Letter Excerpts

Book report.

night.

theme: night



The author tells us about the state of perpetual night that the prisoners were in.

Darkness surrounded everything because of all of the deaths and the prisoners had a dark and defeated attitude towards living.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed" 34

"Block by block. Night had fallen. Everything was going according to plan." 84

topics.

religion:

• "I pray to God within me to ask the real questions" p. 5


• I continues to devote myself to me studies. p. 8


• I was not denying His existence, bit I doubted His absolue justice. p. 45


• p. 3 see sheet


• p. 20 see sheet


• p. 33 see sheet


• p. 37"The student of Talmud, the child I was, was consumed by the flames
• For God's sake, where is God.
• "where is merciful God? where is he?" p 61
• p 66 where are you my god?
• p 67 why would i bless him?
• p 77 say Kaddish for me
• p 77 If only he could have kept his faith.

Silence

• p 39 My father had just been struck in front of me. I watched and kept silent.


• p 26 Her son was clinging to her, not uttering a word.


• p 37 Nobody dared raise his voice even though there was no guard around, we still whispered.


• p. 33


• p. 34 Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence.


• p. 14 Again, heavy silence
• p 71 "Tibby was silent and very pale."
• p 71 "Let's have a moment of quiet."
• p 81'"They had diffuculty opening their mouths. All they could utter was a moment of evacuation."
• p89 "Not a sound of distress, nothing but mass agony and silence."
• p 94 "A silent death, suffication, no way to scream or call for help."
• p 95 "Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound in such silence."
• p 104 "I was so weary, that the silence left me indifferent."
• p 111 All around me there was silence now.

Inhumanity

• 
  p. 6 They were forced to dig huge trenches. Infants were tossed in the air.
• p. 37 In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men.
• p. 31 You will be burned , burned to a cinder, turned to ashes.
• p. 24 there were 80 of you in the car. If any of you go missing, you will be shot like dogs.
• p 49 You You You, They pointed there fingers the way one might choose cattle or merchandise.
• p53 He threw himself on me like a wild beast
• p 54 he seemed to break in two like and old tree struck by lightning
• p 54 and began beating him with an iron bar
• p 97 the SS shoved us in, 100 per car.
• p 96 a thick layer of snow was accumulating on our blankets
• pg 101 in the wagon where the bread had landed

Father/Son relationship

• p 32 were to he t have gone to the right, I would have run after him
• p 44 My father told me, you musn't eat that all at once.
• p48 I want to stay with my father.
• p 54 he began beating him with the iron bar....i kept silent
• p 39 My father had just been struck in front of me and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent.
• p. 19 My father was crying, it was the first time i saw him cry.
• p 50 Frank the foreman...please sir, I would like to stay near my father.
• p 35 My head was buzzing...not to be seperated from my father.
• p 54 He began beating him with an iron bar and I felt angry.
• p 112 free at last
• p89 come father lets go back to the shed. we'll take turns, we won't let each other fall asleep.
• p 99 I awoke from apathy. Father, father, wake up.
• p 108 for a ration of bread i was able to exchange cots to be next to my father
• p 104 I tightened my grip on my father's hand. the old familiar fear not to lose him.
• p 113 since my father's death, nothing mattered.
• p 91 He had already gone through the door when I remembered that I had noticed his son running beside me.
• p 105 and I grabbed his arm and continued to moan.

Concentration Camp:

• Barracks
• flames, smoke
• rationed food-- coffee, soup, bread, butter
• Selection process--Dr. Mengele
• Prison garbs
• shoes
• babies were thrown in the flames
• nocturnal silence

Dehumanization

• Remove clothing
• shave hair
• forced to wear prison garb
• numbers tatooed on arm
• run the prisoners down to fatigue, to lose all emotional thought.
• removed all crowns/gold teeth

Stein of Antworp

• family member
• symbolized the false hope of the Jews
• wanted to know if family was still alive
• Ellie lies and says that the family is okay
• "real news"

Dehumanization at concentration camps:

• take clothes
• take possessions [valuables, jewelry, etc.]
• shave the hair of of the head
• forced to wear a prison uniform

"Brief Love"

1. What really bothered me was the description of Miriam's urine wetting Jacob's pants. It was a bit repulsive that there wasn't anything for the people to use to relieve themselves. I'm sure anything would have been better than wetting yourself. Its really humiliating and degrading. The whole ordeal was not very humane.

2. I wonder where these people were coming from. What was their life like before? Did Jacob and Miriam come from the same ghetto, but never meet each other? It would be interesting to know these things.

3. The connections I made were that, often when people are going through the same situation, they form a sort of bond. Everyone still pulls together in a time of need.