boy in the striped pyjamas
TRANSCRIPT
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NAME______________________
THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS
JOHN BOYNE
CLASS WORKBOOK
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THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS - JOHN BOYNE
CLASS WORKBOOK: ASSESSMENT SHEET PART ONE (Chapters 1-5)
DATE CHAPTER TEXT RESPONSE MARKS LANGUAGE MARKS
1Bruno Makes a Discovery Finding the Right Meaning
/10Making Compounds
/10Listening for Syllables
/102
The New House Choosing the Best Response/10
Sequencing Events/10
Finding Base Words/10
3The Hopeless Case Deciding True or False
/10Matching Synonyms
/10Using Cloze Reading
/104
What They Saw Through The Window
Supplying Definitions/10
Matching Antonyms/10
Determining Fact and Opinion/10
5Out of Bounds At All Times
And No ExceptionsSketching a Portrait: Character Study of Bruno’s Father up to and including Chapter 5
/20
Getting the Main Idea (2 marks each)
/20
1-5 Narrative Technique (2 marks each)
/20
TOTAL: /180
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CHAPTER 1 (Pages 1-10): Bruno Makes a Discovery
Finding the Right Meaning
In each of the sentences below, one or two vocabulary words have been underlined. Under each sentence are four choices of definitions for the underlined word or words. In the box on the right, write the letter in front of the choice you think could best replace the underlined word or words.
1. ...His mother had always told him he was to treat Maria respectfully and not just imitate the way Father spoke to her. (Page 1)
a. As an individualb. With carec. Politely d. As lower than him in status
2. In fact, over the last few days he had behaved in a perfectly decent manner to everyone and couldn’t remember causing any chaos at all. (Page 2)
a. Arguments and troubleb. Endless space and formless matterc. War and peaced. Damage and destruction
3. He wasn’t particularly bothered if Gretel was being sent away because she was a Hopeless Case and caused nothing but trouble for him. (Page 3)
a. Terminally ill and needing a lot of careb. Severely handicapped and desperatec. Incompetent and dangerousd. Unable to be understood and difficult to live with
4. They were always very polite to Father and told each other that he was a man to watch and that the Fury had big things in mind for him. (Page 4)
a. A man who is very good looking and handsome.b. A man who is expected to gain promotion and become very importantc. A man who could be dangerous.d. A man who sees things very clearly.
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5. All he could say was that his father was a man to watch and that the Fury had big things in mind for him. Oh, and that he had a fantastic uniform too (Page 5)
a. peculiar b. strangec. imaginary d. fancy
6. There were just a few more questions he needed to put to her before he could allow the matter to be settled. (Page 6)
a. Paidb. Agreedc. Disposed ofd. Accepted
7. ‘ Say goodbye to them?’ he repeated, spluttering out the words as if his mouth was full of biscuits that he’d munched into tiny pieces but not actually swallowed yet. (Page 7)
a. Exploding out particles of biscuits b. Making unintelligent soundsc. Talking in a hasty and confused wayd. Flying or falling in particles or drops
8. ‘Oh, you’ll make other friends,’ said Mother,waving her hand in the air dismissively, as if the making of a boy’s three best friends for life was an easy thing. (Pages 7-8) a. Encouraginglyb. Putting the issue aside c. Telling him to leaved. Ordering him to not discuss the matter any further
9. He made his way up the stairs slowly, holding onto the banister with one hand, and wondered whether the new house in the new place where the new job was would have as fine a banister to slide down as this one did. (Page 9)
a. The stair rail and its supportsb. One of the supports of the stair railc. The stair raild. The staircase, the stair rail and its supports
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10. Then the door of the office closed and Bruno couldn’t hear any more so he thought it would be a good idea if he went back to his room and took over the packing from Maria, because otherwise she might pull all his belongings out of the wardrobe without any care or consideration, even the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else’s business. (Page 10)
a. Meditation or prayerb. Careful packingc. Compensation or paymentd. Thought or reflection
Making Compounds
Two words combined form a compound word. Each word in Box a below forms the first part of a compound. Each word in Box B forms the second part. In the blank in each sentence below, write the compound that best completes the sentence. Use a word from each box to make your compounds. The first one has been done for you
Box A Box B After
Green bath Ward some Some no Stair tip Summer grand
Noon one robe case one grocer parents time toes room times
1. One afternoon when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family’s maid, packing his things.
2. She was pulling all his belongings out of the ___________________ and packing them in four large wooden crates.
3. Maria was even packing the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were ______________________ else’s business.
