Thursday, January 14, 2010

Holocaust Art Assignment

Global Literature
Unit: The Holocaust

Holocaust Remembrance Gallery

On January 28th and February 1st our classroom will be transformed into an art gallery. The exhibition titled, In Memoriam, will feature works created by every student in your Global Literature class.

Expectations:

You will create a sculpture that shows your response to the Holocaust. We would like you to take one idea, question, theme, and/or moment from Night and create a sculpture to represent this. The best works of art show complexity of thought and make a personal statement about the Holocaust. For example, if you build a cattle car it would be inappropriate. If you build a cattle car, add poetry images, quotes, etc. then it becomes a personal statement. Art is a language that allows you to express ideas you might not be able to put into words. It comments, challenges, connects, questions, debates, synthesizes, and heals.

Your sculpture must:

1. Be 3-D
2. Be respectful of those who suffered during and because of the Holocaust.
3. Be connected to Night. (A moment, a passage, an idea, a character, etc)
4. Be accompanied by a museum card (about 1/2 a page) which states:
a. your name
b. the title of your work
c. an explanation of your work which includes the specific reference to Night

Evaluation:

1. You followed our instructions: 3D, Museum card (10 pts)
2. Connection to Night is specific, explained, and thoughtful (25pts)
3. Your work shows effort (20pts)
4. Your work is creative and goes beyond the obvious (you took some time to create something that shows YOUR ideas) (25pts)

Total: 80 points

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Holocaust Poetry Assignment

You can find the actual poems on the assignments page listed as "Holocaust Poems"

Holocaust Poetry Analysis Name:__________________
Global Literature

Poetry can express, in language, feelings and ideas that are often the most difficult to express. Today we will be looking at a number of poems written during and following the Holocaust where the authors tried to give words to an almost indescribable ordeal. You will be exploring these poems and analyzing them for form, sound, and meaning. Below is a refresher regarding how to analyze a poem. Each analysis should be about a half page (I’d prefer typed if possible).
• Read the poem once, then re-read it making notes on: sound, form, and meaning. Since this poem is hanging up, you may want to copy it down or just write notes on what you are seeing.
• Finally, make a conclusion about what the poem’s message seems to be. (Relax: there is not one “correct” meaning as long as you can give support from the poem that would be convincing and intriguing to reasonable people.)
• Analyze this poem using the methods we talked about in class. Begin with your conclusion about the main message. Support this argument with examples you found in the form (syntax), sound, word choice (diction), imagery, and figurative language.

You must analyze at least four poems today in class using the method above. However, you are not “done” once you have analyzed four. Extra strong work will receive extra credit. Extra strong work includes more than four strong analysis write-ups or four strong write ups in a poetry book like the example in class.

Holocaust poems


Riddle


From Belsen a crate of gold teeth
from Dachau a mountain of shoes,
from Auschwitz a skin lampshade,
Who killed the Jews?

Not I, cries the typist,
Not I, cries the engineer,
Not I, cries Adolf Eichmann
Not I, cries Albert Speer.

My friend Fritz Nova lost his father-
a petty official had to choose.
My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother.
Who killed the Jews?

David Nova swallowed gas,
Hyman Abrahms was beaten and starved.
Some men signed their papers,
and some stood guard,

and some herded them in,
and some dropped the pellets,
and some spread the ashes,
and some hosed the walls.

and some planted the wheat.
and some poured the steel,
and some cleared the rails,
and some raised the cattle.

Some smelled the smoke,
some just heard the news.
Were they Germans? Were they Nazis?
Were they human? Who killed the Jews?

The stars will remember the gold,
the sun will remember the shoes,
the moon will remember the skin.
But who killed the Jews?

