____ 1 __________ __________ English 13 May 2014 Courage and survival Arek Hersh was a concentration camp survivor he was born in Poland and his father was a boot maker for the army. Jews in Poland were bothered with anti-Semitism; this was after the ‘polenkation’ of 1938 when Germany forced many polish Jews citizens across the border. September 1st of 1939 the Germany army attacked Poland. Arek’s family had to leave there home town and live in Lodz. In 1940 the Jews who lived in Lodz had to start wearing the Star of David on their clothes and were forced into a ghetto, where food was controlled and people lived in tight conditions.
When he returns, he tells the villagers about how he has miraculously escaped from his torturers. He also tells them shocking stories about the atrocities committed against the Jews by Hitler’s regime. When Elie and the other villagers do not believe his stories, thinking he has gone mad, Moshe weeps and tells his story again. As time passes, the Nazis treat the Jews worse and worse. First they shift the Jewish people to live in ghettos; then they arrest them and transport them to Birkenau, the reception center that leads to Auschwitz.
In 1942, the family is forced into a Jewish ghetto and ordered to work for the German war effort. It is not long before all the Jews are told they will be moved out of town so Bielitz can be free of Jews. Gerda is separated from her parents and never sees them again. After she goes to a transit camp in Sosnowitz, where Abek’s family makes sacrifices to try and get her freedom. Then she chooses to not go with them because she realizes that she will be so thoroughly in their debt that she will be forced to marry Abek, and she doesn’t want to.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a story based on his personal experiences during the holocaust controlled by the Nazi army in the concentration camps. Towards the end of 1941 all the Jewish people were taken away from their homes by the Nazi army. When they arrived in Auschwitz they Nazi army separated families by their strength, weakness, and gender. All the men and the women were separated. Then the weak and old ones were separated from the young and strong.
The doctor said the guards would tell prisoners that they would be given baths and hot coffee if they came with them. However that was a lie, the prisoners were taken instead to a gas chamber. The author describes that once prisoners realized what was going on they clutched to their children and tried refusing to go in but were beaten with guns and forced in to max capacity. The prisoners outside heard the screams of people and eventually it all got silent. Doctors would take corpses hair and gold teeth once they were out of the chambers.
When the Russians were getting closer, the Nazi’s were ordered to kill all of the prisoners that were left, but luckily for Levi, they were terrified and fled instead. (“Primo Levi, Chemist and Writer,” 1) At that time, Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army eleven months after Levi entered the camp. Levi survived the concentration camp as one of twenty to leave the camp alive that started out with six hundred and fifty Italian Jews. (“Primo Levi.” http://en.wilipedia.org, 1) After getting out of Auschwitz, Levi spent eight months in Russia as a refuge before heading home. (“Primo Levi, Chemist and Writer,”
The Mind of a Prisoner by Wyatt Smith Senior English, 03 John Carroll School, Bel Air 3-35-09 Outline Thesis: The Holocaust was a psychological test on the Jewish race that forced them to overcome both physical and mental agony that the rest of the world sees as totally inhumane. I. In Both Night and Man’s Search for Meaning, the Nazi’s took over the Jews and set out to exterminate the entire race. A. The Nazis entered the towns of the Jewish people, acted very friendly but soon after removed all of the people.
Inside, poison gas was pumped into the locked shower rooms. Thousands of people died from these showers. Others, were equipped in high temperature ovens that left live bodies in crematoria. The United States heard what the Nazis were doing to us so they came to liberate us. I was one of the few lucky ones that were still alive at that time.
A crematory is a machine which cremation takes place. Cremation is the reduction of dead bodies by burning them. During the holocaust there were times that many thought it started to snow but actually it was the ashes of the burning bodies. The Germans also threw little kids alive; they would grab them by the arm and threw them into the ovens. To cover many of this atrocities some camps made the Jews to work on sand mines to hide all the evidence.
Sixty years later, Sarah’s tragic story intertwines with that of middle aged reporter, Julia. Sarah’s Key follows Julia’s investigation into the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup where Jewish families where arrested and taken to a bicycle stadium and then shipped to Auschwitz. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of hidden secrets, secrets that will change the life of her and many others that link to Sarah Starzynski. During the middle of the night on July 16th, Sarah who refused let the French police harm her little brother Michel, locks him in their hiding place, a secret cabinet in their room. She tells him she would come back for him and is then taken away with her parents in local street cars to an old bicycle stadium.