4. Bruno was in such a hurry to find out what was going on, that he rushed past his mother on the ___________________ so that he would get to the dining room before his mother
5. His mother explained that _______________________ when ___________________ is very important, the man who employs him asks him to go somewhere else to do a very special job.
6. The father of one of Bruno’s friends (Karl) is a ________________________
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7. At the very top of Bruno’s house is a room with a window, where, if Bruno stands on his ________________ and holds onto the frame of the window tightly, he can see right across Berlin.
8. From the description of the house, there appear to be two ________________________s on different levels of the house
9. Bruno considers it impossible that the family could leave his __________________ behind in Berlin.
10. Bruno is looking forward to his school holidays which are probably in __________________ in Berlin.
Listening For Syllables
Say each of the words from Chapter 1 listed below to yourself. The number of vowel sounds you hear in each word will be the same as the number of syllables. Decide how many syllables are in each word. Then write the number on the blank after each word.
Example: Pyjamas ____3______
1. Afternoon ________
2. Belongings ________
3. Respectfully _______
4. Bundled _______
5. Typewriters _______
6. Basement ________
7. laugh _____
8. interrupting _______
9. Daniel _____
10. Chaos _______
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CHAPTER 2 (Pages 11-20): The New House
Choosing The Best Response
Test your understanding of what you have read in Chapters 1 and 2 by completing the statements below. Write the letter of the best response in the box on the right.
1. How many people from Bruno’s household are going to move (family and servants)
a. Fourb. Sevenc. Sixd. Nine
2. What would be the best description of Bruno’s mother’s reaction to the prospect of moving?
a. Enthusiastic and wanting to move immediatelyb. Not enthusiastic, but meekly accepting that she has no choicec. Unwilling to move and supportive of her children’s dislike of being moved.d. Supportive of her husband’s need to move because of his job, but personally very upset.
3. When Bruno first sees the new house at the beginning of Chapter Two, his “eyes opened wide, his mouth made the shape of an O and his arms stretched out at his sides once again.”When was the first time that he did this in the book?
a. When he discovered Maria packing his thingsb. When his mother told him that the family were movingc. When he finds out that the family are leaving Berlind. When his mother told him he would be leaving his friends.
4. Bruno thinks that the new home is the complete opposite to the home in which the family lived in Berlin because of its
a. Smaller size and the lack of neighbouring houses, city streets and laughterb. Smaller size, a cooler climate and the lack of city shops and other boys to play with c. Isolation, greater convenience, quiet lifestyle and more serious moodd. Desolation, greater convenience, coldness and unhappiness
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5. How many staff does the family have working for them in the new house?
a. Sevenb. Sixc. Fived. Four
6. On Page 13 and again on Page 15, Bruno describes the new maids and waiter that the family now has working for them in addition to the three servants they bought with them from Berlin. These new servants appear to Bruno to be rather “different” because
a. The three maids are very slim, appear unhappy and only talk to each other and the young waiter is angry and prepares vegetables
b. The three maids are reasonably slim and only talk to each other as they prepare vegetables and the elderly waiter whispers a lot and is angry
c. The three maids are sort of slim, only whisper when Bruno speaks to them and the young waiter is angry when he prepares vegetables.
d. The three maids are very slim, only talk to each other in whispers and the elderly waiter prepares vegetables and looks unhappy and angry
7. On Page 18, Bruno sees the soldier whose name we will discover later in the novel is Lieutenant Kotler. The first sight of Kotler (who is probably an SS soldier) coming out of Bruno’s parents’ bedroom is memorable because
a. Kotler’s hair is almost unnaturally blonde, he appears to have a very negative attitude towards children and his very presence seems to terrify Maria who does not dare even look at Kotler in the eye
b. Kotler’s hair is an almost unnatural shade of yellow, he scares Bruno and Maria is so scared of him that she bows low in his presence and dares not look him in the eye.
c. Kotler’s hair is almost unnnaturally blonde, he appears ignorant about and cruel to children and he makes Maria stand up straight in front of him and pray.
d. Kotler’s hair is an almost unnatural shade of yellow, he threatens Bruno with being eaten, ignored or kicked down the stairs and makes Maria stand up straight in front of him and hold her hands in prayer.
