marvin1011's Blog

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Elie Wiesel, like many children during the holocaust was a very frightened and scared person with what was going on. Since the first attack by the Nazis many children were affected by it because their families were taken away and they had to live lives in the sewers or in abandoned houses for shelter as the Nazis got through. Elie was not a very lucky one from the start having been caught and taken to the concentration camps, but if you think about it none of them were lucky for the things happening to them. Some made a living scavenging for food while others tried their best to survive and had been caught by a Nazi or starved to death, it was a very tragic time indeed. Even though Elie had such a hard time in the concentration camps he did recieve help from some others by getting bread and such, such as Krystyna’s family (  http://www.adl.org/children_holocaust/story_krystyna3.asp ) had been hiding in the sewers and received food from polish workers who came into the sewers to help them, It reminds me of when Elie met the polish prisoner that was in charge of their block in Aushwits (on page 38) who had helped them with extra portions of bread and less work compared to after he was replaced.

The conditions for Krystyna and Elie were both horrible, on one hand Elie had to work in the concentration camps with others who were sick and starving while on the other Krystyna had to live in the sewers where about 9 people died from sicknesses, 1 infant died from suffication, and Krystyna and her brother had gotten measels. A lot of people had gotten sicknesses in Night as well, and you could see that from how sick Elie’s father had gotten after being in those harsh conditions, it had been like that for a lot of children of the holocaust because they had been in such terrible places in hiding and in the concentration camps and such.

I am an artist who lays brush strokes on a canvas made of colors and emotion.

I am a hardworker who does as he is told.

I am the musician who pleases others with his music.

I am the jester who jokes for other’s amusement.

I am the one who finds himself alone in the end.

I am a master of deception, making you think you know me one second and breaking those bonds afterward.

I am the person who makes progress without help from others.

I am the one who wants you to find out my truths and lies.

Marvin L

10-11

December

Maus: A survivor’s tale

Art Spigelman

I think the author’s purpose for this book was to inform people of what his father and a lot of other prisoners caught by the nazis have been through since it wasn’t easy being an enemy of the nazis.

I think the intended audience for this book was for people who want to know what people like Vladek Spigelman(the author’s father) have been through and for people who want to know what life was like during the holocaust.

This book in my opinion was a 10 out of 10 for creative use of storytelling, great art representation of the characters and good use of flashbacks in the book every time his father told him more about his life during the holocaust.

If this book had gone another chapter, i think it would have showed how Art would have dealed with his father’s passing and what his life was like compared to his father’s, or how life was like compared from now to before during the holocaust for other jews and prisoners of the Nazis.

1) I think the Germans decided to publicly hang prisoners because they wanted to strike even more fear and mental/phycological pain to their prisoners, also they wanted to show that death was still an active element in the camps.

2) At the beginning of the book he has a sort of distant relationship because his father isn’t much of a family man, then in the middle they relied on each-other because they needed each-other to survive and became close, then by the end he still loves his father but thinks he is a burden because he has stopped helping Elie and became sick and in need of Elie.

3) It is a significant act because it is his last things he owns and is a gift to his son when he thinks he is going to die there. When Elie says it is “the inheritance” he means that it’s the last gift his father gave him.

4) Elie’s beliefs drastically changes during his time in Auschwitz from being a profound believer to someone who gives up on his faith and his god for what he’s put so many through.

5) The German workman forces the Prisoners to run each-other over,causing a stampede in the wagon and these actions suggest the he is a cruel person for doing this and the incident suggests that the prisoners are trying their best to survive among all odds even if some others get killed in the process.

6) Elie starts to despise his father and think he is dead weight and a burden to him but then at the same time he is in conflict with himself because he wants to survive easier but he also wants to help his father survive.

7) On January 28th Elie’s father was beaten and hurt for asking Elie for water and begging,then the next morning he was gone. At this point Elie’s emotional state is%Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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Elie looks at himself in the end of the book and he says, “The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me” which means that he has never forgotten the way he looked and felt, so changed after what happened at the concentration camps and hasn’t seen himself the same way as he did before everything happened anymore.

9) Elie has been very effective at convincing me that this is a true story because of all the detail he uses to illustrate everything that happens, as well as stating the dates and times of events and sharing his thoughts and actions in every manner.

10) The title Night brings an eerie, tragic, dark feeling to the story making you prepare for the things in the story even though a lot of it catches you off guard like how Elie’s father becomes sick and Elie thinks he is a burden. I think if i would rename this book it would be called “Darkness” because it keeps with the book’s theme of being alone in the end and also it gives the book a feeling that something bad will happen in this book.

passage 1: page 1, “They called him Moshe the Beadle”
Reaction: I thought this passage had foreshadowed that something bad will happen because it claims that Moshe the Beadle was a master at making himself “Insignificant and seemingly invisible.” I also was surprised that people are annoyed by the poor except for Moshe which sort of also foreshadows that Moshe will soon change the way he is and become like others as he does in the book after his traumatic experience.

Passage 2: page 61 “The Sad Eyed Angel…”
Reaction: I was so shocked when I read this part of the story, I mean to put a young boy to death by hanging is just monstrous,it is downright horrible in every sense of the word. The first time I’ve read this and it said he was still alive, I had to put down the book and stop reading for a few days thinking it was too horrible to keep going, but I was compelled to know how Elie escaped the clutches of the Nazis so I had to keep going eventually. Also, I felt so sorry for the Jewish people when they saw it as well because one even said that their God was there being hanged in front of their own faces because as a catholic I was taught that Jesus was hanged and came back to life after 3 days I can sort of relate to that.

Passage 3: page 64, “Why should I Bless Him?!…”
Reaction: I was not surprised that he had lost faith in his God because of all the horrible things that he’s been through, in a way I think that i would problem say the same in that situation because if God had forsaken so many people to their deaths for no reason what-so-ever what would be the point of worshiping him?

