Alena Munkova Synlight Poem Analysis

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Source 1 (183) : The extermination of millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust was a horrific event that shall be remembered forever. Located in the city of Houston, there stands a distinguished building known as the Houston Holocaust Museum where engraved in its walls, are the memories and stories of some of the survivors. The museum’s mission is to continually educate people about the dangers of hatred and violence as well as to instill hope by working to repair the world. “ Alena Munkova-Synkova is the only child whose poem appears in the book still alive today” (Willoughby, 2004) The words of Alena Synkova approve the fact that even in the darkest and most fearful moments in life, without even her parents beside her, hope can still be achieved. It is a great challenge for someone to maintain hope in these conditions (screams of people and cries of families) and without family there to support her, it makes life difficult to maintain. But Alena Synkova, managed to do this, by repeating the lines of her poetry in her head and knowing that soon one day, there will be someone to save her from the terrible situations at the concentration camp. Furthermore, there were people …show more content…

Max Vandenburg had lost his father at a young age. This is because when Max was born, her father had tried to save him from the Germans, but ended up dying leaving Max to survive on his own. Hope was the only thing that kept him alive and moving forward even after experiencing the deaths of his beloved family members. However, Max’s life is a contrast to the people described in the poem and how their hope was completely destroyed. Their hopes and dreams of survival were figuratively “stolen away.” This is because, they had lost hope in themselves and the continuing force of the Germans resulted in them to lose their lives. This represents how even hope, described one of humanity’s strongest driving forces, was sometimes unable to survive the harsh realities of the