One Survivor Remembers; The Powerful Story of Gerta Weissman

1. The documentary we watched today enveloped the grievances and nightmares faced by a young girl during the Holocaust. No doubt, anytime one hears of the Holocaust a shiver is sent down their spine. One particular scene from the documentary was exceptionally powerful to me. The excruciating three month journey through freezing, starved, and dehydrated conditions known as the death march was the last part Gerta and her friends would have to bear before liberation. The part that got to me most through the death march scenes, was when Gerta's dear friend, Ilze, was approaching her last breaths. She said these words to Gerta just before she died, "I'm angry at no one, and I hope no one is angry at me." How, when someone has just been exposed to so much hatred, and has been faced with so many wrong-doings, can they say they are not mad at anyone? Not even the Nazis, the ones who killed her and her family, had implanted their hatred into her soul.
     Another scene that struck me as powerful, although more disturbing, was when Gerta described the frozen conditions during the death march by saying that woman who didn't have the proper foot wear ". . .broke their toes off like twigs." As I said in my other blogs, a person can read and learn about the Holocaust as much as they like, but no man or woman can fully understand the experiences hundreds of thousands of people went through.

2. Though the video didn't say much of how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews, it gave us a few examples. One way they dehumanized them was by forcing them to live in ghettos, separated from the town, Gerta was lucky though, her home stayed her home, though she was confined to living only in the basement. Also, they were dehumanized by being forced to do labor, by having their heads shaved, and by being separated from their families. Gerta Weissman overcame dehumanization partly by imagination, and partly by an SS woman who cared for her and the other girls while they were forced to labor at a factory. In the story Gerta says something along the lines of, "If you were blessed with imagination you could survive." She told a story saying that throughout her time during the Holocaust she would imagine different things, different memories, and let them take her to a world where she could ignore the cold wind on her bones or ignore the ferocious growl coming from her stomach. There was a person though too, she was an SS officer who was in charge at the labor factory. Gerta recalls her as her first hope in the world, for she saw that not all Germans were cruel and evil. Gerta says that she most likely would not have made it through the war, if this SS officer had not entered her life.

3.  I believe that if I were in Gerta Weissman's place, I would dream of myself dancing. I would think about the movement, the freedom and each breath that I take when I dance. I would also sing. In a time when I can't move where I want, and I can't speak unless spoken to, I would imagine myself doing just those things and expressing myself through song and dance. I would also imagine my friend and I, doing the many crazy things that we do. I think this memory would trigger fantasies of laughter. These things are the types of things that keep me happy, that keep my mood elevated, so that is why I would think of them.
     From watching the documentary, I realized how many things I take for granted. How a simple thing, that I have become accustomed to, a thing that I have thought myself entitled to, can be become something so scarce that I have to work for it and fight for it is thought-provoking. For instance, food is something that I get every day, that I eat in plentiful amounts and push away when it is not satisfying to me. If I were put into Gerta's shoes, I would not get food everyday, I would eat tiny portions, so as to have enough for the next day, and I would have to eat whatever it was, whether it was cold, revolting, or stale. Another thing I no doubt take for granted, is my family. Hearing the stories of Gerta and her family, of her having to live with being the last of anyone she knew breaks my heart. It's like starting life over again, only the past haunts you all the time. When compared to the victims of the Holocaust, my whole life is taken for granted.

4.  In today's world, genocide still occurs. For the most recent examples, I see the genocide in Darfur and works of the Taliban. In these specific genocides, the Janjaweed target the Darfurians, and the Taliban, similar to the Nazis, target anyone who is not an Islamic Extremist (anyone who isn't like them). There are certain ways that we can prevent different genocides. We can advocate in our community and send letters to political leaders to express the need to put the cause as a higher priority. The problem with Darfur is that since it has been going on for so long it has been pushed to the side. If enough people bring the cause up, they would have no choice but to bring it back up into discussion.

