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2000 Project
Studying holocaust literature? We are. Share your responses here.NEW! - The Anne Frank Exhibition is in Australia !
Contact: Katherine Evans
http://www.yadvashem.org.il/collections/exhibits/childsplay/index.html
HOLOCAUST 2000
Horrible living
Living a life in hell and hate
I plead for food, water and no torture
We all must hope for survival
Screaming, yelling and in pain
Suffering from starvation
I'm scared and very weak
Humiliation is all around me
The stench and fumes
Are all hard to handle
Ones and ashes in a enormous pile
I survived this horrible occasion
But still in my mind I hear guns firing
My life has been changed forever.
By Tamara Poppe.
Help me.
Everyone is so helpless
All skin and bone
No identity, no individuality
Robots trapped in this living hell
This bottomless pit of immoral power
When will it end?
It has to be soon
No one can survive living like this
If we can call it living
What did I do wrong?
Why won’t you save me?
Please god save me.
In the concentration camps,
SS officers control us like puppets.
Barbwire fence's all around,
trapped.
The pain in my stomach is unbearable,
the hunger, the thirst.
Soft white snow falls on the hard lifeless ground,
my body is numb.
Skeletal bodies, lifeless faces,
Fear.
The ringing in my ears, the screaming,
gunshots.
Blood, thick red blood, oozing out.
Death.
The suffering of the millions of innocent Jew's,
The cold hearted evil SS offices.
The calamity, the trauma,
the hope of liberation.
Natalie Nicholas
16 years old
Ararat Community College
Living Through The War.
Helpless, scared, humiliated,
We, the Jews are the victims.
Our lives are swept from beneath our feet,
What have we done to deserve this?
Anger, fear, pain and suffering,
Not a word spoke about our family.
This is all one big calamity,
No there is no dilemma, no choice
Locked inside the cattle trains,
For days, and days on end.
No food, no water, and very weak,
Everybody hopeful crowded in but still no freedom.
Some have lost their dignity,
But most are still courageous.
How long will it be,
Before the war is over and we are free.
Free to do what normal humans do,
To start a family and kick from where we left off.
With a lot of trouble, flash backs and nightmares,
We will make it, and finally, hopefully,
Be free from a life,
Of pain and suffering.
Anthony Marshall
Elisha Reid
A living nightmare
A fate worse than death
In a dark gloomy corner
Bugs buzzing
Rats scratching
At the floor
The freezing
Floor
Eating into me
Chills up the spine
My Grey dress wet
My feet frozen solid
I am shaking profusely
This is a living nightmare
I am a walking skeleton
I fear for my life
In the background
I hear people begging
For mercy then the gun
Fires
Then there is silence
Around the camp.
By Kerissa Bond
Holocaust Poetry
Verse 1:
Hunger is constantly on my mind.
There is no food that once I took for granted.
Feelings, emotions grow less and less,
What sort of human have I become?
Verse 2:
I struggle, struggle for what?
This is my fate, a fate worse than death.
This light of my life that quickly fades.
Verse 3:
My yesterday is only a lie
My tomorrow, hopeless taken by Satan in disguise.
I don’t cry there is no use what could it do to hate and greive.
Verse 4:
I’ve failed this test of life so long ago
I no longer hold courage or faith
God is another world away
Verse 5:
People mob like sheep when evil is power
This is my terror as my soul is choked.
Time is not on my side my existance soon gone.
Ararat Community College
Claire Homburg
Will it ever stop?
I will not look at their faces,
I REFUSE.
I have to
HATE
SHOUT
CURSE
WHIP
BE EVIL
SELFLESS
And take NO NOTICE.
I cry MYSELF to sleep,
The only thought is of my FAMILY,
My LITTLE baby.
If it wasn’t for these people…
HATERD
INHUMAIN
TORTURE
VIOLENCE
COLD HEARTED.
I hold the GUN,
I look at my family in
FEAR
And
LOVE.
If it wasn’t for these people,
I keep telling myself.
BLOOD
GUTS
DEATH
DEATH,
My LITTLE baby split in two,
The GUN,
My CRIES,
The SHOUTING.
INCOMAND,
Hungry
Thirsty
Exhausted
The stench.
I look at their faces,
Skin
Bones
Weak
Sick
No hopes
No dreams
No life
Nothingness…
Will it ever stop?
Angela Streeter
16
Ararat Community College
Just a child
I shiver as I think of my doll that I lost
That lay out there somewhere all tattered and torn
As I walked into the camp
I was only a child
the day that we fled
My mother was weak and my father was frightened
Our stomachs were empty
we’d had nothing to eat
Skinny little bodies moping about
Humiliation and degradation is all we felt
Fingers were frozen and our toes too
Rooms were cramped with no where to go
Time inside never existed
We had no dignity no worthiness no rank
It was although we weren’t human
I had no courage I was so young
I hoped it was an illusion instead of a crisis
The holocaust was such a disaster
Survival was scares
The smell of death wasn’t far away.
