Many people have learned about the Holocaust throughout the years, but learning about it from a primary source is a whole different experience. A scary journey that turned out to be the Holocaust has been told by two individuals that survived. These two stories tell the reader what life was like and what they went through. Even though the conditions were terrible, both Eli and Lina were able to survive and break away through fear, horrendous experiences, and hope that lead them to surviving and leaving people they cared about behind.
“Night” by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography about his experience in the concentration camps during World War II. Wiesel does an excellent job of genuinely highlighting the horrific events that took place throughout the genocide. In “Night,” Wiesel illustrates how horrific the Holocaust truly was, by controlling the tone with diction and syntax. By using syntax, the tone in “Night” felt sensationally real, and gave us a raw perspective of what everyday life was like in Auschwitz. One way he utilized this technique was by making us feel panicked when serious events occurred, making sure we, the readers, didn’t feel like we were only spectating but were there and understood the gravity of the situation.
Throughout the short story “Snow” by Julia Alvarez, the literary devices of imagery and diction contribute to the overall theme that immigrating into a new environment can be a fearful experience. In paragraph three, Yolanda explains that while at her new school, they would perform air raid drills, leaving her imagination to picture the worst-case scenarios she learned about. We see this when she says that she would, “imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft.” This shows that procedures and lessons Yolanda never had to learn or do before immigrating to the U.S. have a significant impact on the way she views everyday life, from living in an innocent world to one that is out to hurt her.
Imagine being a jewish person in one of the deadliest wars. How would you survive? How would the news of the war affect you? For many people this isn’t just a question, it's a reality. Like in the book Maus where it follows Vladek and his attempt to keep him and his family alive during the Holocaust or in the poem “Often a Minute,” hearing the news about the Holocaust and seeing all the new people joining in.
Many people don’t like to think about it, but it is an important event to remember so that we don’t let it happen again. Two pieces of literature that explore the idea of wanting to remember the holocaust to not repeat it are Maus by Art Spiegelman and Often a Minute by Magdalena Klein. These texts describe events and feelings surrounding the holocaust and help support the idea of teaching about it to stop it from happening again. Another theme these passages present is persevering even when times are tough. The ideas, scenes, stanzas, tone, and sentences presented in these two compositions
Jocelyn Ibarra per 4 Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls is a story about a girl named Lia, who is struggling with anorexia and self harm after her best friend Cassie died. Cassie was also suffering from an eating disorder but she was a bulimic. Lia knows how many calories are in everything she eats. In most of the sentences that included food usualy ended with a number. ”Two scrambled eggs+milk+butter=365+(two muffins=450)=horror.
This describes how horrific the Nazis’s were to the Jewish prisoners by making them run through the cold snowy night nonstop. Even though they were already extremely unhealthy and
The book Snow Like Ashes, written by Sara Raasch, is an extraordinary book about the eight refugees that are trying to liberate the rest of their people and get the pieces for their conduit, a locket that contains their kingdom’s magic. Sara Raasch was born and raised in Ohio, but currently resides in Virginia. She graduated from Wright State University and has written a trilogy that includes Snow Like Ashes. In this book, she follows the Winterians through their journey of hardship, betrayal, and love. The Winterians cling onto their hope, “The promise we refugees always make one another before going on missions, whenever people come back bleeding and hurt, whenever things go badly and we’re huddling together in terror.
The Holocaust, the event in which Hitler’s policy of anti-Semitism led to the murder of over six million Jews, was a horrific tragedy that to this day is a symbol of Man’s Inhumanity to Man. As such a large-scale event, it was inevitable that it would become the subject of many literary works that depict both the cruelty of the perpetrators and the heroism of those who fought for justice. “A Spring Morning” by Ida Fink is a short story about two parents desperately trying to find a way to keep their daughter alive, only to be met with the despair of her death. The events of this story take place during the late 1930s during the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany before the family is actually taken to a concentration camp. “Rescue in Denmark” by
From the scorching heat of the desert to the bone-chilling cold of the winter, weather can be a formidable antagonist that tests the resilience of the human spirit. Elie Wiesel's "Night" conveys the profound emotional and physical pain endured by the prisoners of the Holocaust. The unbearable temperatures that suffocated the concentration camps serve as a reflection of the inhumane conditions they faced. The heat gives a glimpse into the physical and emotional anguish endured by Wiesel and his fellow prisoners. Additionally, the heat serves as a haunting reminder of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust.
Aristotle wrote, “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light (Aristotle)”. The Holocaust was one of the darkest times humanity has ever seen. A machination brewed by an extraordinarily perverse man that resulted in the deaths of millions, and robbed millions more of their faith and hope. Families were torn apart, towns were destroyed, and humanity lost, all to satisfy one man’s extreme racism and psychotic agenda. If however, one only chooses to focus on the darkness, they might overlook the light, specifically in the two stories of boys who survived against all odds and shared their tales years after defying death.
Faith in a Broken World The Holocaust has long been known as one of the worst events in human history, and it has left its mark, permanently lasting for millennia more. Although the generation of today will never be able to witness it firsthand, survivors of this catastrophe have chosen to write their personal experiences out for the world to see. One of these survivors is Elie Wiesel, who accomplished this through a memoir entitled Night. He provides insight into the Holocaust and what life was like as a prisoner there, sharing his story as a witness.
Although Night provides the experience of a Holocaust survivor, “Inside Auschwitz”, a documentary by Oprah Winfrey featuring Elie Wiesel, introduces the Holocaust by displaying Auschwitz, the concentration camp where Elie once lived. By listening to Elie Wiesel’s voice, it is clear the survivor is still traumatized by the Holocaust. Hearing Elie’s voice allows readers to understand the pain he went through and still goes through. Whereas while reading it, readers are not able to fully comprehend how hurt Elie is when discussing his experience. Furthermore, the documentary provides visuals allowing people to observe the concentration camp.
From the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan to the Collapse of the Soviet Union, the American people lived in fear of the concept of mutually assured destruction, commonly referred to as “MAD.” This idea revolves around the central principle that if one global power were to use a nuclear device against another, retaliatory actions would result in escalation that would ultimately lead to global annihilation. These fears are reflected in the works of many authors; however, the largest proliferation of these fears were through popular culture. Pop-culture generally portrayed the nuclear threat as being far more in control of the people by using comedy and softer images, in order to calm panic formed by the growing fear of MAD.
Rebecca Myers Professor LaKeya Jenkins English 102-80 2 June 2017 Short-Fiction Essay In Julia Alvarez’s “Snow”, an immigrant schoolgirl named Yolanda is experiencing her first time in New York. Her catholic school teacher, Sister Zoe, is a kind woman who is dedicated to teaching Yolanda the English language. As time progresses, Yolanda learns of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