5.  In the film, Gerta dedicates her survival to a few people. The first is the SS officer mentioned earlier, the one who monitored the factory where Gerta was assigned. The second person is her father. Two things in particular that he told Gerta kept her from dying twice. When Gerta was having suicidal thoughts, she was brought back to the stern voice of her father telling her that it is cowardly for one to take their own life. The other time was when he demanded Gerta to wear her ski boots that summer day, the day he secretly knew they would be taken to the camps. This demand saved Gerta's life while on the death march, keeping her warm and keeping her feet from being exposed. Her other hero was Kurt Klein, who was first described as this, "He looked like God to me." He was the man who brought her officially to safety, and a year or so later, was the man who wed her. We can make the world a better place by taking a step back once in awhile and seeing what we can do to help the people around us. If we look into the souls of others and realize how lucky we are, we can simply say one thing or do one thing that can change a person's day, month, or lifetime. We don't need to be like Kurt Klein to be brave or to make a difference, we just have to find a second in our day to make the world a better place.

Death Marches Blog #5

     When looking through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I thought about what I had read in my book, that I wanted to know more about. In Annexed, by Sharon Dogar, Peter van Pels is forced on a death march from Auschwitz in 1944. Dogar only spent very little time talking about the death marches, but I'm realizing that they were actually a big part of the Holocaust. In 1944 and 1945 Nazi soldiers were instructed to evacuate camps and bring them to other sub-camps for three different reasons. One was because the enemy was coming, and they didn't want survivors to be able to tell their stories. The second was because they believed that it was necessary for them to have prisoners in order to maintain production of weapons. The third was because some leaders believed that they could use prisoners as hostages to bargain for peace in the West that would allow the Nazi regime to survive. Thousands and thousands of people died during the death marches, some lasted a day on the march, some lasted a week, while others lasted two whole months.
     Barbara Marton Farkas was in her mid-twenties when she was forced on a death march from Gross-Rosen camp in Germany. She describes the experience similar to Peter, describing how the camp was evacuated, how the men and women were shot if they didn't keep up, and the scarce resources that were provided. In an interview conducted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Barbara recounts the conditions like this, ". . .getting out from the train on the camp and eating green leaves, and no water. And then we start to have a lot, a lot of lice because we didn't have water to drink, not to wash ourself." Although Peter's story didn't go into such detail, the death marches were all fairly similar. Peter was forced to walk from Auschwitz to Mauthausen. Dogar writes, "We sleep where we fall. In the morning we leave the dead where they are. Frozen and curled in their blanket of frost." (315) Peter, Barbara, and thousands of other prisoners, were forced on these marches of no mercy. We read stories about the Holocaust, and realize that people actually went through the horrors. However, when we read personal encounters of those horrors, which are still so vivid after 50 or some years, we realize how scarring and awful the Holocaust truly was.

Emil & Karl Blog #4

     For this blog, I want to compare two very different characters, from two very different books, to see their similarities from living through the times of the Holocaust. I want to compare Karl, the protagonist from the book Emil & Karl, and Peter, the protagonist in the book Annexed. Karl and Peter are both children living sometime during the Holocaust. Karl however, is not a Jew. A big trait that the two boys have in common is their independence. Throughout the stories both boys face much tragedy in their lives and overcome them abnormally quickly. I think it was so quick due to the circumstances of fear and the instinct to keep ones self alive. Soon enough, the boys are on their own and fending for themselves. Karl is leading Emil around to save them from being captured, and Peter is bargaining and being sneaky in order to stay alive in Auschwitz. Their motivations in everything they do is to stay alive. It's a natural instinct in each of these boys and without it they would not have made it even as far as they had. I think another intention which is not ever exactly said, is to stay alive in honor of their families. Both of the boys are the last left in their families and don't really have any reason why they should stay alive. So my question was, why did they still fend for their lives? I think they wanted to be a reminder one day, to people all over the world, of what horrors occurred during the Holocaust, in and out of the Nazis' hands. During the story, a conflict faced by both boys is not having a safe place to live. From the beginning of the Holocaust no person could ever be truly safe. Peter has the annex, but when in it, they can't be fully secure. This is very similar in Emil and Karl. The two boys can hide in a cellar, but they won't ever be fully secure when danger is right above their heads. As these comparisons are showing, every body's Holocaust experiences were different, yet remarkably similar.