DO YOU WANT TO LIVE?
My body stands
Brittle enough to break
From a touch of a hand
I’d crumble into nothingness
My existence means nothing
The touch of cold hands
Break me before the noose
My body a pile of pieces
My heart is weak
The noose comforts me
To end all this pain
Take me away to Rest In Peace
No more waiting, No more fear,
I take a deep breath
And choke on the filthy air
I wait for the end
My stand falls
Pain. Pain
I will not bare
I fight. I struggle
Now I have hope
I want to live
My will to live shines
It splashes the spectators
It flies through my blood
It brings sunshine to the night
And warms the chill
Death steps in
The spectators stare
The night turns to ice
As coldness strikes
My blood cools
Death Falls
Kristy Wentworth.
Age 16
How long?
Weak and helpless,
Hunger and humiliation.
No dignity, no life to lead.
So much suffering, trauma.
This is a critical moment.
Evil and brutality are in the air
The SS don't care
We hope for survival,
Even though
We don't know
How long we are going to be in this situation?
I want this time to pass
There are too many hurtful things going on.
By Victoria Hurkens
Victim's Fear
Fears for our survival
Lives are living hell
No food to swallow
No water to drink
Starvation every where
Weak people and
Families have disappeared
Friends are very rare
Dead people are every where
Thousands of children
Waiting to be burnt
Husbands, wives separated
No future is ahead
Dirty places where we sleep
Rodents live with me
The SS officers don't care
Humiliation, illusions and trauma
Courage of the people
To survive through the crisis
Our dignity is lost forever
By Olivia Lockhart
My innocent twin.
I can’t believe my eyes.
Staggering
Her brittle body
Right before the noose
My innocent twin
I feel the fear inside of her
She looks
As if to vomit
Her empty stomach
The well worn noose
Placed roughly around her
Bony neck
It is slowly, slowly
Being tightened
I stand
A twin
Alone
The masses of skeletal bodies
Of the living dead clinging to,
The myth of life outside Austwich.
The only thing we did wrong,
Was to be born Jewish.
We have gone past believing,
In hope and survival,
Just one day after another.
Maybe we will get food today,
Not likely-from this living hell.
Our bodies are war torn
Away from our family,
Like innocent dogs or cats.
We have no identity,
We have no life nor are we free.
In the time we have spent here,
The countless days and nights
We have learned some things,
There are no lengths to human cruelty,
In the hell of the holocaust.
©Nathan Searle1999
MY RESOLUTION
The guards were talking
The pain was felt
The screams of the camp
Make me shiver
I have no illusions
As the killings keep on going
And my trauma drops out
The days are long and tiring
The nights are short and cold
When will this inhumanity end
Please let them be there
My resolution
If I ever get home
My family and friends
I'll see them again.
By Bruce Williams
Mirrors
Mirrors don't exist in
Camps, camps
Of death.
People of flesh and bone in
Camps, camps
Of death.
Hair is cut like
It is a crime to have
Luckily mirrors don't exist,
But perhaps they do
The reflection of
Humiliation they
See,
See
In one another only
To see themselves in
Camps, camps
Of death.
Life at the fence
Life what is it
We have no more
Survival
Is a way
Suffering
Is the way
Day by day
Night by night
Time becomes endless
In the heat and the cold
So we, we sit
And hope and prey
Die and work
Always work
That's what we do
Survival becomes
Number one
The thing we do best
The thing we have to do best
Life as we know now
It
Ends
Ends at the fence
Beyond that fence life
Will be no more
The soldiers will shoot
No more
This is how our life
Our life ends at the fence.
By Ben Brody
Names not Numbers
By Natalie Hazledine
May 1999
Homosexuals, Jews
Gypsies, Christians
All victims of
The Holocaust
Gasing, Starving
Hanging, Bashing
All terrors of
The Holocaust
Adults, Babies
Mothers, Fathers
All killed in
The Holocaust
Auschwitz, Plaszow
Dachau, Ausgburg
All camps of
The Holocaust
Over the Fence
Germans
out of control
no-one will
help
free
Jews suffering
lost of all identity
we do not have
any
food
starve the innocent
girls
women
looking to the
future
hard
to do while people
dying
murder
every minute of the
day
cold
insensitive soldiers
being blackmailed
by a man who
hates
Jews
who were Germans
the same as us
who caused this
catastrophe
which someone should have
halted
you can't say
no-one knew
what was
happening
Breannon Price
The Feeling Of The Holocaust.
Darkness falls, I am wide-awake
The screaming of a girl fills the air
Another killing is in progress
All I can do is sit and wonder
My eyes are red and sore
My fingers cold and frozen
As I sit here in the darkness
I pray
My eyes are slowly closing
My thoughts have disappered
I hang my head and slowly drift away
The sunlight enters though cracks
I slowly open my eyes
Too weak to move
Inside I am crying of my great hunger
As I struggle to a sitting position
The sound of screaming shatters my ears
The voice of an SS guard is coming my way
Will I be next to experience this crucifying death?
