My book Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman is in the 1930s Munich about a girl named Gretchen Muller who falls in love with a Jewish reporter named Daniel Cohen.You might think thats so lovely but it’s not.Her uncle Dolf who is Adolf Hitler,he can’t stand the Jews he want the to be demolished and neither can her brother Reinhard,how I know is because one day Gretchen,Reinhard and his friend Kurt was going to the café to meet their uncle Dolf but on the way their Reinhard and his friend stopped and assaulted a Jew man when Gretchen tried to stop them her brother called her a ‘Jew Lover’.Gretchen lives in a boarding house with her mother.Gretchen wants to become a doctor but her dream will be on hold when her mom would want to get a full
time job.She went to her uncle about the situation and she give her a job at his office working for Heinrich Himmler.Then one day a Jew came to Gretchen to tell her that her father death was not an accident at all.Later on in the book she finds out that her brother is a complete psychopath after beating her within an inch of her life when he saw her in his room while coming back from his trip.She went to her uncle to tell on his brother to find out that her uncle Dolf was okay with him beating her because he was the man of the house and he could do whatever he saw fit for her punishment.Gretchen is so scared that she runs to Daniel for help and he allows her to stay with him and his cousin.Dr.Whitestone is a psychiatric moved into the boarding house with her brother,but eventually leaves because he finds out how crazy her brother can be and he just warns Gretchen to be careful.While she is visiting Dr.Whitestone she realizes that she wants to be a psychiatrist,so she’s searching her home and finds hidden documents saying that her mom and dad took ReinHard to a psychiatrist and he was diagnosed as a classic psychopath as she expected.That’s when she decided the only love she can trust is the love that comes from Daniel.Daniel and Gretchen wants to tell her mother of her brother violent behavior, her mother defends the actions of herself by accepting and loving Reinhard, Reinhard attacks both Gretchen and Daniel with a knife .They barely escaped with their lives.But after all Gretchen and Daniel got all the documents they needed to prove that her father’s death was not an accident.A friend of Gretchen, which is and Hitler's niece,named Geli was found dead under mysterious circumstances.When Gretchen arrives at Geli house she confronts Hitler.They also learned that Hiltler wants to get rid of all the Jews
Elli talks about daily life in her neighborhood. Her mother does not show any compassion for her. When Elli complains of this, her mother brings up excuses that are unconvincing. Elli believes her mother does not care for her and that her brother is the favorite. Hilter’s reoccurring radio broadcast give nightmares to Elli, whos family is Jewish. The nights when the Hungarian military police would come and stir trouble did not provide anymore comfort for Elli. One night, her brother, Bubi, comes home with news that Germany invaded Budapest, the town where he goes to school. But the next morning, there is no news in the headlines. The father sends him back to school. He learns the next day that a neighbor’s son who goes to school with Bubi has said the same. The day after, the newspapers scream the news of the invasion. Bubi arrives home, and the terror begins.
The book took place from 1944 - 1945 on Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald towards the end of World War II.
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.
One of the many themes in the novel Prisoner of Night and Fog, by Anne Blankman, is to treat everyone equally. Gretchen Muller was taught from the day she was born that Jews are atrocious and, “incapable of true feelings”1. In spite of her teachings, Gretchen doesn’t completely agree with this stereotype. She defends a beaten up Jew who was pleading for help, regardless of her uncle’s claims that the cries are a disguise. Gretchen’s natural instinct tells her he is a human in need, even when everybody she cares about disagrees. Moreover, Gretchen despised Daniel Cohen, a Jew offering her information about her father. Throughout the book, Gretchen develops as a character while growing more accustomed to the idea that Cohen is a human, as well
Two books so similar in their journey, and yet so far apart through the roads they take are, Night and The Hiding Place. In The Hiding Place, a book about the life of Cornelia ten Boom, and her journey from her average life to a life filled with pain that helps her discover her strong faith in God. In Night, Ellie Wiesel starts out having more faith in God then in himself, and after having to endure the death of his family, he loses all faith in God and religion. Corrie ten Boom was an adult, when the Gestapo came to Holland, and had much more taken away from her because she had lived more than Wiesel had. Cornelia was never the most fortunate woman in the world, but through her many misfortunes and strong faith she learned how to deal with the pain life presents one. The life journeys of Corrie ten Boom compared to Ellie Wiesel are one in some ways, but complete opposites in others.
How would you react if you were taken from your friends and family? Both Elie and Anne had to experience their family being taken away from them, possibly forever. Even though their most loved ones were taken, they still stayed strong. Elie and Anne had similar situations at the concentration camps when they went there.
