One Survivor questions

1.      What scenes or images were most powerful for you, and why? What lessons or messages did these scenes offer?

a.     The scene where they showed woman skeletons and how women were dyeing one by one because of starvation and lack of health were just awful. I don’t know how the Nazi men and woman could just watch as these woman and girls died a painful deaths all because they didn’t have proper health and clothing. I think those scenes left a message in my head that said the Nazi’s were really that awful and hearing it from a living, breathing survivor really left that impression in my brain, that the Nazi’s were ruthless and didn’t care about anyone.

2.      How did the Nazis dehumanize Jews? How did Gerda Weissmann work to overcome dehumanization and who helped her?

a.     The Nazis in general dehumanized Jews by starving them, shaving all their hair off, and taking away all their clothing, these are the basic ways they dehumanized Jews. Gerda overcame dehumanization by hanging her thoughts on little things that didn’t matter at the moment but getting lost in her thoughts she said saved her life because she didn’t think about what was going on around her.  Her friends ultimately did help her even though they died in the end they helped her and she helped them.

3.      During her ordeal in the Nazi camps, Weissmann says she fantasized about enjoying a simple morning with her family or deciding what dress to wear to an imagined party. What simple things in your own life do you think you’d fantasize about if everything were taken away? What ordinary things do you take for granted?

a.     I would dream about the moments with my family that I thought I would have again and took for granted because those are the rare memories you don’t want to forget. I would also fantasize about being with my friends and all the happiness that came from one simple moment with them. I think I take for granted are the ordinary moments with my family that happen over and over again, but now that I think about it those moments might not always be there. Also, my belongings because we think about things as a given not a privilege and when world war II happened and people were forced from their homes they didn’t have much, so that makes me think we take our material things for granted.

4.      This film focuses on the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust, but others were murdered, including soviet prisoners of war, Roma (Gypsies), gays and lesbians, and Communist’s. In what ways do you see persecution happening in today’s world? What groups do you see being targeted? What can be done to work against such prejudice and intolerance?

a.     In today’s world you see a lot of persecution happening on the internet and all around us, people are constantly putting other people down. I know that isn’t to serious but it still can hurt people. On the internet you see a lot of persecution towards gays and lesbians because they are “different.”  I hear about gays and lesbians being targeted and it doesn’t sound nice at all. People always say stuff they don’t think is bad but in the end it still comes to the facts that it is wrong. I think we can be more careful about what is said and or posted on the internet.

5.      In many ways, this film is about hope for the future. Who are the heroes of the film? What did they do that makes you hopeful? What can you do to help make the world a better place?

a.     The heroes of this film are Gerda because she is living proof that what the Nazis did was wrong. Gerda makes me hopeful because she survived the awful death march and watched her friends die in front of her. She gives me hope that if anyone could survive the terrible disasters of the holocaust that I can survive anything. I think I can help make the world a better place by never giving up hope and always supporting people and giving hope to the people who need it most.

Marika Blog #3

I read one article on Budapest, Hungary and the Germans taking over Hungary. Some background knowledge I have acquired is, that Budapest was a huge safe haven for Jewish refugees until the Nazi invasion. This quote from an article on Budapest show us just how many refugees’ there were, “Before the war some 5,000 refugees, primarily from Germany and Austria, arrived in Budapest.” I also have learned that Hungary and Germany were allies, and until March 1944 Budapest was a safe place for Jews.

The research I have done so far reveals many connections to my book, Marika. In one of the articles I read they talk about how when Budapest was overrun by the Nazis, Jews were ejected from their apartments. This got me thinking about how Marika and her family live in two apartments, and when the Nazis invade if they will be forced from their homes?  Also in the same article it talks about how Jews located in Budapest weren’t automatically sent to concentration camps, but rather scattered in buildings marked by the Star of David.  The back cover of my book talks about how Marika and her family go into hiding. This quote talks about how Jews went into hiding and who assisted them in doing it, “Many Jews searched for places of hiding or for protection. They were aided by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and other foreign diplomats who organized false papers and safe houses for them.” In Marika, Marika and her family made fake birth certificates and I wonder if they made them for hiding reasons. Apa, Marika’s father often yell’s at her brother over doing poorly in school because he fears his son will be sent to a labor camp for not having a job. When the Nazis over took Budapest they scared everyone and sent many people to labor camps, “The Arrow Cross instituted a reign of terror in Budapest and hundreds of Jews were shot. Jews were also drafted for brutal forced labor.” This quote is brutal but illustrates what happened in Marika’s town in the mid 1900’s. I anticipate that when Marika’s family does run into trouble it will happen very quickly without much warning. In the book Marika is finding out she is not wanted by how kids and adults are starting to treat her and her family.