Untitled
A ghostly image lives in the gas chambers
That the SS use to kill us
Off, off
Went all the clothes and we thought it was a shower
And waited for the water to come down and wash us clean
But then the children saw a ghost in there they thought that it was
Over, over
Went the children all fainting in fear,
And when the guard looked in the children's eyes he did see
For fear was in the children and was transferred to the guard
He turned away as the gas came down and saw the face of god.
By Craig Jackson
We have lost everything
Everything except
Our memory's,
And the distant hope
That we may return free.
Free
So we can enjoy
Riding our bikes to the lake,
Eating iced pastries.
The pleasure
Of being free
No matter
How free we are
We will never escape
Experience in the camps
Memory's
Last forever.
From Marcus
Nat O'Brien
Facing Adversity
We started with our dignity
The years passed
Agonisingly slow
Our Dignity
Turned to adversity
We were staring
Straight down the barrel
Packed into ghettos
Like tinned sardines
We tried
To make the best of it
But continuously lost
Our dignity
Packed into trains
Like cattle
On their way to market
Rattling on for days
It finally comes to a stop
The sign reads
"Work makes you free"
Maybe this is where I
Become
A free man
A man free
Of all the troubles
Of the ghetto
We are lined up
In groups
Pushed and shoved
Until a man
Dressed in a white coat
Told me
To join the group
On the left
I prayed to god
That this group
Was the group
Heading for freedom
A chance to regain
My dignity
Bit by bit
Pushed and shoved
Again
We were escorted
To buildings
With blankets
Covering the floor
An SS officer
Roared at us
"Sleeping quarters"
Day in
Day out
We were worked hard
Just like
The slaves
That we were
The Phrase
On the gate entering
The camp
"Work makes you free"
Meant nothing
Just like
Everything else
We not only lost
Our dignity
We also lost
Our status
As human beings
As Earth's occupants
We were driven
To despair
Year in
Year out
Until
We were loaded
Back onto the trains
Like cattle
Nobody bought
At the market
For days
We were rattling on
Finally
We came to a stop
Where we were
Greeted
By men in
Different uniforms
Speaking a different language
LIBERATION!
The silence of war
The silence becomes deafening
When all our tears are gone
Reality becomes an endless gray
The colours of life all gone
He stands in the shadows
Waiting for us to tire
He will be our friend but will he be
Our savior?
If we take his hand today, we won't
Know of tomorrow
Will our mutilated music stop or
Will it be drowned out,
By more sorrow?
We cannot lose the will to live
Or our fear may take control
Some wish to let him in
Take the pain we all endure
He wants us to let him in
He wants to share our pain
But if we let him win
Won't this all be in vain?
He wants us to let him in
Our pain he wants to devour
We can't let him win
We're not ones to cower.
Kathryn Fulford.
DIGNITY DENY'S.
There are people, who deny,
The Holocaust had heroes,
And survivors who lived,
To see another day.
Even after their losses,
Loss of pride, property and liberty.
They kept on with the battle,
They were made to suffer.
Robbed of their human identity,
Rights and individuality,
THEY
Were denied,
Until they had nothing,
Denied privacy, hygiene, space and food.
It couldn't be taken then,
It won't be taken now,
An enduring sense of dignity.
By Carly Preston, 11 Red.
WHY
Why me, why them why do we suffer like this
The gas, a firing squad, just let them kill me
Now, now
At this moment we Jews all live in fear for the SS men will
Hang, Gas Maul and Shoot us to death but still many of us
Remain, Remain
Undefeated, untied and all survivors of these little games of
Life and death, life and death
Is what we are living for the SS have no hearts so they can fill
Our lives with fear so all we can do is hope and pray for the allies to come and
Rescue us, rescue us
Poor and lonely Jews.
By Craig Jackson
KAPO
War cries never stop
Soldiers always tormenting
Maggots in my food
I watch the children
I listen to their screaming
I want to help them
When will the pain end?
Will God ever come for us?
Am I still alive?
I don't understand
How could they do this to us?
This does not make sense
I need to escape
I need to get out of here
I need to break free
COREY DOWLING - 11 RED
The Feeling Of The Holocaust by Sharlene Year 11
Darkness falls, I am wide-awake
The screaming of a girl fills the air
Another killing is in progress
All I can do is sit and wonder
My eyes are red and sore
My fingers cold and frozen
As I sit here in the darkness
I pray
The sunlight enters though cracks
I slowly open my eyes
Too weak to move
Inside I am crying of my great hunger
As I struggle to a sitting position
The sound of screaming shatters my ears
The voice of an SS guard is coming my way
Will I be next to experience this crucifying death?
Death by Craig - Year 11 The walls are black and closing in,
I close my eyes to think of home,
I hear a 'click' and then a 'bang',
It's over now my friend is
Dead
As a doornail, dead
As a squashed bug,
Thrown all over this
Place that's our new
Home
Is a place on earth, where we live and breath and play
We meet with all the passerbye's and we never say
Goodbye
My friend we'll miss you.
