Flor Guzman-Silva Ms. Wyss English I; period 8 25 March 2024. Blooming in Adversity Upon surviving the Holocaust, Gerda Weissmann Klein reflected, “My experience has taught me that all of us have a reservoir of untapped strength that comes to the fore at moments of crisis” (Klein 250). Gerda Weissmann Klein’s memoir All But My Life detailed the hardships Klein and Jews had to endure during World War II. In the year 1939, the Nazi Party invaded Poland; Klein was separated from her family and was obliged to endure the horrific conditions of various concentration camps. Klein underwent a horrendous experience in a matter of a few years. Of all the factors that contributed to Gerda’s survival, the three that were the most impactful were her strong intuition, humaneness from a few SS officers, and promises …show more content…
Klein remarked, “As soon as the policemen left. . . His voice softened to a more human tone. ‘Now run home as fast as you can,’ he said, ‘and forget your English” (Klein 50). To Klein’s surprise, the officer was kind to her by ordering her to run home and forget her English. Second, Frau Kügler, a Lagerführer in the Bolkenhain camp, saved Klein from the SS Obersturmführer. When she fell ill, Frau Kügler helped her get dressed and advised her to work in the looms. Klein reflected, “Frau Kügler led the three of us to the factory. We kept close to the wall as we went. She followed me to my loom and set them in motion. ‘Keep going, Gerda,’ she muttered under her breath as she turned to go. . . Someone caught me in strong arms, and shouted into my ear, ‘Pull yourself together, Gerda, it is a matter of life or death” (Klein 132-133). At Bolkenhain, Klein fell ill. Litzi, the nurse, advised her to stay in theHANDRERER and rest; however, Frau Kügler understood that this would be a death sentence. Any sick and weak Jew would be sent straight to Auschwitz by the SS. Thus, Frau led Klein to the factory and set
“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.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
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.
Imagine being trapped in a ghetto, seeing communities leaving in trains, families being split up, never to see each other again.. The emotions that each and every Holocaust survivor must’ve gone through is overwhelming. Some things that are taken for granted, will never be seen again. While reading the two texts, Night by Elie Wiesel and “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” by Pavel Friedman, The two predominant emotions that prevailed most to Holocaust victims and survivors were hope and fear.
Elizer’s personal account of the holocaust does not merely highlight the facts of the holocaust: millions suffered and the event was politically and religiously motivated, but provides an in depth investigation to what a person endured mentally, physically, and emotionally. Beginning as a teenager, Elizer thought highly of God and of his own beliefs, however, that quickly diminished when he was put into a system of sorting and killing people. During the holocaust, Elizer was not the only person to change; almost everyone suffered and changed differently. The stressful and harsh times affected Elizer just as they affected the person working next to him in the factory. Elizer quickly began to question everything “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Although Elizer forms this mentality, he also finds the will to survive, to protect his father, and to not turn into the people that were aro...
The brutality the Germans displayed in the 1930s through the 1940s was utterly horrifying. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author’s harrowing experience is shared. The Holocaust is worldly known as being one of the largest genocides in history, but not many truly understand what it was like to live through and witness. A lot of people had their life taken away whether figuratively or literally and many discovered so much loss that they became unphased by it after a while. Many who encountered the cruelty and merciless of the Germans have passed but a few remain that live to tell their story to the world and try to explain the feelings that coursed through them during the genocide and even now. Wiesel, who lived in Auschwitz for
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
Often, we find ourselves facing dramatic events in our lives that force us to re-evaluate and redefine ourselves. Such extraordinary circumstances try to crush the heart of the human nature in us. It is at that time, like a carbon under pressure, the humanity in us either shatters apart exposing our primal nature, or transforms into a strong, crystal-clear brilliant of compassion and self sacrifice. The books Night written by Elie Wiesel and Hiroshima written by John Hersey illustrate how the usual lifestyle might un-expectantly change, and how these changes could affect the human within us. Both books display how lives of civilians were interrupted by the World War II, what devastations these people had to undergo, and how the horrific circumstances of war were sometimes able to bring out the best in ordinary people.
A women doing life is a book that talks openly about women in prison. The author of the book who is also an inmate is known as Erin George. She explains vividly about women life in prison and what she was going through as an inmate. The book also gives other stories about other female inmates. The book presents a realistic of what women goes through on daily basis in prison. The issues addressed are both physical and psychological challenges. She talks on behalf of those women facing challenges on daily basis in prison. The books explain life events that tragic and heartbreaking those changes later to be uplifting and humorous. She gives a story of how she is able to cope and manage in hard situations. The women’s humanity inside the prison is well shown in this book as they try to make ends meet in their daily life. This book is vivid and very compelling for women. It is one of the best contributions of the author in literature. The book has a virtually flawless pedagogical approach. The author’s writing is to a great extent excellent and it has helped in creating awareness in literature about the historical context of women in prison. It explains beyond the little information presented in the media about women life in prison and the challenges they face as inmates.
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.
It is a miracle that Lobel and her brother survived on their own in this world that any adult would find unbearable. Indeed, and appropriately, there are no pretty pictures here, and adults choosing to share this story with younger readers should make themselves readily available for explanations and comforting words. (The camps are full of excrement and death, all faithfully recorded in direct, unsparing language.) But this is a story that must be told, from the shocking beginning when a young girl watches the Nazis march into Krakow, to the final words of Lobel's epilogue: "My life has been good. I want more." (Ages 10 to 16) --Brangien Davis
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
The war ended in Europe on May 8th, 1945. Leaving the victims with traumatic wounds. Wounds were able to heal but the victims could never forget what happened in those years. In both Night by Elie Wiesel and the interviews by John Menzer there are various themes of survival shared among the victims. Themes such as strength, both physical and mental, hope, fear, and luck helped victims survive the devastating events during the holocaust. Survival was never easy. Victims had to fight day and night in order to because free. They had to keep their selves mentally strong. Victims hoped for the best, and feared the worse. All in all, if luck was on their side, they survived. The holocaust has made its mark in history. Every story shows the courageousness of the ones who survived. The people that choose to be strong, hopeful, fearful, and lucky were the people who later found themselves being liberated form the camps in 1945, leaving the other dead, behind
The Holocaust continues to exist as a black mark in the history of Germany; through the government supported torture and extermination of both men and women, more than 6 million lost their lives. As a consequence of the collective tragedy for both sexes, there has been much debate pertaining to the focus of gender specific suffering in Holocaust literature; for this reason, the Holocaust accounts of women writers were largely ignored prior to the 1970’s. Many historians still refute disparities existed between the male and female experience. However, it is worth noting that the social, familial, and cultural expectations of men and women, both prior to and during the war, varied greatly. Moreover, these diverging roles promoted distinctively different coping, processing, and accounting of the tragedies stemming from the Holocaust. By examining the unique experiences of women, both within and outside the concentration camps, one can logically conclude these remarkable accounts broaden the scope of Holocaust literature. Embedded gender roles helped the survival efforts of women, and these unique female perspectives are valuable in accurately portraying the Holocaust experience.
This book left me with a deeper sense of the horrors experienced by the Polish people, especially the Jews and the gypsies, at the hands of the Germans, while illustrating the combination of hope and incredible resilience that kept them going.