Emil and Karl Blog #3

     I started my second book club book today called Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn. The story starts out with a heart-wrenching scene in which Karl, a nine year old boy, has his mother torn from his arms after his house is infiltrated by three men. Since Karl's mother was his only link to family, Karl had learned at a young age to fend for himself. He knew that it was a matter of time before the men who captured his mom came back and captured him as well, so Karl fled his home and ran to Emil's house. Emil and his mother had not wanted Karl to interact with their family anymore, for they were Jews and knew they would be hurt and taunted for being seen around superior races. The part that I read tonight stopped right as Karl knocked on Emil's door, but based on the information given about Emil's disconnection with Karl, I predict that Emil may not allow him to enter despite Karl's horrific day.
    
     The protagonist in the story is Karl. Having no family other than his mother, Karl was raised as an independent and brave boy. All on his own, his character has to make the decision to leave his home at the age of nine. He did things that many adults would not have been able to do under the circumstances that he faced. Karl is also very smart and has his own unique beliefs. When his friend Emil was being harassed and made fun of for being a "filthy Jew," (17) Karl stuck up for him even when every other person was taunting him. I wonder how Karl's beliefs are so different from all other children at such a young age. I think some of it had to do with his mother who was an extremely open minded person. When Emil's family chose to separate themselves from Karl, she told him that he could hang out with whatever type of people he wanted to. You can tell that this was a type of person not very common to Austria during this time.

     Overall the story takes place in Vienna, Austria during WWII. The story starts in Karl's apartment where he lived with his mother. The apartment seemed fairly small in size and was fully furnished with beds, chairs, tables, and decorations such as vases and the most important decoration; a picture of Karl's father that hangs proud in the bedroom. The building of Emil's apartment is described as a dark building that seems a little creepy. There's the school that the boys go to, but not much information is given about its appearance or location. Yankev Glatshteyn doesn't bother spending much time describing details of settings, but instead takes time capturing the emotions and traits of his characters.

     So far the most extreme conflict in the story is that Karl's mother has been captured by men. Where these men come from has not yet been stated in the book, but I predict that they are either Nazis taking her away because she was communicating with Jews, or because she was possibly protecting Jews from Nazis. Another conflict is between Karl and Emil. As I stated before, Emil has attempted to separate himself from Karl completely in order to keep his family safe from harm. Karl was trying to mend his friendship with Emil, while Emil continued to disconnect from him. These conflicts ultimately evolve from the conflict of anti-Semitism. Although Karl is not a Jew, the story illustrates the war in the mind of a young Christian boy, a side that is not often portrayed when it comes to Holocaust stories.

     I'm curious to know how the story will continue to play out. I did, after all, stop at what could be a pivotal point in the two boys' relationship.

Night; Blog #2

     In class today, we read an excerpt from Night by Ellie Wiesel. The narrator was Mr. Wiesel himself, telling the story of his experiences during the Holocaust.  The part of the story we read about discussed what it was like in the train cars that lead to different camps. This one in particular, was headed toward Birkenau. Eighty people were crammed into one very small train car. There is one woman, Mrs. Schӓcter, who began hallucinating of a blazing fire that she saw constantly out the train car opening. She screamed of it night and day, her mind losing touch with the world. When the train got to its destination, the passengers found that the woman was right. A fire was in fact burning outside, and bright flames rose from a chimney. The place that they had arrived was Birkenau, one of the best known concentration camps during the Holocaust.  How was this woman able to hallucinate and predict these flames, before she had seen the actual camp?
     I wonder if when the fire was actually seen, people still believed Auschwitz to have "good conditions." (27) In the story, on page 28, Ellie Wiesel recounts what he smelled that night. He says, "In the air, the smell of burning flesh." Based on the conditions of the Holocaust, and the smell of bodies burning, I can infer that many of the people in that train car will be burned in that very fire; that they will be stripped of their dignity just before death, and stand naked in front of everybody. I also am inferring that Mrs. Schӓcter was among those people; that or she was shot. I think this because there was no “room” in the Holocaust for ill or mental people. A thought that saddens me asks how Ellie Wiesel knew the smell of flesh previous to the Holocaust. Could the conditions in his hometown have made him exposed to such things at a young age?