We will pray for god to keep you safe and hope to see you
Soon
We will be leaving but we don't know where they'll take us as they herd us onto the train to go to some other camp
Auschwitz is where we came from and maybe were we return to we all dread the day they we will meet the guards and then we will die in
Pain
And suffering "let me just die now" I hear someone scream, she has been taken out to
The courtyard
Of death we call it now here we go again we hear the 'click' and then the 'bang' it's all over now another is dead.
by SteveLife it seems to fade away,
Drifting further every day,
Getting lost within myself,
I have lost the will to live,
Simply nothing more to give,
There is nothing more for me,
Need the end to set me free.
Things are not what they used to be,
Missing one inside of me,
Death and loss, this cant be real,
Can't stand this hell I feel.
Emptyness is filling me,
To the point of agony,
Growing Darkness, taking dawn,
I was me but now, he's gone.
ESSAYS Elli
It's crises that teach us the things that are really worth knowing.
What did Elli learn from her crisis?
Some people want things handed to them on a silver plater. Elli on the other hand wanted to live a peaceful and happy life. In a time of a crisis your life is turned upside down. All was going well for her until she was taken to a ghetto in Germany to live in filthy and disgusting conditions that the SS put them in to see them suffer.
From Auschwitz to Dachau she changed mentally and physically. She learnt how to live on virtually nothing but the cloth on her back and the shoes on her feet. In the camps the conditions were of a disgusting manner like that of a pigs sty, messy and nothing is clean enough for a human being to live in and let alone to survive in.
To survive in the hellholes of Poland and Germany, some of the Jews were forced to turn on the other Jews like Elli and her friends. To get better living quarters. Receiving more food and warm clothes. Many were subdued by these offers. But to all of the Jews who got that job were jealous even if they got a better living than the rest of the Jews.
A crisis is a disaster, which also means utter destruction and chaos. A prime example of this would be the Holocaust of WW2 and the current crisis in Kosova, Yugoslavia were, Serbian forces are committing Genocide. Which means that they will kill their own people to get their own way. That is the same thing that the SS did against the Jews because they (the SS) thought that they (the Jews) were the master race instead of them.
Elli was one of the millions of Jews taken to camps all over Germany and Poland and was tortured until she could not survive without the help of her mother and friends. In a crisis we learn how to get from one place to another without fear as the book proudly shows Elli's courage to stay by her mothers side and to help her survive the ordeal that the Germans had put them through.
The best example of this is when the SS were getting a selection for 500 women to work at the factories. Most of the women had placed a cloth or a garment of clothing over a wound to get through, Elli had put the dress around her leg to hide the wound the second time she went through so that she could stay with her mother and keep her alive.
In Ellis crisis she used a lot of teamwork to get along e.g. sharing food and water to stay alive. She also used the help of the other people who got along together to change a hopeless situation into a situation where they were in control and could survive with ease and without any fear.
Crisis: Utter devastation that leaves people homeless and/or poor and hungry. Elli comes face to face with her crisis when her father leaves to go to a labor camp. And when she goes to Auschwitz, and then to Dachau. She then has to face her crisis again when she is taken back to Auschwitz, and then the trip on the way back in the trains the cattle cars come under fire on more than one occasion.
Teach: To educate a person or people about certain things that you can help them to learn. Elli had to teach other people to survive on will power and to keep quiet and when the guards came around to get them up not to stuff around. Her mother also taught Elli to keep going and not to give up.
Worth Knowing: is something that is for someone to learn and to use in the future if it means that it might be the last thing they do. Elli found that in her crisis she learnt how to survive. And even though it was a horrifying experience for her. She also found it a valuable experience that left her with the knowledge that she knew how to survive another crisis without any trouble or any fear.
Learn: to be able to do or say something new to you to give you a wider learning ability. Elli had to learn how to live on the little items in life like not a lot of food and very little clothing and cramped conditions on the trains and in the ghetto at the start of the book. She also had to learn about the key issue of the book. Which was survival and to go on living her life no matter what happens.
By Craig Jackson 11 Red
Elli once had a father, like me so I know what it is like to lose a part of the family and suffer, although she had to put up with her suffering for about a year and a half and I have to put up with my sadness for another six years. The only difference is that her tragedy is more severe than mine. It is tragedy and crisis that often makes us stronger people.
Near the start of the novel Elli lost her father, her bike and most of her other possessions. Her father was taken away from her along with most of the other men in the town. She felt so upset. Then her birthday present, a bike was taken away from her and burnt to the ground. She was most likely thinking 'what next, my life?' With her father gone and her bike gone she most likely didn't want to live. When she found out that her father was dead she was even more upset since her and her father were close. She lost all the things she loved apart from her mother, her brother and her poems. Although Elli did give the poems to a nice German soldier, she never got them back. She does know, however, they are safe. Through that she learnt that her family was only really important thing in her life.