8. In the description of Lieutenant Kotler on Pages 18 and 19, Kotler is made to appear as a(n)
a. Antithesis of an SS manb. Stereotype of an SS manc. Parody of an SS man d. Caricature of an SS man
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9. At the end of Chapter 2 (Page 20), Bruno looks out of the window at the top of his bedroom in the new house in the same way in which he used to look out of his window at Berlin from his old house. He put his face to the glass and saw what was out there, and this time when his eyes opened wide and his mouth made the shape of an O, his hands stayed by his sides because something made him feel very cold and unsafe. The reader is not told what he sees or why he feels cold and unsafe, either in this chapter or immediately at the beginning of the next chapter, although we do find out later. The writer at this point is using
a. Mystery and suspenseb. Cliche and contrast c. Foreshadowing and echoingd. All of the above
10. The atmosphere in the novel by the end of Chapter 2 is considerably more eerie and “spooky” than it was at the beginning of the chapter. The dangers and “spookiness” have mainly been suggested by
a. The harsh behaviour of Bruno’s mother towards Bruno; the behaviour of the new maids and butler; the behaviour of the man whose name we later discover to be Lieutenant Kotler; the frustration that Bruno feels at being moved
b. The isolation, coldness and lack of laughter and cheerfulness associated with the new house; the harsh behaviour of Bruno’s mother towards Bruno; the behaviour of the new maids and butler; the mystery about what Bruno sees out of the window
c. The isolation, coldness and lack of laughter and cheerfulness associated with the new house; the behaviour of the new maids and butler; the effect of the man whose name we later discover to be Lieutenant Kotler; the mystery about what Bruno sees out of the window
d. The harsh behaviour of Bruno’s mother towards Bruno;; the behaviour of the new maids and butler; the effect of the man whose name we later discover to be Lieutenant Kotler; the frustration that Bruno feels at being moved.
Sequencing Events (Chapters 1-2)
The events listed below are arranged in incorrect sequence. Write 1 in front of the event that happened first, 2 before the event that happened next and so on
Lars, the butler, is packing Bruno’s mother’s things
Bruno discovers that where they are shifting to, is a long way from Berlin
Bruno’s mother tells Bruno that they will not return to Berlin the day after shifting to the new house
Someone that Bruno calls “The Fury” comes to dinner with a beautiful blonde woman
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Bruno peers out of the top window in the new house
Bruno discovers that he will have to leave his friends – Karl, Daniel and Martin
Bruno starts assisting Maria to unpack his things
Bruno thinks that he is being sent away from home for being badly behaved
Bruno’s father and Bruno’s mother have a loud argument
Bruno sees an SS soldier coming out of his parents’ bedroom
Bruno arrives home from school to find Maria the maid packing his things
Bruno’s mother hesitates and doesn’t really answer the question when Bruno asks her what important job his father has to do that means the family has to shift.
Finding Base Words.
Each word below has been formed by adding a suffix such as –ly, -ed or –ing to a base word. On the blank beside each word, write the base word
Example: Picking ____Pick _
1. Disappointed _____________
2. Sadly ________________
3. Standing ______________
4. Sliding ______________
5. Scattered ________________
6. Perfectly ______________________
7. Foreseeable __________________
8. Pretended ____________________
9. Loudly ______________________
10. Strolling _________________
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CHAPTER 3 (Pages 21-29): The Hopeless Case
Deciding True or False
Test your understanding of what you read by deciding if the statements below are true or false. Write T in the box if the statement is true, F if it is false.
1. Bruno thinks his sister Gretel should be left behind on her own in Berlin, when the rest of the family shifts.
2. Gretel is four years older than Bruno.
3. Bruno is a little scared of his sister Gretel.
4. Bruno believes that Gretel’s dolls are spying on him.
5. Bruno is a little taller than most boys in his class.
6. His sister’s friend teases Bruno because of his size.
7. Bruno answers most of his sister’s questions with direct answers.
8. Gretel thinks “Out-With” is both the name of the house and the place where it is located.
9. The children believe that the person who did their father’s job before their father arrived to take over must have been extraordinarily effective.
10. Gretel knew about the other children (and older people) on the other side of the fence before Bruno told her about them and showed them to her through the window.