William Heyen



I Keep Forgetting

I keep forgetting
the facts and statistics
and each time
I need to know them

I look up books
these books line
twelve shelves
in my room

I know where to go
to confirm the fact
that in the Warsaw Ghetto
there were 7.2 people per room

and in Lodz
they allocated
5.8 people
to each room

I forget
over and over again
that one third of Warsaw
was Jewish

and in the ghetto
they crammed 500.000 Jews
into 2.4 per cent
of the area of the city

and how many
bodies they were burning
in Auschwitz
at the peak of their production


twelve thousand a day
I have to check
and re-check

and did I dream
that at 4pm on the 19th of January
58,000 emaciated inmates
were marched out of Auschwitz

was I right
to remember that in Bergen Belsen
from the 4th-13th of April 1945
28,000 Jews arrived from other camps

I can remember
hundreds and hundreds
of phone numbers

phone numbers
I haven’t phoned
for twenty years
are readily accessible

and I can remember
people’s conversations
and what someone’s wife
said to someone else’s husband

what a good memory
you have
people tell me




La Pathetique

on La Pathetique
the sound invades my skin
enlarges my heart

the notes drop
into channels
of sadness

piercing
puncturing
pain

Beethoven
must have been
broken hearted
when he wrote this sonata

I hum
I nod my head
I conduct the performance
from my car

this listening
to music
is new to me

for years
I required silence

I was listening
for murderers

I was expecting
menace

I was prepared
for peril

I was waiting
for disaster

and
couldn’t be disturbed.

Lily Brett











Pigtail

When all the women in the transport
had their heads shaved
four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
swept up
and gathered up the hair

Behind clean glass
the stiff hair lies
of those suffocated in gas chambers
there are pins and side combs
in this hair

The hair is not shot through with light
is not parted by the breeze
is not touched by any hand
or rain or lips

In huge chests
clouds of dry hair
of those suffocated
and a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
pulled at school
by naughty boys.

The Museum, Auschwitz, 1948
Tadeusz Rozewicz
(Translated by Adam Czerniawki)





First They Came for the Jews


First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for trade unionist
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Niemoller




Auschwitz, August 1988

Linda Ashear

I
My travel agent said,
Why do you want to go there?

II
Silence cracks the world wide open.
A crow shrieks.

III
No one screams in the cement room.
I fix my eye on the door,
remind myself that Zyklon B
is something that happened to somebody else

IV
I follow tracks to the horizon.
Black sandals leave their mark
in fine gray dust.
Gravel crunches, walking sleeping ghosts.
Three white moths circle my head.

V
In the women’s section, Israeli tourists
enter Barracks 26. One old woman
wanders through rows of wooden bunks,
stops, stares, points…
This was my bed.

VI
At the ruined crematorium our guide
bends to pick up something from the earth.
Open you hand, she says.
What is it?
Bone, she says.
A stone grows in my throat.
After Auschwitz, words, like lungs, collapse





Goethe’s Tree

Annie Dawi

Red triangle covers
left breast pocket.
NO for Norwegian,
no tattoo on the wrist
-numbers for Jews only

“German intellectual material”
was Reidar, with his blue eyes
and white-blond hair. Reidar
himself says he looked like
an SS recruitment poster.

Corpse carrier at Buchenwald,
Reidar was, at 19, a veteran
of the underground resistance,
arrested for singing anti-German
songs, and later for sinking
a just-christened German ship.

In the middle of Buchenwald,
Reidar remembers an old oak
around which filed
10,000 Hungarian Jews
who arrived one day in 1945

Rediar says, “smoke poured
forth so voluminously
that daylight didn’t break through.”

In the final months,
Reidar and the others
carried their own skeletons
around this oak,
whose brass plaque reads:

“Under this tree
Goethe sat
and wrote some of his most
beautiful poetry.”

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Holocaust Vocab Review

Review Holocaust Vocabulary
Let’s go over the twenty new words and two idioms you studied during the week.
In the following quiz, match the best possible definition with the word you have studied. Write the letter that stands for that definition in the appropriate answer space.
Review Words Definitions

