Re-read Act 2 Scene 2 from page 84/page 83 in the new edition (HELGA. You should change your mind and come with me.) to the end of the play. Discuss how Samuels presents the effects of events in 1930s/40s Germany on the characters in this extract and at least one other point in the play. In this extract Samuels presents the significant effects that events in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s have not only on Evelyn and Eva but on the characters presented throughout the play.
“A Child of the Holocaust recalls life in notorious concentration camp.” (Accessed 12 April 2014). Rosenberg, Jennifer. Mengele’s Children: The Twins of Auschwitz [book on-line] http://history1900s.about.com/od/auschwitz/a/mengeletwins.htm Accessed 1 April 2014. Rosenberg, Jennifer. Hidden Children.
Gerda has used Jane Schaffer writing strategy in displaying various themes in the book. One of the themes is sustaining power of hope. The topic sentences of paragraphs that contain bad information are powerful and contain information about hope. Gerda went through a lot of misfortune for example her parents were sent to camps and died there and she was sent on a death march. However, she never lost hope and this is shown by the first sentences.
“Words from the basement: Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.” Notes on Contemporary Literature: From Literature Resource Center. 41.1 (Jan. 2011). This writer talks about the importance of the different roles that the Hubermann’s cellar/ basement plays in the novel. The basement is a refuge and a sanctuary for Liesel (with her books and words) as well as for Max (a Jew in hiding). The writer of this article talks about how the basement isn’t just a hiding place for a Jew or a refuge to learn but it is a place to rebel against authority when Max transforms it into a setting for creative/political activity by painting over Hitler’s Mein Kampf erasing Hitler’s authority and becoming his own authority.
THE LOTTERY The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, is a mirroring of totalitarianism of Nazi Germany and the inherit evils of other societies; even our own. Written three years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Jackson's point hits home for an American culture that was simply judging Germany with out any thought of it's self. In the story, the reader is introduced to a picturesque little town in which an annual lottery is conducted to choose one townsperson to be stoned to death by the other townspeople. The stoning is rooted in tradition and is seldom questioned by the participants. A couple of themes are apparent throughout The Lottery; the first being that tradition is rapidly deteriorating in the story in the way that tradition
In the Book thief, this idea is very important and is portrayed to the reader through a range of different techniques. The setting of Nazi Germany is crucial in helping the reader understand the power of words, while the main character Liesel shows us how words can be used positively as well as negatively. Also the different books Liesel acquires through her childhood help us understand the different ways words and literature can be used to affect humans. In
Anna Funder’s non-fictional narrative, set in the late 1990’s of the newly unified Germany, titled Stasiland, attempts to illustrate to the readers that thinking about their past is a necessary to some to move on with the future. Through Funder’s depiction of characters, the victims show that many people who lived through the GDR period were greatly affected as they suffered both physically and emotionally. Shown in first person narration, Funder’s perspective on the past demonstrates how remembering the past is not only part of her authorial purpose but also as a character imperative for her understanding the German view on remembering or forgetting. Reflected in Miriam and her depiction of her change in the narrative over time, Funder explores through her story of an iniquitous and Stasi controlled life demonstrating how the victims can be resilient from the oppressive rule of Stasi. For some however, it was a time of greatness
Jane Yolen has also used epigraphs at the beginning of each section, Home, Castle and Home Again; these present an authorial voice to the narrative. Yolen’s intention is to educate contemporary society of the atrocities of the Holocaust and to reinvigorate the readers interest in this
One of the first concentration camps built was at Buchenwald, while the ghettos in Poland were widely known. At first, Jews who held jobs that were regarded as critical to the war effort were allowed to stay. However that soon changed about fall 1941, when Gestapo agents started to order Jewish families out of their apartments into trucks that headed for the east; most of them headed for the concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia. Margot Rosenthal of Berlin was able to hide from the Gestapo agents until 5 Dec 1941 before she was found and forced to relocate to a ghetto in Bavaria. "Send us something to eat, we are starving," she wrote her friend Ruth Andreas-Friedrich in Berlin.
The book Stones In Water was written by Donna Jo Napoli, an author of children's and young adult books. This book is a wrenching novel of a boy caught up in a war he hates. This book offers an original perspective of Second World War and the Holocaust. The author focuses on a unique aspect of Italian history where children were taken to work in brutal conditions to help the German war . It is not only the story of how Roberto lives to tell what he has been through, but also how dreams and hope can keep a person fighting for life.