Matching Synonyms
A synonym is a word that has the same meaning, or nearly the same meaning as another word or group of words. Read each of the sentences below. Choose a synonym from the word box below to replace the italicised word or words and write the synonym on the line on the right.
1. Bruno considered that his sister Gretel was nothing but trouble. _______________________
Disagreeable, Bother, Uneasily, Deceiving, Continuing,
Range of experience, Spiteful, Ready, Adapted, Wrongly identified
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2. Gretel made it clear that when it came to the ways of the world, particularly any events that concerned the two of them, she was in charge ______________________
3. She had some nasty habits ______________________
4. Gretel had some very unpleasant friends. ______________________
5. It was a source of constant disapoointment to Bruno that he wasn’t as tall as any of the other boys in his class
6. People sometimes mistook him for the younger brother of one of them. __________________
7. After a moment Gretel’s eyes adjusted and she saw what Bruno meant __________________
8. He looked at his sister whjo was standing in the doorway, her golden pigtails perfectly balanced on each shoulder, ripe for the pulling. _________________
9. She swallowed nervously and said a prayer before looking out of the window. ____________
10. Gretel was fairly sure Bruno wasn’t tricking her now. _________________
Using Cloze Reading
Read the paragraphs below. Use the words in the word box below to fill in the blanks. The first example has been done for you.
It was a bright, __sunny___ day that first afternoon __________ Out-With and the __________reappeared from behind a __________ just as Gretel looked __________the window, but after __________ moment her eyes adjusted, __________ sun disappeared again and __________ saw exactly what Bruno __________ been talking about.
To _____ with, they weren’t children. __________ all of them, at least.
sunny cloud begin at had through sun a the she Not
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CHAPTER 4 (Pages 30- 38): What They Saw Through The Window
Supplying Definitions
In the sentences in the left hand column below, one vocabulary word in each sentence has been highlighted. A definition for each word can be found in the right hand column.
Match each vocabulary word with the correct definition by writing the letter of the definition under the number of each sentence.
1. To begin with, they weren’t children at all. Not all of them at least. There were small boys and big boys, fathers and grandfathers. Perhaps a few uncles too. And some of those people who live on their own on everybody’s road but don’t seem to have any relatives at all. They were everyone.
2. Past the flowers there was a very pleasant pavement with a wooden bench on it
3. ‘It must be some sort of rehearsal,’ suggested Gretel.
4. Bruno thought about it and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said with great conviction.
5. ‘But we learned in geography class that in the countryside, where all the farmers are and the animals, and they grow all the food, there are huge areas like this where people live and work and send all the food to feed us.’
6. You can’t make your way through the centre of town on a Saturday afternoon without getting pushed from pillar to post
7. She turned around to look at her brother triumphantly
8. He was the king of everything they surveyed and she was his lowly subject
9. She couldn’t read the inscription from this distance
10. The view is decidedly nicer from there
a. A practice before a public performance
b. Something cut, painted or written on a hard surface
c. A walk or footway
d. Clearly and obviously
e. Study of the earth’s surface and the interrelationship of such features as climate, relief, soil, vegetation, population , land use, industries or states
f. One difficult situation to another
g. Joy in victory or success
h. All ages and classes of society
i. Humble in position
j. A sense of strong belief
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Matching Antonyms
An antonym is a word which means the opposite or nearly the opposite of another word. Read each sentence. Then find a word in the word box below that means the opposite of the italicised word in each sentence
Example: Through the window they could see small boys __Large__
1. She didn’t want to go on staring but it was very difficult to turn her eyes away __________
2. It started off nicely enough __________
3. On the top of the fence enormous bales of barbed wire were tangled in spirals __________
4. ‘ How extraordinary,’ he muttered before turning away __________
5. ‘They must be modern types of houses,’ said Gretel. ‘ Father hates modern things’. __________
6. He was the king of everything they surveyed and she was his subject. __________
7. The fence was very high, higher even than the house they were standing in. __________
8. The seat was turned to face the house, which usually would be a strange thing to do __________
9. The garden looked as if it was tended very carefully by someone who knew that growing flowers in a place like this was something good they could do, like putting a tiny candle of light in the corner of a huge castle on a misty moor on a dark winter’s night. __________
10. But from this side of the house the view was very different. __________
Large Humdrum
Similar Ruler
Unremarkable Easy
Overcoming evil Depressed
Tiny Olden
Pleasantly
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Determining Fact and Opinion
Some of the following sentences are statements of fact. Some are statements of opinion. In the box on the right write the letter F if that sentence is a statement of fact. Write O if that sentence is a statement of opinion