___1. waif a. a homeless person, especially a forsaken or orphaned child
___2. firmament b. weighed down with a load; heavy
___ 3. anti-Semitic c. (1) lack of feeling, emotion; (2) lack of interest or concern
___4. bombardment d. devout; having or exhibiting religious reverence
___5. betrothed e. (1)Lying face down (2) overcome
___6. Fascism f. a short account of an interesting or humorous incident
___7. billet g. one who discriminates against or who is prejudiced against Jews
___8. laden h. temporary relief, as from danger or pain
___9. anecdotes i. (1) wild in appearance; (2) having a worn, emaciated appearance
___10. treatise j. a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
___11. haggard k. This is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. This is considered to be the day in which every individual is judged by God.
___12. truncheons l. An eight-day festival commemorating the freeing of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.
___ 13. pious m. (1) to attack with bombs, shells, or missiles; (2) to assail persistently,
___14. apathy n. Enforced isolation imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.
___15. robust o. to promise to marry
___16. prostrate p. Next in importance to the Hebrew Bible, it is a collection of teachings of early rabbis from the 5th and 6th centuries.
___17. reprieve q. The primary source in the Jewish religion is the Hebrew Bible, consisting of twenty-four books divided up into three sections.
___18. livid r. Hasidic Jews also read this mystical commentary on the Torah.
___19. quarantine s. Shriveled or dried up; withered
___ 20. wizened t. the vault or expanse of the heavens; the sky
___21. Torah u. a small club, similar to a police baton
___22. Talmud v. a systematic, usually extensive written discourse on a subject
___23. Cabbala w. Marks the new year of the Jewish calendar.
___24. Rosh Hashanah x. full of health and strength; vigorous (2) rough or crude
___25. Yom Kippur y. lodging for troops
___26. Passover z. Discolored, as from a bruise; black-and-blue. (2)Extremely angry

Words for further study: _______________ _______________

_____________ _______________ _______________

Night Study Guide

Global Literature Name___________________
Night by Elie Wiesel

Chapters 1 & 2

1. What are your initial reactions to the book? What did you notice about: your own emotional reaction (how did you feel), your intellectual reaction (what do you want to know more about, etc.), the writing (what words, phrases, descriptions caught your attention)?








2. Why do you think Wiesel starts the book with the story of Moishe the Beadle?




3. What do the following lines tell the reader about the people of Sighet? Why might the people behave in this way? What kind of mood does this create? How?

a. The people were saying, ‘The Red Army is advancing with giant strides…Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…” Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century! (8)








4. Find another passage, similar to the one above, that Wiesel includes to create irony, foreshadowing and a mood of foreboding. Include the page number.











5. Explain the importance of the following passage.

NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes (21).













6. Compare the passage above to the similar passage from the first translation.
Night No one prayed, so that the night would pass quickly. The starts were only sparks of the fire
which devours us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes (18)







7. Write down one line that you think best describes the experience of the transport (chapter 2). Why did you select this line?





8. Why does Wiesel include the story of Mrs. Schachter? How does it affect the mood, etc.?







9. Write down at least one topic and what the author is trying to say about this topic (the theme) for these two chapters.



Chapter 3:

1. Why were Elie and his father persuaded to lie about their ages? What difference would it have made?


2. One of the prisoners in charge gave Elie some advice for surviving in the concentration camps. What did he advise?


Chapter 4:

1. Possessions take on a very significant role in this chapter. Give an example of what the prisoners did to obtain or keep their possessions.



2. Who was the “sad-eyed angel”? Why was he killed?



3. Juxtapose these two remarks about soup.
“I remember that on that evening, the soup tasted better than ever ” (Wiesel 63)
“That night the soup tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 65)
What do these lines show us about Elie Wiesel’s changed character?




Chapters 5 & 6

1. Describe Elie’s actions and feelings regarding the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. What do they tell us about his internal conflict regarding his faith? Compare to earlier sections of the book.









2. What did Akiba ask of his fellow inmates and why is it significant that they forgot to do it?





3. Explain the context behind the following line. Who said it and why? What is the subtext of the line (the important, yet unspoken message)?
“I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises to the Jewish people.”









4. Give an example of how survival was often just a matter of luck, no matter how much people may have tried to think through a strategy.







5. Give an example of irony that’s described at the end of chapter five.








6. Why are the prisoners evacuating and in the manner in which they are?








7. Describe some of the hardships of their journey.








8. Remembering of course that these events really happened and are not just literary devices created by an author, what meaning do you find in the story of Juliek and the fragment of a Beethoven concerto? (i.e. There’s no right or wrong answer, so long as you have a thoughtful answer.)






Chapters 7, 8, & 9 & Forward

1. There are several moments where Elie Wiesel focuses our attention to family relationships, usually in regard to fathers and sons. Give two such examples. Why does he do that? What do the different examples show us about the relationship between Elie and his father?