Passage 4: page 65-66, “Yom Kippur”
Reaction: I was very surprised that Elie’s father, someone who loved his faith so much, had let go of it and told Elie to eat and keep his strength up, but i understand because if they had starved themselves for a day,they would’ve been in a worse condition then before and less chances of living and even if his father hadn’t forced him to eat, i think Elie would’ve anyways for survival purposes.

Passage 5: page 106 “January 29th.”
Reaction: I felt sorry for Elie, he had nobody left with him that he cared about, and he had to survive alone now, but what i find worst of all about this passage is that Elie had been thinking of his father as a burden before this and he must keep alive.

Passage 6: page 109: “From the depths of the mirror a corpse gazed back at me…”
Reaction: I know now how broken Elie must have felt, how much change he’s gone through and how he see’s himself in the end of it all. I would feel like i was staring back at a monster if i’ve seen myself so changed after so long, i wouldn’t know how to cope with myself in such a changed state and in the end he has nobody to turn to, no family to go to which makes me feel horrible for him because even though i dislike my own family, i wouldn’t want them to be gone because of all they’ve done for me.

1) Elie describes himself as the second youngest in his family and a lithe skinny boy.
2) Moshe the Beadle was a man of all work at a Hasidic Synagogue who looked as physically awkward as a clown,but even though he was poor,people did not feel embarrassed by him since he was humble and made himself practically invisible around everyone, until he survives a terrible encounter with the Nazis.
3) The town did not believe Moshe thinking he just wanted their pity.
4) I think Elie started with the story of Moshe the Beadle because he knew how to make himself unnoticed to everyone and suddenly he changes quickly from an encounter with the Nazis.
5) German soldiers slowly took over Sighet by staying in Jewish homes and acting nice until finally declaring the place as Nazi territory and taking it over and transporting everyone to concentration camps.
6) Elie’s family is separated when they reach the concentration camps and move the men away from the women splitting everyone up by gender.
7) I think the Germans took away the inmates’ personal belongings to make them feel like people who don’t deserve to have anything personal on them or any weapons for that matter. I think they took away their clothing because they wanted to burn everything Jews had because the Nazis think things Jews touch are tainted. I believe they cut their hair and put tattoos on them to make them feel like they are not different from each other and they are all in this dire situation together but are powerless to do anything.
What Elie means by his life turning into “one long night” is that he felt every single day was a long painful journey he struggled to survive through and he could not do anything to change that.
9) So far this novel is a very interesting yet sad telling of what Elie Wiesel and all of the Jews in concentration camps went through in such horrible conditions and horrific ways that they have tortured and killed and experimented on these Jewish prisoners of the Nazis. I think Elie was very lucky and blessed to even make it through all of the hardships he has faced so far and what challenges that lie ahead.

1) The Holocaust is a very interesting yet horrifying subject, but there is still much we cannot know for certain about this horrible incident because most of the people who have gone through this have already died, but we still do know much about what has happened. What i find so compelling about this subject is how easily Hitler took over Germany and that he had supposedly been planning on taking over the world. I would like to further investigate on Hitler’s ancestors to find out if he actually was Jewish with a hatred for his own race/religion or if they were just an easy target for him to demolish.
A few questions I’d like to have answered are:
A)Was Hitler Jewish himself?
B)Why did he go so far as to kill Jews in such horrible ways?
C)Why did he want a superior or “ultimate” German race?
2) The first major project choice seems interesting to me. The first steps to starting this would be finding out who to write the journal for, who I could easily get into character with, and making a draft of the first few entries before proofreading starting my final copy.
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After viewing The Pianist:
1) So far i think this film is a brutal telling of the hardships that Szpilman and his family along with most other Jews in Poland faced as the Nazis invaded it. It may seem hard to watch but knowing this all happened and that people lived through it to tell the tale is remarkable, but what fascinates me more is that the Nazis did not even care at all that he was a famous musician and still treated him like the rest of the Jewish people for his ethnicity.

2) The steps Nazis took to persecute the Jews of Poland were first avoidance by shunning them from places they would be able to see them like public parks or restaurants, but then it went to name calling and threats as they saw Jews walk by. The next step was physical attacks by hitting any Jew who doesn’t bow to the Germans and Nazis and any Jew who does not walk in the streets or street gutters.

3) I think Szpilman identifies himself primarily as a Jew than a musician because he gave up his piano for a low price to get money for his family to survive.

Two “Monsters”?

Ulrich from The Interlopers and Zaroff from The Most Dangerous Game are alike because they both seem like the bad guys in the stories because of their own actions as antagonists and are different because Ulrich got angry and lost his cool while Zaroff kept his cool and didn’t lost his temper as the protagonist pushed forward.

A) The poem relates to the story because there is an adult telling a child to press on and don’t let up when things go badly, since she went through life and is alright even though she faced hardships, yet it is also the same as how Mrs. Jones told Roger to set himself straight.

B) If Mrs. Jones had not taken Roger home, he might’ve become a thug without a care in the wold for other people, only caring about himself since he lives alone and he could’ve gone to Jail or worse. That is what i think would’ve happened to Roger if he was not taken to Mrs. Jones’ home.

C) Mrs. Jones: Roger, is that you?

Roger: Yes Ma’am, I’m here to thank you for what you’ve taught me.

Mrs. Jones: Well, what did I teach you, boy?

Roger: You’ve taught me to set my life straight. Right now I am studying to become a teacher because I’d like to set children’s lives straight through education.

Mrs. Jones: Well thats wonderful! I’m so proud of you!

Roger: Yeah, and I did it all without stealin’ anything else.