Monday, May 3, 2010

Tell No One Who You Are

Presley
Post #1 - Introduction
Post #2 - Organizing The History
Post #3 - Photo Project
Post #4 - Individual Responsibility and Resistance 
Post #5 - Perpetrators, Collaborators, Bystanders, and Rescuers
Post #6 - Final Project - The Suitcase Project

3 comments:

  1. The novel, My Family for the War introduced me to kindertransports, that were used to take children to safety from the terrors of Germany while the war. Kindertransports brought in thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain. In Britain, they were given a chance to start their life again, without discrimination, and fear around every bend of the road. The children were accepted by families that gave them shelter and protection until the end of the war.

    “My family for the war” describes in detail, the goings on outside of Britain, and the progress of the war. This story takes place just as the war begins.

    The author has beautifully summed up the story for the victims of the holocaust:
    How can you call a place
    Home when your neighbors
    Think you’re the enemy?

    Franziska is a young girl, running from her fate as a Jew in Germany. Although their family plans to immigrate to a different location where they can live in safety, they are not able to go when Ziska’s father is captured by the Germans. Her mother will not leave without her husband. The war breaks the heart of even the strongest person she has ever known – her mamu.

    Although not experienced in life, she is torn from her family and must leave behind her sense of belongingness, and tries to piece together a new life.

    Ziska is parted from her family at the beginning of the war through a kindertransport smuggling children out of Germany. In Great Britain, she is taken in by a Jewish family, where she spends the length of her life, with only letters to her family reminding her of the life she left. At first she struggles to fit in and her thoughts are of her mamu and papa back home. Slowly she is able to adapt to her new life. Through her journey, she tries to find a place for herself. A place where she fits. A place where she is safe and loved. She searches for a family. Ziska makes friends along the way and ingrains herself into the hearts of everyone she meets. In the end, her family is much larger than just her mother and father, her foster parents, and brother. She collects a family, and together they all fight through this war. Her family, for the war………….

    The questions I pose for my blogging partners are-
    What resonates with you from this story about the life of Franziska? What else did you learn from this book that you were unaware of earlier? What new questions have come up even after finishing this book?

    I wonder what it would have been like to have been in the shoes of our protagonist. What would become of our courage and hope living under the harsh conditions and reality of this world. Being discriminated against and leaving home at the tender age of eleven. What would I have become in the shoes of Franziska Mangold?

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  2. As I read further into my book, i started to realize how serious the Holocaust really was. In the book that I'm reading, the Nazi's came into the girl's home and captured her father, and had destroyed the shops that belonged to the Jewish people. After those events, her mother had to make a huge decision whether she should send her daughter away to another country to live with another family. Having close friends who weren’t Jewish, betray you, and treat you like you’re worthless to society. I’m sure this has happened to a lot of other families during the Holocaust. It’s crazy to think that just because of 1 man’s decision to try and eliminate 1 race, everyone listened. The author of this book was not trying to tell a story about the tragic events in the Holocaust; she put you in the characters perspective of what and how it happened. I’m wondering if her mother did send her away to live with another family, if she did; what will happen to her parents, or to her?

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  3. Hello, my name is josh. im reading the book called "Boy in a striped pajama"
    Before i started reading this book, i only learned from a jewish perception, I had no idea what some nazi people thought about the holocaust. Maybe some nazi people were too scared to die that they hid their thoughts. or maybe they had no rights to speak, that if they spoke out they would die.

    What would have happen if the holocaust didnt happen? would the world be like it is right now?

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