1. There are no girls, mothers or grandmothers in the section of the camp that Gretel and Bruno can see.
2. The person tending the garden outside Bruno’s room tries to show some care about the people over the fence.
3. There is no greenery whatsoever visible over the fence.
4. The dirt behind the fence is unsuitable for growing food.
5. The children that Bruno and Gretel watch on Page 37 are rehearsing something.
6. The children that Bruno and Gretel watch on P.37 do not like taking baths.
7. The children that Bruno and Gretel watch on P.37 have no hot water for baths.
8. The grandfathers, fathers and boys that Bruno watches are all wearing the same clothes as each other.
9. Bruno is stupid.
10. The view from Gretel’s window is better than the view from Bruno’s window.
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CHAPTER 5 (Pages 39- 54): Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions
Sketching a Portrait: Character Study of Bruno’s Father up to and including Chapter 5
The Writer (John Boyne) has introduced not only Bruno, but his sister, his mother and his father by the end of this Chapter.
A Writer can use a variety of methods to tell us about a character. A writer may:
a) Give direct characterisation: That is, the writer will directly tell readers important information about a character. For example, an author might write, “Margo was an extremely generous person”.
b) Describe the appearance of a character.c) Show the actions of a character.d) Quote the character’s explanations of that character’s own actions.e) Quote the character’s expressions of how they believe and feel.f) Give clues from what others say to or about a character.
In the Middle Column, you are to identify the main method used [chosen from (a) – (f) above]. For instance, the first excerpt shows the mother talking about the importance of the father’s job and the visitors to the house who are obviously impressed with him. That fits (f) best – what others say to or about a character. Sometimes, more than one method may be used.
Excerpts From the Novel (about Bruno’s father).[Each passage below contains excerpts from the novel which give us clues about the character of Bruno’s father. These clues enable us to build up a portrait or “picture” of him.]
Method of telling us about Bruno’s father [Choose from (a) – (f) above.]
What we Learn from this Excerpt about Bruno’s father.
[Explain what you learn about Bruno’s father from this excerpt.]
‘Your father’s job,’ explained Mother. ‘You know how important it is, don’t you?’‘Yes, of course,’ said Bruno, nodding his head, because there were always so many visitors to the house – men in fantastic uniforms, women with typewriters that he had to keep his mucky hands off – and they were always very polite to Father and told each other that he was a man to watch and that the Fury had big things in mind for him. (Pp 3-4)
F
What Others say to or about a character
The Father has an important job, probably high up in the military. People seem to show him a lot of respect and expect him to be promoted quickly
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‘Well, sometimes when someone is very important,’ continued Mother, ‘the man who employs him asks him to go somewhere else because there’s a very special job that needs doing there.’‘What kind of job?’ asked Bruno....‘It’s a very important job,’ said Mother, hesitating for a moment. ‘A job that needs a very special man to do it.’ (P.4-5)
We don’t have as much time to prepare as I would have liked, thanks to some people.’ (P.8)
Bruno...saw Mother entering Father’s office, which faced the dining room – and was Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions – and he heard her speaking loudly to him until Father spoke louder than Mother could and that put a stop to their conversation. (P. 10)
‘Of course,’ said Gretel, who always spoke of Father as if he could never do any wrong and never got angry and always came in to kiss her goodnight before she went to sleep which, if Bruno was to be really fair and not just sad about moving houses, he would have admitted Father did for him too.(P.25)
...It was Bruno’s belief that Mother didn’t realize the maid was still standing there, because as they took one last look around the empty hallway....Mother had shaken her head and said something very strange.