2. Describe Elie Wiesel’s reaction to his father’s deteriorating health, what was his own internal struggle during this time?







3. Explain the significance of the last words in this chapter: “free at last.”







4. What do you think that among the men liberated along with Elie, no one “thought of revenge”?



5. What does Elie Wiesel see in the mirror after liberation? Explain.

6. Go back and read the forward to Night.
a. How does it add to your understanding of the memoir?








b. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to omit (leave out) that parts that they did?









7. How are you feeling and/or what are you thinking after reading this story? What aspects of the story had the greatest impact on your thoughts or feelings? Did it change or confirm the way you look at the world in anyway? What lasting questions are you left with? Using all these questions as prompts, fill in the remainder of this page with a thoughtful response to the book.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Holocaust Vocab Day 3 and 4

Holocaust Vocabulary
Day 3
New Words:
haggard truncheons pious apathy robust

HJ Encounter

I watched in horror as the robust young H.J. recruits approached an old man. His appearance was haggard and worn. He was clearly no match for the four young men. Threateningly, they pulled out truncheons and waved them at the man. It wasn’t apathy that made me stay where I was hiding and not help the man, it was fear of being beaten myself, or worse. To this day I regret not helping the man. When the boys had had their fun, I helped the man to his feet and offered to escort him home. During our walk home, I learned this weathered and beaten man was a pious rabbi who led the local synagogue.

Sample sentences: Try your hand now at using your new words by writing them in their correct form (change endings if necessary) in these sentences:

1. Although I moved away from my church, my mother remains to this day a _______ member.

2. The _________ aroma of the spaghetti with meatballs I had for dinner lingered long after dinner was over.

3: The climbers returned from their grueling trip __________ and dehydrated.

4: Voter __________ is one of the leading reasons why young people do not vote in the United States.

5: During the riot, the police officer swung his __________ indiscriminately through the dust and tear gas.


Definitions: Match the new words with their dictionary meanings.

6. haggard ___ a. (1) lack of feeling, emotion; (2) lack of interest or concern

7. truncheons ___ b. (1) wild in appearance; (2) having a worn, emaciated
appearance
8. pious ___ c. a small club, similar to a police baton

9. apathy ___ d. full of health and strength; vigorous (2) rough or crude

10. robust ___ e. devout; having or exhibiting religious reverence

Jewish Terms
Yom Kippur – This is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. This is considered to be the day in which every individual is judged by God.


Holocaust Vocabulary
Day 4
New Words:
prostrate reprieve livid quarantine wizened

Liberation

As our trucks approached the camp, I eagerly awaited the reprieve from riding on the bumpy road. We didn’t know what we were going to find, only that locals had directed us down the road. The heavily forested road opened up into a clearing filled with barbed-wire fences and watchtowers. Shocked, we found hundreds of wizened faces staring out at us. Some bodies lay prostrate at the gates; we didn’t know if they were dead or alive. Our shock turned to livid anger as we began to discover what had happened here at the camp. Adding insult to injury, these emaciated and hungry survivors had to be quarantined before they could leave the compound.

Sample sentences: Try your hand now at using your new words by writing them in their correct form (change endings if necessary) in these sentences:

1. The old woman’s __________ face told the story of her long years of tragedy.

2. My mother fell ____________ before the Gestapo officer, begging for my release.

3: Going out to a swing dance was a welcome ___________ from the daily H.J. training.

4: Polio outbreaks used to cause massive ______________ in cities and towns before the vaccine was invented.

5: Hitler often used _________ tones and strong hand gestures during his speeches to stir up the emotions of his audience.

Definitions: Match the new words with their dictionary meanings.

6. prostrate ___ a. Discolored, as from a bruise; black-and-blue. (2)Extremely angry; furious

7. reprieve ___ b. Shriveled or dried up; withered

8. livid ___ c. Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

9. quarantine ___ d. (1)Lying face down, as in submission or adoration (2) Reduced to extreme weakness or incapacitation; overcome

10. wizened ___ e. Temporary relief, as from danger or pain

Jewish Terms
Passover – An eight-day festival commemorating the freeing of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.