     As Mr. Wiesel had put it, "We had arrived," (28) but I'm afraid most of them were only arriving to the end.

    
   

Annexed Blog #1

     My first book club book is an emotional novel by Sharon Dogar named Annexed. The protagonist of the story is Peter Van Pels, a sixteen year old Jewish boy, who is forced to live in a confined annex with Anne Frank and her family. The story begins with a saddening scene. It starts with Peter running from a siren coming from one of the Nazi vans. He is running to his girlfriend's house and gets over her fence just in time for the siren not to reach him. Before Peter is able to get into her house, the Nazis from that van abduct her whole family, leaving Peter angry and questioning life. The beginning of the story illustrates the two families moving into the annex. The author introduces the relationships between Peter and his housemates, including his hatred for Anne Frank. The story has an interesting conflict, thoughtful characters, and a saddening setting.
     The story has two conflicts, person-against-society and person-against-person. Peter's main problem is the Holocaust. All of the conflicts in the story relate back to this specific conflict. The reason he has to live in the annex is because of the Holocaust, the reason his girlfriend was taken away by Nazis is because of the Holocaust, etc. The other conflict is Anne Frank. He hates her due to her presumptuous and ostentatious personality. It agitates Peter to the fullest extent. In the story, the protagonist is faced with many problems.
     The main character as said before is Peter. He is an average teenage boy who feels and acts the same way a normal teenager would. He feels lust for Liese, his girlfriend that has just been captured with her family by Nazi soldiers. He feels angst against his parents: his father a strict, yet friendly man, and his mother very loving, but sometimes ignorant. Living in the annex along with his family are the Franks. There is Anne, who, as said before enjoys being the center of attention and is Peter's antagonist. There is Mr. Frank, a wise sounding man who doesn’t get tempered often. Also his wife, Mrs. Frank, who is much stricter and very short-tempered. Anne's sister, Margot, is a flat character; she seems to be a quiet girl. So far the characters of the story remain a little flat. I predict a lot of character change in the future since there are eight people living in one very small annex together.
     The story takes place in Amsterdam toward the end of the summer in 1942. The story takes place during World War II at the start of the Holocaust. The families live in an annex with about four rooms, each very small. There is a kitchen, a bedroom or two, a bathroom, an attic type, and some hallways. Peter's "room," consists of a bed and a dresser which lie under the staircase that leads to the attic. There is no privacy, no quiet, and no comfort. Most rooms are multi-purpose rooms, so they can make use of every inch they have.
     The story takes on a thoughtful approach to the mind of a teenage boy living through the Holocaust. So far I enjoy it thoroughly and I look forward to continuing and reaching the climax.

Love Affair by Copeland; my "feel good" song

  As I laid on my bed staring up at the ceiling, deep in thought, I listened to Love Affair by Copeland and dissected the lyrics. Whenever I listen to this song I get into that "feel good" mood, and I go into a different world. The music from the piano and violin combined with the lyrics of this song make it my favorite. The chorus is my favorite, where he sings in a hushed, sincere voice, "just let me run where I want to run. Just let me love who I want." The power of music is truly incredible, it lets me feel anything I want to. Definitely listen to the song and just close your eyes while listening to the lyrics. I hope it gives you the same feeling it gives me!