‘We should never have let the Fury come to dinner,’ she said. ‘Some people and their determination to get ahead.’ (P.40)
Down below he saw the door to Father’s office standing open and a group of five men outside it, laughing and shaking hands. Father was at the centre of them and looked very smart in his freshly pressed uniform. His thick dark hair had obviously been recently lacquered and combed, and as Bruno watched from above he felt both scared and in awe of him. He didn’t like the look of the other men quite so much. They certainly weren’t as handsome as Father. Nor were their uniforms as freshly pressed. Nor were their voices so booming or their boots so polished. (P.42)
Excerpts From the Novel (about Bruno’s father) Method What we Learn from this Excerpt about
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Bruno’s father
“Your suggestions and your encouragement are very much appreciated. And the past is the past. Here we have a fresh beginning, but let that beginning start tomorrow. For now, I’d better help my family settle in or there will be as much trouble for me in here as there is for them out there, you understand?’ (P.43)
The men all broke into laughter and shook Father’s hand. As they left they stood in a row together like toy soldiers and their arms shot out in the same way that Father had taught Bruno to salute, the palm stretched flat, moving from their chests up into the air in front of them in a sharp motion as they cried out the two words that Bruno had been taught to say whenever anyone said it to him. Then they left and Father returned to his office, which was Out Of Bounds At All Times And No Exceptions (Pp 43-44)
Father...looked up from his papers when Bruno entered and broke into a wide smile.‘Bruno,’ he said, coming round from behind the desk and shaking the boy’s hand solidly, for Father was not usually the type of man to give anyone a hug, unlike Mother and Grandmother, who gave them a little too often for comfort, complementing them with slobbering kisses. ‘My boy,’ he added after a moment. (P.45)
‘You got here safely then?’‘Yes Father, ‘ said Bruno‘You were a help to your mother and sister in closing the house?’‘Yes Father,’ said Bruno.‘Then I’m proud of you,’ said Father approvingly. ‘Sit down, boy.’ (P.46)
‘A home is not a building or a street or a city or something so artificial as bricks and mortar. A home is where one’s family is, isn’t that right?’ (P.47)
‘...But you and I and Mother and Gretel are the most important people in our family and this is where we live now.’ (P.47)
Excerpts From the Novel (about Bruno’s father) Method What we Learn from this Excerpt about
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Bruno’s father
‘Bruno, sometimes there are things we need to do in life that we don’t have a choice in,’ said Father, and Bruno could tell that he was starting to tire of this conversation. ‘And I’m afraid this is one of them. This is my work, important work. Important to our country. Important to the Fury. You’ll understand that some day.’(P.48)
‘I remember when I was a child,’ said Father, ‘there were certain things that I didn’t want to do, but when my father said that it would be better for everyone if I did them, I just put my best foot forward and got on with them...I also knew that my father, your grandfather, knew what was best for me and that I was always happiest when I just accepted that. Do you think that I would have made such a success of my life if I hadn’t learned when to argue and when to keep my mouth shut and follow orders? Well Bruno? Do you? (P 49)
‘I wonder if you are being very brave,’ he said quietly after a moment, as if he was debating the matter in his head, ‘rather than merely disrespectful. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing’‘I didn’t mean –‘‘But you will be quiet now,’ said Father raising his voice and interrupting him because none of the rules of normal family life ever applied to him. ‘ I have been very considerate of your feelings here, Bruno, because I know that this move is difficult for you. And I have listened to what you have to say, even though your youth and inexperience force you to phrase things in an insolent manner. And you’ll notice that I have not reacted to any of this. (P.51)
He tensed slightly and got ready to make a run for it if necessary. But nothing seemed to be making Father angry today – and if Bruno was honest with himself he would have admitted that Father rarely became angry; he became quiet and distant and always had his way in the end anyway - and rather than shouting at him or chasing him around the house, he simply shook his head and indicated that their debate was at an end.“Go to your room Bruno,’ he said in such a quiet voice that Bruno knew that he meant business now. (P.52)
Excerpts From the Novel (about Bruno’s father) Method What we Learn from this Excerpt about
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Bruno’s father
‘Ah, those people,’ said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. ‘Those people...well, they’re not people at all, Bruno.’Bruno frowned. ‘They’re not?’ he asked, unsure what Father meant by that.‘Well, at least not as we understand the term,’ Father continued. ‘But you shouldn’t be worrying about them right now. They’re nothing to do with you. You have nothing whatsoever in common with them. (P.53)
He opened the door and Father called him back for a moment, standing up and raising an eyebrow as if he’d forgotten something. Bruno remembered the moment his father made the signal, and said the phrase and imitated him exactly
He pushed his two feet together and shot his right arm into the air before clicking his two heels together and saying in as deep and clear a voice as possible – as much like Father’s as he could manage – the words he said every time he left a soldier’s presence.
