Gretel studied her maps, the pins gleamed in the light filtering in from the window. Humming she looked down at the newspaper, which detailed the army's movements. Smirking she moved one of the pins deeper into enemy territory, they would win, of that she was sure. Germany was superior, none could stand against its wrath! She frowned as she had to replace one of the cheery red pins with a sullen blue, the thrice darned North Americans had captured one of the troops! Her fingers fumbled as she tried to move another pin and it fell to the floor. bendding down she spotted it rolling, it stopped a couple feet away from her dolls. Grabbing it she looked at them, they had fallen into disarray as she had begun to neglect them in favor of her maps. She turned around, tensing as she heard the floorboards creak, she crept closer to partially-open door, looking through the crack she saw... her brother. Bruno, the nine-year old annoyance of her life, ever intent on getting in her way, bothering her, and over-all being a nuiscence; though he wasn't so bad as before they came Auschwitz she mused watching him try to be stealthy as he walked down the stairs. She closed the door as his head dissappeared down the stairs, he was going to get a snack undoubtedly. Gretel turned back to her dolls, picking up one of the ones in the back; well remembered was the day that she had recieved her.
Gretel glared bitterly at Bruno, having yet to forgive him for breaking her favorite doll the day before.
"Gr-Gretel," he said hesitantly,
"What?" she snapped as he approached her. He was looking at her as if half-expecting her to bite his head off;
"I-I got you something... I'm, I'm sorry for breaking your doll yesterday..." He trailed off and brought a not-quite...
... middle of paper ...
...big metal pot infront of her. Mother shook her head (most likely at Bruno's antics) and began looking for Bruno, she was joined by Father half-an-hour into her search. After being joined by Father after about half of an hour they both searched for another hour. Mother came in and collapsed onto a chair, as Father hollored
"Bruno!" one last time.
"I don't get it, where could he be?" Mother asked pinching the bridge of her nose. Formerly pristine she now was slightly messy: the hem of her skirt had an inch of mud and her red-hair was beginning to come out of her net.
"Maybe he's dead," Gretel said. She didn't believed it herself, but one was suppose to answer Mother.
"Gretel! Don't say such things, your brother is not dead!" Mother exclaimed.
"Maybe he ran away like a character from one of those fantasy novels he is so fond of then," She said examining her fingernails.
The story is a 3rd person view of a young boy called Georg who lived in Germany with his dad who was born in England and his mother born Germany. At the time all he wanted was to be a perfect boy in Hitler’s eyes which now wouldn’t be a good thing these days but at his time it would be all anyone ever
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
Paul Baumer is a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I. He and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, hounded by the nationalist ranting of a feverish schoolmaster, Kantorek. Though not all of them want to enlist, they do so in order to save face. Their first stop is boot camp, where life is still laughter and games. “Where are all the medals?” asks one. “Just wait a month and I’ll have them,” comes the boisterous response. This is their last vestige of boyhood.
Irene’s mom was becoming sick very fast, and could not eat the food that Irene saved her. One cold and snowy day, Irene was looking for the scarf that they still owned so she could go do her work, but it was wrapped around her mother because she was cold. Olga then told Irene that their mom was dead. Their mother’s body lay alongside hundreds of other bodies. Later, her sister became very sick and weak, and could not walk.
Her mom came into the room rubbing her eyes. “Is everything ok? What’s going on?”
cracks a wicked smile full of razor-sharp teeth as she sees his head turn, and
Bruno, an eight year old boy at the time of the war, is completely oblivious to the atrocities of the war around him - even with a father who is a Nazi commandant. The title of the book is evidence to this - Bruno perceives the concentration camp uniforms as "striped pajamas." Further evidence is the misnomers "the Fury," (the Furher) and "Out-With" (Auschwitz). Bruno and Shmuel, the boy he meets from Auschwitz, share a great deal in common but perhaps what is most striking is the childhood innocence which characterizes both boys. Bruno is unaware that his father is a Nazi commandant and that his home is on ther periphery of Auschwitz. Shmuel, imprisoned in the camp, seems not to understand the severity of his situation. When his father goes missing, Shmuel does not understand that he has gone to the gas chamber.
This memoir, which sits on the library shelf, dusty and unread, gives readers a view of the reality of this brutal war. So many times World War II books give detail about the war or what went on inside the Concentration Camps, yet this book gives insight to a different side. A side where a child not only had to hide from Nazi’s in threat of being taken as a Jew, but a child who hid from the Nazi’s in plain sight, threatened every day by his identity. Yeahuda captures the image of what life was like from the inside looking out. “Many times throughout the war we felt alone and trapped. We felt abandoned by all outside help. Like we were fighting a war on our own” (Nir 186). Different from many non-fiction books, Nir uses detail to give his story a bit of mystery and adventure. Readers are faced with his true battles and are left on the edge of their
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders she went back to doodling anime characters.
For example, as a German soldier, Ralf prioritizes his work for the military over his own family which results in having little time to spend with Bruno. Gretel, Bruno’s sister, acts as the mature, yet ignorant, sibling in the family as she tosses aside her old toys and playful personality to a more serious mentality to support the Third Reich, showing the effects of German propaganda on its population to aim their hatred towards the non-German people and support the
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by John Boyne, significantly distorts the truth of the Holocaust in order to evoke the empathy of the audience. This response is accomplished by the author through hyperbolizing the innocence of the nine-year old protagonist, Bruno. Through the use of dramatic irony, Boyne is able to both engage and involve the audience in the events of the novel. Although it is highly improbable that a son of a German high-ranking Schutzstaffel (SS) officer would not know what a Jew is and would be unable to pronounce both Fuhrer and Auschwitz, (which he instead mispronounces as ‘Fury’ and ‘Out-with’ respectively, both of which are intentional emotive puns placed by the author to emphasize the atrocity of the events), the attribution of such information demonstrates the exaggerated innocence of Bruno and allows the audience to know and understand more than him. This permits the readers to perceive a sense of involvement, thus, allowing the audience to be subjected towards feeling more dynamic and vigorous evocation of emotions and empathy towards the characters. Fu...
Set in Poland during the German occupation, “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel” is told as a fairy tale, utilizing many of the elements that are common to fairy tales.
Fairy tales have been a big part of learning and childhood for many of us. They may seem childish to us, but they are full of life lessons and intelligent turnings. Components of fairy tales may even include violence, but always with the aim to provide a moral to the story. Hansel and Gretel is in itself a very interesting story to analyze. It demonstrates the way that children should not stray too far from their benchmarks and rely on appearances. In 2013, a film adaptation was produced. This film is produced for an older public and has picked up the story to turn it into a more mature and violent version. Hansel and Gretel is a German fairy tale written by the Grimm Brothers which has undergone several changes over the years and across the cultures which it touched, but for the purposes of this essay, I will stick to the original story. In the development of this essay, I will analyze the components of this tale by the Brothers Grimm based on the factors listed in the course syllabus (violence, interpersonal relationships, the function of magic and the ending), and I will then do a summary and comparison between the story and the film which was released in theaters recently.
"... she started pawing and ripping at him with her fingers, scratching his back and face..."
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about something. You know, Mother.” I said desperately, letting tears roll down my cheek. Gleam understood this and immediately tried to cheer me up. She came over and...