The section in the novel night that painted a dark and angry picture of human nature is when the Jews were fleeing Buna and hundreds of them were packed in a roofless cattle car. The Jews were only provided with a blanket that soon became soaked by the snowfall. They spent days in the bitter cold temperatures and all they ate was snow. For these reasons, many suffered and died. When they stopped in German towns, the people stared at that cattle cars filled with soulless bodies. “They would stop and look at [the Jews] without surprise.” It was a regular occasion for the German people to see suffering Jews and not feel pity. The dark and angry picture of human nature was when a German worker “took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it
Each and every one of us sees the world in a different light than each other. These differences in perception are not completely random. Everyone’s perception of the world around us is affected by certain factors. Both the autobiographical memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, and the poem, “We grow accustomed to the Dark,” by Emily Dickinson, demonstrate a magnitude of factors affecting how we see the world. Night depicts Wiesel’s journey throughout the Holocaust, while “We grow accustomed to the Dark” exhibits our journeys when encountering new obstacles. Based on the universal concept of “How We See Things,” two factors that affect our perception of the world around us are our upbringings and our experiences when facing new obstacles due to the
Book Report on Elie Wiesel's Night. Elie tells of his hometown, Sighet, and of Moshe the Beadle. He tells of his family and his three sisters, Hilda, Béa, and the baby of the family, Tzipora. Elie is taught the cabala by Moshe the Beadle.
“As a writer of fiction Böll was interpreting history, creating patterns of meaning, ordering his material to enable his reader to make sense of it.” The experiences of Böll and his values that arose from these events have been influential on the content and themes of Böll’s novel, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. Böll experienced both the first and second world wars and the effects that these wars had on German society. Events such as the economic collapse in Germany post WWII, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the rise of student based urban terrorism in West Germany in the 1970’s and the increasing state controls to contain such alleged threats can be seen to influence the issues explored in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. The novel is a comment on the press and the law, the labyrinth of social truth, the collision of fact and fiction and the power of language. Böll himself experienced the press first hand and this along with the experiences of Professor Bruckner, form the basis of his criticism directed at the powerful and hegemonic structures in society, in particular in relation to the police and the press and their corrupt relationship in the novella. Many of Heinrich Böll s views and attitudes, resulting form his context, are clearly visible in the novella through the portrayal of certain characters in positive or negative lights. The historical, social, economic and political context of Böll and West Germany at this time (1900’s) had a considerable effect on the issues Böll delves into in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum and greatly affected my understanding of the novel.
From the years of 1938 to 1945, while the entire world was preoccupied with World War II, the Nazi Party led by dictator Adolf Hitler planned and executed the killing of almost six million Jewish people.This calamity snatched the innocence of those who survived in inconceivable manner. They suffer withanimmense amount guilt simply because they believe that are wrong for surviving whereas their loved ones paid the ultimate price. In recent years Holocaust survivors have had an “increased risk of attempted suicide” (Barak, Y). For these people forgetting is a crime but recollection will not allow them to move. However there are some survivors who found a way to optimistically look towards the future. Holocaust survivor and writer, Ellie Weisel, summed up these feelings by explaining that, “Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” Learning from the past and growing up comes with a certain end of childhood innocence without which the progression to maturity cannot occur. This enlightenment and the journey from innocence to experience are prominent themes in both The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephan Chbosky. The former outlines four days in the life of a troubled teenaged boy named Holden Caulfield who is expelled from his preparatory school and spends his time roaming the streets of New York City. The latter is a compilation of letters written by a young boy, who goes by the alias Charlie, in which he discusses deepest feeling regarding his grief stricken adolescence. Both Chbosky and Salinger explore the behaviours and minds of teenaged boys who are trying to find themselves in a world that they do not fully understand yet. However, bot...
Schwartz, Leslie. Surviving the hell of Auschwitz and Dachau: a teenage struggle toward freedom from hatred.. S.l.: Lit Verlag, 2013. Print.
“When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” written by Judith Kerr, is a heartwarming tale of a young German girl named Anna, who must flee her home country before Hitler is elected. The book is a reflection on the author’s own life, and was published in 1971 when her son, after watching the Sound of Music, commented “now we know what it was like for mummy as a little girl!” Kerr wanted him to know what it was actually like, and so, wrote this novel. The book gives a distinct perspective on the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany and the experience of being a refugee, reflecting the Judith Kerr’s positive feelings about her own experience. The story begins in Berlin, Germany, March 1933, where Anna is living with her parents and her older brother, Max.
In the famous novel and movie series, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, an average teenage girl, Bella Swan, is forced to move from Arizona (where she lived with her mother) to Washington to start an almost new life with her father. She attends a small-town high school with mostly average people, besides one family, the Cullens. As Bella and Edward Cullen get closer, she uncovers a deep secret about him and his family. Their relationship faces many hard challenges and conflicts as the story develops. Both the novel and movie share very similar storylines, however, differ in many ways. From themes to author’s craft, or to relationships, these important parts of the story highlight the significant differences and similarities of Twilight.
Kaplan, Marian A., Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999