatment due to the lack of ideological tolerance.
jueves, 5 de marzo de 2009
1st Assignment Continuation
Elie Wiesel's Biography.
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, Romania. His father was Shlomo Wiesel and his mother was Sarah Wiesel. He had three sisters: Hilda, Beatrice, and Tzipora (who died in the war). His parents also died in the war but he, Beatrice, and Hilda survived. Eli and his family were Jews that lived during the World War II, they also were captured by German soldiers and sent to concentration camps.
Eli is a Jewish writer who focuses almost all his literature in the Holocaust, he has said that with it he wants to transmit peace and dignity to all humanity, but he also writes about theology and spirituality. He has written 57 books, but his most famous and important work is his memoir "Night".
Elie Wiesel was awarded with the Nobel Peace Priza in 1986 and was called by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as a messennger to mankind.
Nowadays, Elie Wiesel is professor and political activist.
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, Romania. His father was Shlomo Wiesel and his mother was Sarah Wiesel. He had three sisters: Hilda, Beatrice, and Tzipora (who died in the war). His parents also died in the war but he, Beatrice, and Hilda survived. Eli and his family were Jews that lived during the World War II, they also were captured by German soldiers and sent to concentration camps.
Eli is a Jewish writer who focuses almost all his literature in the Holocaust, he has said that with it he wants to transmit peace and dignity to all humanity, but he also writes about theology and spirituality. He has written 57 books, but his most famous and important work is his memoir "Night".
Elie Wiesel was awarded with the Nobel Peace Priza in 1986 and was called by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as a messennger to mankind.
Nowadays, Elie Wiesel is professor and political activist.
domingo, 1 de marzo de 2009
Pp. 3-22
Map.
Transylvania.
Timeline. (1944)
- Europe:
- January 14: Soviet troops start the offensive at Leningrad and Novgorod.
- February 26: Shooting begins on the Nazi propaganda film, "The Fuehrer Gives a Village to the Jews" in Theresienstadt.
- March 19: German forces occupy Hungary.
- June 6: Battle of Normandy: Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France.
- August 1: The Warsaw Uprising begins.
- September 3: The Allies liberate Brussels.
- October 21: Aachen,the first German city to fall, is captured by American troops.
- December 31: Hungary declares war on Germany.
2. America
- April 2: El Salvador suffers a strike against its dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez.
- October 20: Guatemala's dictatorship is abolished.
- November 7: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins presidential reelection over Republican challenger.
S.O.S.
The story starts with Elie Wiesel as a thirteen year-old Jewish boy who lives in a small town in Sighet, Transylvania. He’s is the only son from a family formed by his father (who is a shopkeeper), his mother and his three sisters. Elie passed his childhood calmly in Sighet studying the Talmud and always wishing to study the Kabbalah, but his father didn’t allowed him to do so because he said he had to wait until he was older. One day he knew a homeless called Moishe the Beadle, with whom he talked about the Kabbalah and with whom he learnt many things about it.Suddenly, news about a war started to be rumored in Sighet, but nobody really cared about it because they saw it as something really distant. One day, Hungarian police came to Sighet and took away all the homeless, including Moishe, nobody knew where they were taken but they didn’t care. Week later, Moishe arrived injured to the town telling everybody that the other homeless were killed by the Hungarian and that soon they will always be killed and nobody paid attention to him. A year passed calmly in Sighet just with news about the new World War but with no incidents in it until one day German soldiers arrived to the town. At first, German soldiers didn’t do anything, actually they were nice, but later things changed drastically. First, they closed the synagogues, forbid religious ceremonies, arrested rebels and made Jews used a yellow star. Then, they created two ghettos and obliged all Jews to live in there and didn’t allow them to exit. Then, they were threatened to be killed if they didn’t follow new imposed rules. Finally, all Jews were made to leave all their belongings in the ghetto and they started to be transported to concentration camps (although they didn’t know where they were taken). To accomplish this process they were first moved to the small ghetto where they were checked and they were separated in men and women and then, they were transported to the concentration camp in trains. Elie’s family was the last group of Jews to be taken away, so they saw all the people they knew going away, he and his family lived with anguish during those waiting days.I think that this was a very cruel human action because they judged people just for their religion and they didn’t care killing millions of innocent people, destroying families, and humiliating and hurting people. The saddest thing is that children were also injured and killed and that no mercy was shown. I think that this has been the greatest discrimination act that the world has had. All of these events were just done by the countries to get power.
jueves, 2 de octubre de 2008
Roman Empire Era
The Roman Empire era was betwen the years 27BC and AD 476. It was located in Rome, Italy. Rome was also the capital. It was a very huge city full of enormous constructions, religious temples (the Romans adored many Gods), market places, and many public squares. Wherever you walked you could find beautiful statues of their Gods. They had a main piazze where everyone gathered to hear the speeches from the Caesar or to celebrate their religious celebrations. Their more important construction is the Colosseum, a place that held combats between gladiators and between prisoners and ferocious animals like lions or tigers. The people gathered in the Colosseum the weekends to watch these combats. However, this was a very bloody spectacle where the ones that participated just suffered.
The city was always full of happiness and you could find many ways of entertaining yourself wherever you went. The weather in Rome is really nice because it's temperate. If the days were hot you could refresh yourself in the fountains.
Education and scientific development was very increased during this era.
However, since that time, the government that was formed by patricians was a very corrupt organization that only acted for their own benefit.
I would really had liked to live in that era. I only would had cancelled the combats because they attempted against the human integrity and eliminated the corruption that since that time already existed because corruption is a fact that spoils all societies, and maybe the Fall of the Roman Empire was related in some way to that corruption. But behind that, I wouldn't had changed anything because it was a very nice era that could had accomplished all my needs.
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