Quotes from: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "BUDAPEST” http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005264 12-1-11

Marika Blog # 2

            The first book I read was The Boy Who Dared and the protagonist is Helmuth. Helmuth is non- religious but his family is not Jewish and his grandparents are Mormon. He is a teenage boy who is confused by Hitler and doesn’t know who to believe, the British or the German? He was part of the Hitler youth and spoke two languages. He went to jail and was executed for, distributing leaflets telling the truth about the war. He is stubborn but amazingly brave, when he went to trial for allegedly distributing enemy propaganda he took all the blame so his friends wouldn’t be put through the same agony he was subjected to. Helmuth has many motivations for his actions, he wanted people to hear the truth and he wanted to make a statement. I don’t have any questions for Helmuth because My questions were answered when I finished the book.

The book I am reading now is Marika and the protagonist Marika she Lives in the town of Budapest located in Hungary. She is very stubborn but brave and stands up for what she believes in. She speaks three languages and can write. Marika is very spoiled whenever she gets a nice gift she turns it away and says she doesn’t want it, like her china doll and her new dress. She understands that she is Jewish by blood but was raised in the Catholic Church. When her father shows her an article about Hitler she is confused as to why that article would affect her family? Marika so far doesn’t have any motivations yet because she hasn’t run into trouble regarding the Nazis. My questions for Marika are how will she run into the Nazis? And if she does run into them, will she end up in a concentration camp?

            The protagonists in my book club books are very different in the sense that one is Jewish by blood and lived in Hungary, and one is a Hitler youth who lived in Germany. But even though these two characters are extremely different, they have just a few things in common. Number one, they both speak multiple languages, the one language they have in common is German. Number two, they are both stubborn yet brave. Number three they both have families that they don’t always understand but still love. These two Characters are extraordinary in their own ways.

            The protagonist’s may be different but the ways the books are conveyed are very similar. The way both of the books look back on what has already happened is similar. But the difference is that The Boy Who Dared was written in 3^rd person and Marika was written in 1^st person. The characters are seeing the war from different perspectives but they are both watching the war unfold. These books are similar yet different in different ways.

Marika Blog # 1

The book I am reading is Marika by Andrea Cheng. The protagonists name is Maria Schnurmacher; her nickname is Marika. Marika is Jewish but was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. The book starts off with Maria making fake birth certificates for her and her family saying they were “Katolicas”, or Catholics. Then she talks about how one summer when she was six they went to their summer house in Vac, and they came home to find that her father had put up a wall that separated him from the rest of the family. Next her Nanny threw away Marika’s favorite doll “Maxi” because she said it was leaking to much saw dust. In the book Marika is confused as to why her family hates there last name. Her uncle tries to explain to her that it is Jewish, when they are Roman Catholic. Next Nanny Mitzi Neni gets fired because Marika’s father wants her to learn French and Mitzi Neni has already taught Marika German. So Apa, Marika’s Father hires Colette who speaks French. One day Marika’s father makes a surprise visit and leaves her some books and one turns out to be French, and it is about a boy and a girl. Colette reads the story and gets an idea. She sneaks out of the house to see her boyfriend when she gets caught by Marias brother and father. After that Colette was fired and sent back to France.

            The story takes place in Budapest, Hungary in the mid to late 1900’s. The protagonist is a young girl named Marika. She lives in an apartment with her mother and brother with her father Apa living next store. Her Uncle is also part of the story he gave her Maxi and helped forge the birth certificates. Currently in   the book, Marika is not in school but knows three languages and can write very well.

The problem in the book is that everyone in Marika’s family is Jewish besides her, her brother, her mother and father, and her uncle. The war hasn’t started yet but her father and uncle know it’s not good to be Jewish. Even though she was raised and baptized in the Catholic Church her last name traces her back to her Jewish heritage. This doesn’t help her family and her father knows it. I think that later in the book somehow the Nazis will find out that Marika and her family are Jewish.

The Boy Who Dared Inferences

The book I’m reading is called, The Boy Who Dared. It’s about a boy named Helmuth who lives in Germany. Right now he is in one of his flash backs, about how Hitler came into power and how the war started. These are two of my inferences that I think are very possible ideas that could happen in the upcoming text.

