“‘Well, Jacob Weisz, that was a brave thing you just did’ the old man said. ‘Brave, indeed.’” This is what describes Jacob Weisz, the main character of Joel C. Rosenberg’s The Auschwitz Escape, a suspenseful and thrilling historical fiction novel. Jacob is a very courageous, hopeful, and brave twenty-two-year-old that lives in Siegen, Germany. This book takes place in a few different places but the main location is Germany and it is during Hitler’s rise to power. Jacob goes through a lot during this journey of saving Jews and trying to stay alive in a death camp ruled by Nazis. I believe that you have to be courageous to get through hard times but as this courage builds, it can take you to some very dangerous circumstances and lead you to get …show more content…
As I got to know Jacob more and more, I found that he was a very courageous, brave, and hopeful young individual. Jacob was more courageous than any other of his character traits in this novel, he let this courage build, but when one of the largest rescue missions he has taken on goes wrong he finds himself headed for Auschwitz. In this novel, assuring me that Jacob is brave, it states, “‘Well, Jacob Weisz, that was a brave thing you just did’ the old man said. ‘Brave, indeed.’” This is stated after Jacob tries to save the Jews from the train and gets trapped. Another thing that helped me know that Jacob is courageous is the fact that Jacob was risking his life to save the lives of other Jews which also shows that he is very selfless. Also, in the concentration camp, Jacob was helping his friend Josef because he was very weak and frail. Jacob gave him food but this could have also gotten him killed. Finally, the author states a lot that Jacob can not give up hope and he keeps being hopeful. Proving that he is hopeful, the text states, “...Jacob refused to be disheartened…” The text also states, “...Don`t give up hope, Jacob...¨ This shows that Jacob is positive and he is constantly reminded to be hopeful. Developing this courage, Jacob did a lot of new things and helped others but this has built up a lot, taking him to the most dangerous place on …show more content…
As my story developed, I noticed more and more that the author always used suspense. This made me want to read more and more until I found out what happened. “He was trapped and alone, and headed for Auschwitz.” This use of suspense really stood out to me because I just wanted to read the whole book. This helped to develop the idea that what Jacob did was very courageous but it took him too far and he might die soon. Since this ended the chapter, I thought about the chapter as a whole which represents my theme. I started to pay attention to these details and this pulled me in to make me read more. Another literary tool that the author uses is imagery. This author creates a wonderful picture in your mind with the amazing use of descriptive words. An example of this is when the text states, “He was just a kid, really, only twenty-eight years old, and when he looked in the mirror every morning, he didn't see anyone special. He didn't stand out in a crowd. He was of average height and average build, with sandy-blond hair and bluish-green eyes set behind round, gold wire-rimmed glasses that made him look a bit more studious, even intellectual, than he really was. He'd always wanted to grow a beard-a goatee, at least-but even his adorable young wife teased him that his efforts were never quite successful…. ” This short paragraph gave me an exact picture of what this character, Jean-Luc
Rudolf Vrba uses irony to highlight the absurdity of the reality of life in Auschwitz. Rudolf recounts his memories of July 17th, 1942, his seventeenth day in the camp. The officers and prisoners were preparing for the arrival of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, a high ranking SS officer.
In Primo Levi’s Survival In Auschwitz, an autobiographical account of the author’s holocaust experience, the concept of home takes on various forms and meanings. Levi writes about his experience as an Italian Jew in the holocaust. We learn about his journey to Auschwitz, his captivity and ultimate return home. This paper explores the idea of home throughout the work. As a concept, it symbolizes the past, future and a part of Levi’s identity. I also respond to the concept of home in Survival In Auschwitz by comparing it to my own idea and what home means to me – a place of stability and reflection that remains a constant in my changing life.
The Holocaust was one of the most horrific and dehumanizing occurrences that the human race has ever endured. It evolved around cruelty, hatred, death, destruction and prejudice. Thousands of innocent lives were lost in Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish population. He killed thousands of Jews by way of gas chamber, crematorium, and starvation. The people who managed to survive in the concentration camps were those who valued not just their own life but others as well. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of the novel, Night, expressed his experiences very descriptively throughout his book. When Elie was just fifteen years old his family was shipped off to the concentration camps where they were separated from each other. He and his father manage to stay together, which was a small sense of comfort in a very uncomfortable situation. At one point in the book, Elie considers running for the electric fence to avoid the long agonizing death he thought was inevitable. However, Elie thinks of how he could not leave his father to be alone and he decides against it. In a sense, his father is his motivation to keep fighting for his life. Elie found purpose through his undying love and compassion for his father. When driven by emotions and given a purpose one can survive even in the worst of conditions.