The love that she gave and received was very special. She got love from just about everyone, apart from the German soldiers. Her mother's love and the love for her mother gave Elli the will to live. Elli was a strong girl and I wish I had her strength. She got love from her friend and her friend's mother, which were outside the camp. The only hate she got was from the German officers. Elli is lucky she is still alive for her hair is blonde and not dark like most of the other Jews. She lined up to hopefully get chosen to be with her mother. When it was her turn to go through, the German saw the hair and told her that she is now sixteen instead of her proper age. He let her through because her hair was blonde. She learnt that people, in this case Nazi's, often judge you on how you look.
When they went to be chosen for each side, they had all their body hair shaved off and given coats that were either too small or too big. They ended up looking the same as everybody else. They all had no hair, a coat and all looked the same. I would hate to look like someone else! I am sure they did too. The only thing they had that was different to everyone else was their dignity.
She also learns that she needs her family for love, support and the opportunity to live. It was her mother who gave birth to her and it was her mother who was to stay with her for most of her life. Her brother was also there for most of Elli's long suffering life. Like when her mother was in the First Aid barrack, Elli gave her love and support and her mother survived. The role Elli had in her family before the Holocaust was being a quiet, shy person, although, after the Holocaust she became a strong girl with a soft heart. Her role has changed a lot between the start of the Holocaust and the end of the Holocaust.
The food Elli ate was horrible; it's smell, the taste and what it looked like nearly made her throw up. At one stage she only just turned up at a camp and she was very thirsty. Elli and her mother met a couple of people who were also victims of the Holocaust. Elli told the girls that Elli and her mother were thirsty and the girls showed them to a puddle of dirty, smelly water. The girls said that the water is OK after a while and it was the only water during the day when people get really thirsty. She learned that no matter what it looks like or what it smells like, it is still food. It doesn't matter what it is like at least it still keeps you healthy.
After the Liberation she realized that the things that everyone has are the most personal things. Clothes for instance. When she found out she was wearing a dead girl's coat she felt terrible. Elli wanted her own coat back. She learnt how they were individuals by the way they were, like, the way they spoke and the way they walked they were all different. She also thought her family was personal. They were Jew and that is the way they and the parents wanted it. Religion came to mean to her when they were in the camps when they were singing, praying and when they wanted their Holy Days. When they were not allowed to have their Holy Days they reacted by attacking the German officers.
Elli changed a lot during the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust she was just a girl that all her friends loved, but when she left the camps she turned into a woman. A nice, strong, young woman. She changed a lot during her Experience and I was glad to read all about it.
By Natalie Hazledine
11 Red
BreELLI
Weakness and strengths. How do you know what yours are? Elli found hers when everything and everyone except her mum were taken away from her. She also had her religious beliefs in her heart and carried them wherever she went. Her religion was not so strong to start with because she did not like being singled out when she had to wear a yellow star, but her religion became stronger when in the first camp they had to burn all the bibles in a bonfire.
Elli owned a bike she loved very much and this was taken away from her when the Germans decided to take away all of the Jews belongings. Elli was hurt and she thought her life should end because her bike was taken away for no good reason. That was so minute compared to what she went through, working every day, watching people die, having to leave her brother and father who she loved dearly, starving and struggling for her life which became her routine. Elli also had to sacrifice her poems, which were her life after her dad and brother left, she wrote what she was feeling. The soldiers may have killed Elli if they had found her poem book because they did not want them to have any pleasures. Elli found out she could do without material things but not without her family. One strength and reason for living became her family and her ability to keep them together.
Elli learnt to live from day to day by looking after her mother and telling her it will be over soon and they would be reunited with Budi, her brother and her father. When Elli and her mum meet up with Budi, he was working as an interpreter. They later met up with Bubi again in Augaburg, when they meet up with him that gave them a lot of inspiration to live even though he "looked like a creature in science fiction magazines Bubi used to read" that was Elli's remark about him. He was skin and bones, he had not eaten for days. The hope of seeing her father is what helped Elli through the crisis. This was one of her strengths. Elli kept on thinking of going home and living the life they used too.
Elli also learnt to survive, through working long hard hours and eating whatever there was because you didn't know the next time there was going to be food. When there was only muddy water to drink Elli's mother told her to drink it, but she would not, but Elli soon realized she had to drink it or she would die of dehydration. Another time was when the Soldiers dished up maggots and dirt she decided she was not that desperate for food and tipped it out. Another of her strengths was to continue to defy what the Nazis planned for her.
In crisis your friends will stick with you whatever you decide to do or ask of them. When Elli's mum was in hospital and was going to be gassed because she was so weak, Elli asked her mum's friends to help to get her mum out and they did, even though their lives were at risk. They got Elli's mum out and kept her alive. They also helped Elli to look after her mother when she could not walk. Friends were also a main part of sharing and grieving for family and wondering what was happening to brothers, sisters, fathers, Aunts, Uncles and loved ones.