 My first inference is, Helmuth will become a German soldier and regret it. There were multiple instances where he was admired by Nazi soldiers, which made him want to be like them and fight for the fatherland. Helmuth is young when this is happening. One day a storm trooper talks to him and this is what the narrator says, “Someday he will fight for the fatherland.”(pg.16) This is a hint that later in the book he will somehow serve Hitler. This is one of a couple examples that lead you to the idea of Helmuth becoming a soldier. One of my questions is, why does he favor Hitler so much? What leads Helmuth to believe so much in Hitler at such a young age, besides him and his family always struggling for money?

My second inference is that Helmuth will start to reject Jews and his friends to become a soldier. Something that might instill the thought in Helmuth that Jews are bad is the fact that, his school shunned a Jewish kid and he went along with it. I think this quote really supports this; “We must defend ourselves against Jews and their worldwide plot to take over Germany.”(pg.29)  Also all around him, shops owned and run by Jews were being closed with signs posted by soldiers saying that, “Germans! Do not buy from Jews! World Jewry is out to destroy us!”(pg.31)and this is all because Hitler believes that Christianity is a basic principal and if you’re not Christian you shouldn’t be alive. These things could all make Helmuth reject Jews. The questions I have about this is, how important are Jews to Helmuth? Does he have Jewish friends? These are two questions that make me think about Helmuth and were his decisions will do to him.

      These I’m interested to find out if these inferences come true in the text. These ideas make me think. There both plausible because there are little ideas in the text that could lead to these ideas. I wonder if they will come true.

The Boy Who Dared: Blog entry # 1

The Boy Who Dared starts off with Helmuth on death row, in Berlin Germany. The book goes back and forth between him being 17 in a prison cell, to flash backs of his childhood in Germany; the book is also in third person. It starts with him in his cell worrying if he would be executed that day. His first childhood flashback is about him and his family living in Hamburg. He and his mother are walking in town with a bunch of Nazi soldiers and Helmuth being asked if he wanted to fight for the fatherland. Then he’s back in his prison cell, and another memory comes. Its 1932, He’s playing with his toy soldiers and talking to his two brothers, Hans and Gerhard. Then his grandparents start talking about Hitler and how Opa thinks Hitler’s a lunatic. Then his Prison Cell slot opens and food is pushed through, he thinks about how all of Germany was poor and how Adolf Hitler promised to make it better. It continues to go through a sequence, Hitler is elected chancellor and everyone’s happy, then the government building in Berlin is burned by communists, and Jews are discriminated against. The narrator is showing how the war unfolded from Helmuth’s point of view.

The protagonist in the book is Helmuth he is German and grew up in Hamburg Germany. When he is seventeen he is living in a Prison cell waiting to be executed. Helmuth grew up with his mother Mutti and his two older brothers. They all lived in a small flat next store to his Grandparents. His Grandparents names are, Opa and Oma. Opa doesn’t like Hitler as this quote comes to show, “Only if that lunatic Hitler comes to power.”(pg.9)On the other hand Oma is just scared of him because of all the power he seems to have. These are the Characters so far in the book.

The setting is in Hamburg and Berlin Germany in the early 1900’s. Helmuth’s Jail cell is another part of the setting because the narrator talks about the stench, and how this bucket is used as a toilet. He has memories of Hitler coming into power and taking over. Right now in the book there isn’t a distinct problem besides Helmuth being in Jail and Hitler being in power. Also i think a problem is that Helmuth is to immature to understand what Hitler is doing.

Flower Garden

The short story Flower Garden is about two families The Winnings and the MacLane’s. Mrs. Winning lives in the winning house, but longs to live in the little cottage. When the cottage is bought by Mrs. MacLane she and Mrs. Winning become fast friends. One day they go out with the kids and see Billy Jones whose half white and half black; when Mrs. MacLane hears the boys call him a “nigger” she is appalled and asks him if he wants to work for her. When his dad starts to work for Mrs. MacLane people stop being nice to her and don’t want to be around her. I believe this short story is about the different viewpoints of society.

             

      I think a significant element in this story is the theme, the underlying fact in the story about their society. In the Flower Garden when Mrs. MacLane hires Mr. Jones Billy’s father to work her garden, that’s when people start to push her away. People just didn’t like Mrs. MacLane and they didn’t see her as a nice person. For example, When she asked Mrs. Winning why people didn’t like her she asked if it was because of Mr. Jones working for her and this is what Mrs. Winning thought, “The nerve of her, trying to blame the “colored folk,” and before that she said she wanted desperately for Mrs. MacLane  to be a nice person again. It’s almost like she’s saying Mrs. MacLane is a mean person for hiring Mr. Jones. It’s like there community has social norms that Mrs. MacLane unaware of and is apparently breaking.