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel gives an in depth view of Nazi Concentration Camps. Growing up in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Wiesel, a young Jewish boy at the innocent age of 12, whose main focus in life was studying the Kabbalah and becoming closer in his relationship with God. In the memoir, Elie Wiesel reflects back to his stay within a Nazi Concentration Camp in hopes that by sharing his experiences, he could not only educate the world on the ugliness known as the Holocaust, but also to remind people that by remembering one atrocity, the next one can potentially be avoided. The holocaust was the persecution and murder of approximately six million Jew’s by Aldolf Hitler’s Nazi army between 1933 and 1945. Overall, the memoir shows
The Third Reich sought the removal of the Jews from Germany and eventually from the world. This removal came in two forms, first through emigration, then through extermination. In David Engel’s The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews, he rationalizes that the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was a result of how Jews were viewed by the leaders of the Third Reich-- as pathogens that threatened to destroy all humanity. By eliminating the existence of the Jews, the Third Reich believed that it would save the entire world from mortal danger. Through documents such as Franzi Epsteins’s, “Inside Auschwitz-A Memoir,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, one is able to see the struggle of the Jews from a first-hand account. Also, through Rudolf Hoess’s “Commandant of Auschwitz,” one is able to see the perspective of a commandant in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz: A History, Sybille Steinbacher effectively describes the concentration camp of Auschwitz, while Hermann Langbein’s People in Auschwitz reflects on Rudolf Hoess’s power and control in Auschwitz as commandant. Through these four texts, one is able to see the effects that the Third Reich’s Final Solution had on the Jews and the commandants.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Classic House, 2008. Print.
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
After World War II the world began to here accounts of the atrocities and crimes committed by the Nazi’s to the Jews and other enemies of the Nazis. The international community wanted answers and called for the persecution of the criminals that participated in the murder of millions throughout Europe. The SS was responsible for playing a leading role in the Holocaust for the involvement in the death of millions of innocent lives. Throughout, Europe concentration camps were established to detain Jews, political prisoners, POW’s and enemies of the Third Reich. The largest camp during World War II was Auschwitz under the command of SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Hoess; Auschwitz emerged as the site for the largest mass murder in the history of the world. (The, 2005)
As World War II occurred, the Jewish population suffered a tremendous loss and was treated with injustice and cruelty by the Nazi’s seen through examples in the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Victor Frankl records his experiences and observations during his time as prisoner at Auschwitz during the war. Before imprisonment, he spent his leisure time as an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, Austria and was able to implement his analytical thought processes to life in the concentration camp. As a psychological analyst, Frankl portrays through the everyday life of the imprisoned of how they discover their own sense of meaning in life and what they aspire to live for, while being mistreated, wrongly punished, and served with little to no food from day to day. He emphasizes three psychological phases that are characterized by shock, apathy, and the inability to retain to normal life after their release from camp. These themes recur throughout the entirety of the book, which the inmates experience when they are first imprisoned, as they adapt as prisoners, and when they are freed from imprisonment. He also emphasizes the need for hope, to provide for a purpose to keep fighting for their lives, even if they were stripped naked and treated lower than the human race. Moreover, the Capos and the SS guards, who were apart of the secret society of Hitler, tormented many of the unjustly convicted. Although many suffered through violent deaths from gas chambers, frostbites, starvation, etc., many more suffered internally from losing faith in oneself to keep on living.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness,” Desmond Tutu once said (“Desmond Tutu Quotes”). During the Holocaust, the Jews were treated very badly but some managed to stay hopeful through this horrible time. The book Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer shows how Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck who had two very different stories but managed to stay hopeful. Helen was a Jew who went into hiding for awhile before being taken away from her family and being sent to a concentration camp. Alfons was a member of the Hitler Youth where he became the youngest member of the German air force. To him, Hitler was everything and he would die any day for him and his country. As for Helen, Hitler was the man ruining her life. The Holocaust was horrible to live through but some managed to survive because of the hope they contained.
When enduring great suffering, people are not capable of distinguishing right from wrong. In Night, one sees that the victims of the Holocaust will do anything to survive. Elie Wiesel relives the horror when he and many more fell prey to the Nazis and when they did unforgivable things to live.
The Silber Medal winning biography, “Surviving Hitler," written by Andrea Warren paints picture of life for teenagers during the Holocaust, mainly by telling the story of Jack Mandelbaum. Avoiding the use of historical analysis, Warren, along with Mandelbaum’s experiences, explains how Jack, along with a few other Jewish and non-Jewish people survived.
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during World War Two, including Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. Many who were sent to the concentration camps did not survive but those who did tried to either forgot the horrific events that took place or went on to tell their personal experiences to the rest of the world. Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi wrote memoirs on their time spent in the camps of Auschwitz; these memoirs are called ‘Night’ and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. These memoirs contain similarities of what it was like for a Jew to be in a concentration camp but also portray differences in how each endured the daily atrocities of that around them. Similarities between Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi’s memoirs can be seen in the proceedings that
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.