After two years of being forced to work like a women, Elli had matured a great deal. When it was all over Elli looked like a 60-year-old instead of a 14-year-old teenager. It wasn't only physical maturity it was a lot of mental maturity, Elli had seen a lot more traumatic and life threatening scenes in two years than any other 14-year-old. Elli's mental fears were that her father would not be in her hometown when they arrived back after the war was over. All of Elli's hopes were in seeing her father. Elli was devastated when she heard he did not make it though the war. Her physical condition left her looking so old and skinny. Crisis may help you find your strengths and weakness but they also may leave physical and mental scares that you have to live with for the rest of your life.
Elli had changed and learnt a great deal about life in the time she was closest to death. These things that she learnt changed Elli for her whole life.
Family and friends meant a lot to Elli, they were a close family and found each others support helpful and comforting. As the family got torn apart by the war. Elli and her mum were very close and helped each other out as much a possible. The hope of possibly seeing her brother and father again gave her something to believe or wish for. When the hope of seeing her brother became a reality she was so exited, this gave her some thing to look forward to and to survive with more enthusiasm towards life. Because there was only Elli and her mother, Elli realised the importance of having friends. She gained strength and hope for caring for her mother, but her friends also gave her hope.
When Elli was taken away from her home and then put in concentration camps everything was taken away from her, even her appearance. This loss of everything made Elli appreciate what she really valued, or what was worth valuing. Food is a good example of this, she was just given enough food to scrap past each day. Elli really valued food because of what the food was like in the camps. Things like running or clean water were also a memory, what they had to put up with was a dirty puddle of water or the lucky ones would not get much better. Elli realized that it was very hard to get along when things she once took for granted are now taken away from her and replaced with immoral alternatives.
Elli did not realize how much her Poetry meant to her until it was taken away. Poetry was a release for Elli, it was good for her to express her feelings in this way, there was no other way to express your feelings so Elli did it in the form of poetry. Her poetry also inspired other people when reading or listening to the poems this gave Elli the feeling of doing something good and helpful. Her poetry also kept her in a better frame of mind as in she was more humane than the others, her poetry brought the reality of the camps into perspective, and because of that it made Elli conceive her situation better.
Religion also played a role in her survival, this was something that no one could take away from her. It's inside her, and she didn't really know that until times when she heard songs or palms, it was times like that that she did not know how strong her religion really was.
Elli did learn a great deal from this crisis, and changed as a person from the result of what she experienced. This was a change for the good. Elli now looks at life as something that must be treasured, because she has unfortunately found out in the most disturbing way that life can be taken far to easily.
Marcus Poppe
It's crisis that teach us the things that are rally worth knowing. What did Elli from her crisis?
Elli was a normal child; she took things for granted as all children do. Things like freedom and her dignity had never been challenged. Then they took her bike; this made her mad at her religion mad at being Jew. She was ashamed at being a Jew, she wasn't going to wear a yellow star, and she was not different. They said that Jewish children could not go to school, so Elli sat at home and would not go outside because she was ashamed to be a Jew.
Living in the Ghettos was uncomfortable; hundreds of Jews crammed into tiny spaces, but it made Elli realize that material possessions are not important. Elli's Aunt smashed all of her best china and the men all sang chants, as the liquidation became a more of a reality. When the Nazis burnt all the bibles and religious artifacts Elli realized how important their religion was. Elli learns that being a Jew has become her identity. She was no longer Elli from Somorja; she was a Jew as were all of her family and friends they were only Jews in the eyes of the Nazis. Elli realized that her religion was important, when all these people had done nothing wrong, except be Jew Elli realized that their religion was the only thing left to give them hope for the future, it was the only thing left to believe in. When Elli gave up her book of poems, she gave away the life that she had lived as a child.
Elli had the support of her Mother and the hope that both her brother and Father were alive to give her strength, she drew hope from her religion and courage from herself. She didn't loose the will to live, like many other people. When Elli and her mother went into Auschtwiz, they were robbed of their identity. Women of all kinds of backgrounds were striped of their identity. Elli and her Mother found her Aunt Cili, her cousins Hindi and Suri, even thought they had been striped of there identity. Finding them meant that they had someone that they knew in the dusty hole they knew as Auschtwiz. Aunt Cili shared her food ration the first food that Elli and her mother had eaten whilst in Auschtwiz. Hindi and Suri showed Elli around Aschtwiz, they told her of the evening Zahlappell, where they would be given a green mass. Elli finds it hard to eat, and suffers from nausea the first time she tries. Suri tells her that, 'we all threw up the first time. But then we swallowed it. It's food. You must eat to live. Close your eyes, hold your nose. Gulp.' Elli was soon to realize how important the little food that she could get was going to be. As the mood in the camp became more depressing, Elli relied on her religion and her hopes for the future to give her the strength to not give in to the endless depression.