 I feel the underlying theme in this story is that, all societies view people in different ways and have certain rules, no matter what. There’s always people that don’t follow the rules of society Mrs. MacLane is just one of those people.

Query: December 12th

This week's query.....  December 12th   
By: Sara H.

 In our world simplicity is often forgotten. There is so much stress because of people filling up their schedules. For example for kids, if you play two instruments, play  one or two sports, and have a lot of homework, you don’t have any time to relax. People constantly complain about how busy their schedules are, but if they only played one less instrument or one less sport it would be much less complicated.  Simplicity has so many meanings that we sometimes forget how it can be applied to our lives and schedules.

Here’s an example: (Show picture)

When you look at the schedule it is completely full,

Some things that could be eliminated are: Maybe one less soccer practice or less talking to your friends.

Cutting certain things from your schedule can make your life much less complicated.

This week’s query is: How can we simplify our schedules, to create less stress?

Assignment- Thursday, September 22nd 2011

Read the simplicity packet. Choose an idea from the packet and write about it. Be sure to quote the article or passage you are refering to and make sure you site your source. 3 paragraphs minimum. Check grammar and mechanics are correct.


Simplicity Essay

Simplicity is a rare thing. I really like the idea of compassionate simplicity.  It’s about people’s relationships and how we work together. Like Gandhi said, we “choose to live simply so others can simply live”. Compassionate simplicity is about seeing others as your equal and knowing that just because you have the newest technology doesn’t make you any more important. Money doesn’t form relationships, and I wish more people knew that. This speaks to me because simplicity isn’t just about conserving money it’s about being cooperative and fair to others. Like Duane Elgin wrote, “Simplicity means feeling a strong sense of kinship with others.” I feel that’s an important piece of simplicity that we often forget.

                My favorite idea was, “Simplicity is simultaneously a personal choice, a community choice, a national choice, and a species choice.” This quote by Duane Elgin is really powerful. Everybody needs to make a choice when it comes to simplicity. In our world today with all the technology it’s really hard to simplify your life. But if everybody chose to reduce what they use and consume, the world would be a much better place, especially when it comes to the environment. But for the world to be a better healthier place we need to make the choice; the choice of simplicity.

                Simplicity can be easy or hard. But in the end it’s our choice to make a difference. Our world is in our hands, and consumerism is becoming a big issue. Ecological Simplicity is something we need to acknowledge more closely.  “Simplicity means choosing ways of life that touch the Earth more lightly and that reduce our ecological impact on the web of life” – Duane Elgin. It’s true if we just reduce our intake of materials we would have a more ecologically friendly world. That would mean a healthier world and not as much pollution. Being ecologically friendly isn’t hard but I think to many people take the worlds materials for granted and don’t give back. If we just gave back the world would be a much better place.

This I Believe

                I believe that you can do anything if you follow your heart and if you’re determined to do something you should follow through with it.  I believe this because it has always been a big part of my life; my dad has always enforced this. I have held myself to this belief because it makes sense; you should always follow your heart.  Determination is a big part of my life, I feel determination fuels drive and you need drive to get things done in life.

                When I was twelve I was riding one of my favorite horses, and he spooked going over a jump. I held on for dear life, but before I knew it I was lying on the ground crying.  I knew it wasn’t his fault so I automatically got back on.  I was determined get him to complete the course.  So, I jumped it five more times until river stopped spooking. I went on to continue the course.  I was so proud of myself that even though my shoulder hurt I still did what I had to do, and because of that I have become a stronger rider.

                Camp Wabun is a very physically demanding camp.  This is when being determined definitely helps.  Carrying a canoe on your shoulders definitely pushes your determination to the limits. My first time carrying a canoe on a portage I had the heaviest, widest and longest canoe not to mention the most uncomfortable.   When I started the portage with the canoe all I could think about was “when you feel like you’re about to die keep walking.” Even though in the end I only carried it 200 yards on a 900 yard portage, I felt very accomplished. I had stood by my belief and was determined to push myself as far as I could.

                My belief is a central part of my life because it ties into many different things. For example, following your heart can be a challenging thing but those ties into friendships, community, family and helping others.  For me being determined has always been tested because sometimes I need a push from someone else for my determination to kick in. Take school for example, I have issues with second guessing myself. It’s always been a challenge because I want everything to be perfect. But to get perfection you have to work for it, and sometimes I don’t want to do the work and that’s what really does the damage in the end.  I’ve learned that you need to have determination and the drive to get what you desire.

Simplicity viseo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJU9In32KlI

I chose this video because I think it really displays the definition of simplicity in a really nice video.