Thursday, May 29, 2008

Chapters 7-9



As the prisoners continue with their journey, they are ordered into cattle cars. As they are in the cattle cars people die. As they die they are ordered to throw out the dead bodies. Eliezer has troubles of his own with life. He and his father are thrown to the ground. They are both trying to get the most air as possible. As he was on the ground, he noticed that he was on Juliek, the person that betrayed him. Eliezer finally gets air and hears Juliek music and falls asleep. When he wakes up Juliek is dead and his violet is broken.



After a troubling three days with out food and water, the soldiers make another selection. Eliezer’s father is selected to be the ones to die, but they sneak back over to the other side.



His father is starting to realize that they might not make it. He refuses to move. Eliezer abandons him for the night only to find his sick and unable to move. Eliezer realizes what he has done. He father has dysentery, which make him very thirsty. On January 29, 1945, Eliezer’s father is taken to be killed. Eliezer feels relief rather than sorrow. The camp is ordered to kill all prisoners, but the SS patrol was driven out and many are rescued, including Eliezer.

Websites
  1. www.avhs.org/.../websites/2008/Decker/index.html
  2. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holo.html
  3. www.holocaustsurvivors.org/

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Chapter 6




The prisoners are evacuated through a blizzard and in the dark as though they were hiding something. Anybody how decides to stop, they are shot right away. As Eliezer is running, a boy running beside of him decides he is exhausted and stops. He is then trampled to death. They prisoners ran for forty-two miles and ended up in a deserted city.

Eliezer and his father try to keep each other awake. If one of them were to fall asleep it could be deadly because of the cold. As father and son protect one another, Rabbi Eliahou is searching for his son that Eliezer saw him leave his father because his son thought his father can not make the run all the way.

The prisoners arrive at the Gleiwitz camp. They all were crushing each other to enter the barracks. Can you imagine the amount of self will is needed to run forty-two miles in one night? They didn’t have anything to eat. They were going to die if they stopped and rested. When they reached the village, if they fell asleep, they would die from the cold. These people have endured everything that was thrown at them.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Chapter 4 and 5



Chapter 4
As the prisoner’s game with death continue, they had much more hard times to follow the already unbearable journey. They were all inspected for health issues. They also had a dental inspection for gold caps from their teeth.

Eliezer was picked to work with electrical fittings after he was examined. Soon after, he finds out that his father is in the same unit. They also got a huge break after finding out that there head master of their housing block, General Jew, is very kind and not as violent as many of the other head masters. Eliezer is called for his dentist appointment for his gold crown to be pulled. With this pain, his pleads he is sick and it is postponed. As it was postponed, the dentist is caught selling the caps for a profit. He is hung for this action and Eliezer never gets his crown pulled. A man sees a bowl of soup unattended and a prisoner tries to get the soup. As a result he is shot on the spot. A week later, Nazis publicly hang people.

As many of the prisoners start to question God’s existence, the prisoners are being killed just for the liking of the leaders and soldiers. Many people think God doesn’t care. Eliezer examination is that God was hung just like one of the child in the gallows.

Chapter 5

As their long and painful journey as a Jewish person, they still come together to help each other. As life goes on, they celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the New Year, and Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement. On Rosh Hashanah, they all come together to pray and praise God. Eliezer is having trouble finding a reason to praise God because of all the bad things that has happened to them.

His lack of faith in God leads him to mock God and he says they are not the chosen ones to live but to be massacred. He also starts to believe that man is better and stronger than God. On Yum Kipper, Eliezer decides to eat because on Yum Kipper should be a day of fasting. He does this to support his theory. As days go on there is another selection and he is separated from his father and has to work in the building unit. During the selection his father is one of the many to weak to work and is selected to be executed. He will never see his father again. The only inheritance he gets is a spoon and knife. A miracle has occurred and his father had been selected to stay and they are reunited. They flee from the camp to try to escape to the Germans, but a few days after the Russians release all of the prisoners.

As their luck keeps running out, they all start to lose hope in God. One of the rabbis that Eliezer talks to even stops believing because he does not understand why God would do this to them



Wesites


  1. http://www.alphaomegadental.ca/

  2. http://isurvived.org/Pictures_iSurvived-2/Holocaust-items.GIF

  3. http://www.jtf.org/israel/fff.nazi.germany.holocaust.serbian.resistance.houses.jpg

Chapter

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Chapter 3




As the Jews move on, the families are separated into men and women. Eliezer and his father remain together. His mother and sister are separated from him and his father. They will never see each other again.

As they go on, they are told to lie about their age to be able to work instead of being killed immediately. As the prisoners look around, they find a pit were babies and adults are being buried. This is stressful for the prisoners and also very emotional. Some time later the Jews were striped of the cloths and washed with gasoline. They were then given prison cloths. They have two options, to work hard or be killed. When Eliezer’s father asked for a bathroom he was beaten by the person in charge of the inmates.

Despite the times and events the prisoners must go though. They keep their faith in God. I think this is the hardest things to do because you ask yourself why God does this to humans. These people are the bravest people in the world because of their strength in God and not knowing what is going to happen to them.
Websites