When Elli's mother was put into the revier, Mrs. Grunwald looked after her as though she was her own child. When Mrs. Grunwald's fever worsened, she refused to go to the doctor because she feared being put into the Revier. She said that she would wait till Elli's mother had left so that she could look after her daughter and Elli. When Elli was caught loitering around the Revier, she was sure that they would kill her. Her punishment instead was to kneel on the gravel outside the Command Barrack, for twenty-four hours without any food or water. As Elli knelt on the sharp gravel, she watched as a new transport arrived. She realized that she had become one of the 'shaved Grey-cloaked group that ran to stare at them through the barbed wire fence' three months earlier. Elli sees a young boy drop his toy clown in the dirt, she remembers Tommy and all the other children, she had not seen children in three long months. She was soon to acknowledge that they would be sent to the gas chamber along with their mothers and the elderly, they would not live to see the next day. Elli starts to scream as that smoke from the crematorium adjacent to their camp fills her with horror. The memories of their arrival seem to appear fresh in the minds of so many. 'It's easier to scream, you don't have to think that way.'
There is excitement in the camp when Elli is soon to see that it is Bubi. He is well dressed and is acting as a translator. This gives her hope she lives to be able to see Bubi again. They are getting less food and they are moved to labor camps. From the labor camps Elli and her mother are moved to a work camp. Elli gets nice cloths and is happy until she finds a nametag on her coat and realizes that the coat had belonged to another young girl just like herself. She starts to wonder where that girl is and what she is doing, realizing that she was an individual, amongst all these people that make up the Holocaust.
Elli values the support she gets from her mother the hope she gets from seeing Bubi and her dreams for the future. She is always looking to the future it is there that she learns the value of hope. She gave her poems to the Hungarian soldier to get back after the war. Throughout the crisis of the Holocaust Elli's religion becomes more than just a religion it becomes her identity. This is what Elli learnt from her crisis.
"It's crises that teach us things that are really worth knowing" "what did Ellie learn from her crisis?"
Elli learned not to take things for granted because the next day it could be gone. She learned that trust is very important, even from evil. She learned to be grateful for what she gets because that could be all she gets.
Ellie learnt from her crisis to care for what you have because you don't know how important it is until it is gone. She loved her bike, then when she lost it; she acted like it was the most important thing in the world to her. The same with her father, when her father was sent away she thought she would see him again. Once she was in the camp, she held onto her mother and her brother because she did not want to lose them too.
She learned that even in the worst of times there was someone she could trust. The guard, that she gave her poems to, was someone she had to trust or else he could have easily just alerted the camp and she would be dead now.
She could have always trusted her family but there was trust between the other inmates always as well because if they didn't trust each other there was no one else.
She also learned that taking whatever food or drink she was offered helped in her surviving; otherwise they would have died. In the camp, she gradually got used to the wormy soup, and the other food they had to live with.
When she had to get in to the transport, she eluded the guards to get into the same transport as her mother. And each point starting from when she lost her bike, then she was moved to the ghetto, she was introduced to very small crises one by one and the realization of what had happened to them only hit them when they reached the camp. As Ellie took on each challenge, she became a much stronger and very mature women.
Ellie taught herself to grow accustomed to the food that they had to eat, and what changes they were going through or else they could not survive. She also taught herself not to give in to the hell that they were going through and be strong through all circumstances.
She had to learn how to build the machines in the factory at Augsburg or not be considered capable of the job and be killed. She also had to learn not to get out of line anywhere or risk death. When an SS was trying to break her mothers arm, she lashed out and tried to stop the guard she ended up with her head smashed in, very lucky to be alive.
When they firstly arrived at the death camp, Ellie was considered worthy not to die by the guard checking the Jews for age (even though she was thirteen years old) because she had long blonde hair. Her brother got away with it too because he had blonde hair, blue eyes and he looked like a German.
Elli's religion helped in her survival too. She learned that her religion was the thing that caused her crisis and it was also the thing that kept her alive. By just believing in her religion and not letting the Germans convince her that being Jewish is wrong helped a lot in her survival.
Elli, by the end of the book, was a very strong and mature young woman. She had survived for over a year in the death camps which downed her physical strength, but she was much stronger mentally.
By Nathan Searle.
In the novel 'Elli,' we learn religion, trust, how food was taken for granted, small things meant so much, also friends and family meant so much to her.
Whenever Elli was faced with a problem, she would pray to god to get his help. She would revert to the bible and read verses because she thought that it would help. She learnt that whatever the problem she could always revert to her religion. When she thought that she was going to shot a first light or one of them in their barracks, so they prayed all night.
Whenever there were crisis she had to trust people. There was a specific solider she asked him to look after her poems until the end of the war. The solider could have told on her for sabotage, but she trusted him. Sabotage could have meant that she could have been shot at dawn. She learnt to trust some people and she benefited from this.
Before the war had started they could get sufficient food to stay healthy. But when they were taken to the concentration camps they only had enough food to see another day. The crisis taught her to ration her self for the day, so she wouldn't feel hungry and then she didn't take food for granted ever again.
They would have to eat food that had worms in it and it had the taste like sawdust. She leant to eat food no matter what it tasted or looked like.
Small things meant so much to her. Her book of poem was one of them. When she handed to the guard after a while she learnt that they weren't just poems they were part of her. They were felling from her heart not just words. Her bike was another thing that meant so much to her, she did even get to ride it for the first time because it was her birthday present. It took a crisis of the war to make her realize this.
Family and friends meant a lot. She realized this when her dad was taken and Greco died. Also when just as after her mother had the accident when the bed collapsed. If she didn't have any friend at the camp she wouldn't be able to have got her mother out of the rehabilitation and if they did she would have been killed. When these things happened, she learnt that they meant a lot more than she thought.
In conclusions to this essay I have hopeful convinced you that it is crisis that teaches us things that are really worth knowing. To Elli her family and friends meant a lot, small things meant so much, and food was no longer taken for granted, trust and her religion.
Aaron Cox
Elli had changed and learnt a great deal about life in the time she was closest to death. These things that she learnt changed Elli for her whole life.
Family and friends meant a lot to Elli, they were a close family and found each others support helpful and comforting. As the family got torn apart by the war. Elli and her mum were very close and helped each other out as much a possible. The hope of possibly seeing her brother and father again gave her something to believe or wish for. When the hope of seeing her brother became a reality she was so exited, this gave her some thing to look forward to and to survive with more enthusiasm towards life. Because there was only Elli and her mother, Elli realised the importance of having friends. She gained strength and hope for caring for her mother, but her friends also gave her hope.
When Elli was taken away from her home and then put in concentration camps everything was taken away from her, even her appearance. This loss of everything made Elli appreciate what she really valued, or what was worth valuing. Food is a good example of this, she was just given enough food to scrap past each day. Elli really valued food because of what the food was like in the camps. Things like running or clean water were also a memory, what they had to put up with was a dirty puddle of water or the lucky ones would not get much better. Elli realized that it was very hard to get along when things she once took for granted are now taken away from her and replaced with immoral alternatives.
Elli did not realize how much her Poetry meant to her until it was taken away. Poetry was a release for Elli, it was good for her to express her feelings in this way, there was no other way to express your feelings so Elli did it in the form of poetry. Her poetry also inspired other people when reading of listening to the poems
Marcus Poppe
ELLIE ESSAYS 2000 Schindlers List is sad and disturbing but it is also a film of celebration. Discuss.
The film Schindler's List is a very emotional and heart breaking film because it shows the effects of the Holocaust and how the Jews suffered because of the treatment of the Nazis.
The movie Schindler's List is sad and disturbing in the way of the treatment and how people get shot for no reason. Take Goeth for example her shoots the Jews for no reason at all, he loves killing and especially when he sees people suffer. He killed the one armed man because he was no use and he killed the girl who said the building was not safe, he does not like being told different to what he thinks is best even when he is wrong and even if he knows he is it too.
The Jews have been shifted out of their own homes taking only what they can carry. Many try to take as much as they can including valuables like jewelry and antiques, others just sticking to taking clothes or memorabilia. It is very sad to see so many people shifted out and so many things gone to waist. When they get the women, children and the men are separated and there is lots of horror in those scenes wondering what will happen in the end, will they ever see their children or husbands again? Schindler paid particular attention to the girl in the red coat and she was singled out amongst the people at the Ghetto and when she died Schindler was very upset and that is basically when the war was stopped because he realized what is was going on.
Schindler has not respect for the Jews feelings and the way they are treated, like dirt. I believe that the way they were treated is wrong. They work long days of hard labor to have no reward at the end of the day. When shifted out of their homes they are expected to live in one small area with thousands of people and not get treated right. Also when everyone's belongings are given up all photographs are just burnt and thrown out, those photos could have been very special to one person and mean nothing to another.
To keep away from being taken away many of the Jews hid in weird and wonderful places. They took any chance they had to hide. Many of the places are under floor boards, in toilets, under beds, and one man even hid in a piano, but later on he stood on the keys and got shot dead.
The mass burning of the dead people bodies was one part of the movie that effected me. It was very sad to see them just burn the bodies and just think of them as nothing instead of lots of individuals that died and suffered in the war. When the man shot into the dead bodies and started laughing it was very cruel and impersonal.
The strength of the people to survive through the treatment they received is a very special part of the film. Many wanted to say their thoughts but kept quiet because they knew that they would be shot or bashed because of the cruel minds some of the Nazis had. When they switched to colour it showed the different types of feelings.
The love for Schindler that the Jews had at the end is very special. Even though he made all of this war begin he is the one who helped stop it and they forgive him for that mistake he made. He apologizes for what problems he caused and all the lives that were lost and many people are happy to get that apology. The gift of the gold ring and the letter shows their forgiveness and that is also a special part of the movie.
In the final scenes the Jewish people are rewarded for their forgiveness and they receive presents from Schindler and when it is the last scene it shows all of the people paying their respects to Schindler's grave sight.
By Olivia Lockhart