‘Heil Hitler,’ he said, which, he presumed was another way of saying, ‘Well goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.’ (Pp53-54)
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Getting the Main Idea
Read the following Wikipedia article about the Auschwitz Concentration Camp [pronounced Ouse (as in house) shvitz]which is where the book is set. (Bruno calls it “Out-With”; in German “Out-With” translates to Aus Mit [pronounced Ouse (as in house), Mit (as in Mitten)]
Every so often, the article will stop and you will see four sentences. Choose the sentence or sentences that best states the main idea of what you have read up to that point. Circle the letter at the front of that sentence.
Auschwitz concentration campFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
AUSCHWITZ
Concentration camp
The entrance to Auschwitz I. The now notorious motto over the gate, "Arbeit macht frei", translates
as "Work makes you free."
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Location of Auschwitz in Poland
Coordinates50°02′09″N 19°10′42″E 50.03583°N 19.17833°E Coordinates : 50°02′09″N
19°10′42″E 50.03583°N 19.17833°E
Location Oświęcim, German-occupied Poland
Operated by the German Schutzstaffel (SS), the NKVD (after WWII)
Original use Army barracks
Operational May 1940–January 1945
Inmates mainly Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Poles
Killed 1.1 million (estimated)
Liberated by Soviet Union, January 27, 1945
Notable
inmates
Viktor Frankl, Primo Levi, Witold Pilecki, Rudolf Vrba, Elie Wiesel, Maximillian
Kolbe
Notable books If This is a Man, Night, Man's Search for Meaning
Website Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Auschwitz (German pronunciation: [ˈaʊʃvɪts]; Konzentrationslager Auschwitz (help·info)) was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I (the Stammlager or main camp); Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the Vernichtungslager or extermination camp); Auschwitz III-Monowitz, also known as Buna-Monowitz (a labor camp); and 45 satellite camps.[1]
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1. (a) Auschwitz refers to one camp built mainly to imprison people
(b) Auschwitz refers to a group of many camps built mainly for labour and extermination
(c) Auschwitz refers to one camp built mainly for labour and extermination
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Auschwitz is the German name for Oświęcim, the town the camps were located in and around; it was renamed by the Germans after they invaded Poland in September 1939. Birkenau, the German translation of Brzezinka (birch tree), refers to a small Polish village nearby that was mostly destroyed by the Germans to make way for the camp.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau was designated by Heinrich Himmler, who was the Reichsführer and Germany's Minister of the Interior, as the locus of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe". From spring 1942 until the fall of 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over Nazi-occupied Europe.[2] The camp's first commandant, Rudolf Höss, testified after the war at the Nuremberg Trials that up to three million people had died there (2.5 million exterminated, and 500,000 from disease and starvation),[3] a figure since revised to 1.1 million, around 90 percent of them Jews.[4] Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Roma and Sinti, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and tens of thousands of people of diverse nationalities.[5] Those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments.[6] Denis Avey, recently named a British Holocaust hero by the government of Britain, had escaped and spoke of conditions inside the camps.[7]
On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops, a day commemorated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, which by 1994 had seen 22 million visitors—700,000 annually—pass through the iron gates crowned with the infamous motto, Arbeit macht frei ("work makes you free").
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1. (a) Auschwitz refers to one camp built mainly to imprison people
(b) Auschwitz refers to a group of many camps built mainly for labour and extermination
(c) Auschwitz refers to one camp built mainly for labour and extermination
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2. (a) The most accurate estimate is that approximately 1.1 million people (mostly Jewish
people) were exterminated in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, mostly in the gas chambers
between 1942 and 1944.
(b) The most accurate estimate is that approximately 3 million people (mostly Jewish
people) were exterminated in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 2.5 million in the gas chambers
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Main camps
The Auschwitz complex of camps encompassed a large industrial area rich in natural resources. There were 48 camps in all. The three main camps were Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and a work camp called Auschwitz III-Monowitz, or the Buna. Auschwitz I served as the administrative center, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly ethnic Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II was an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, the site of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies). Auschwitz III-Monowitz served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG Farben concern. The SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich. The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command structure. Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss was overall commandant of the Auschwitz complex from May 1940–November 1943; Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel from November 1943–May 1944; and Sturmbannführer Richard Baer from May 1944–January 1945.
Yisrael Gutman writes that it was in the concentration camps that Hitler's concept of absolute power came to fruition. Primo Levi, who described his year in Auschwitz in If This Is a Man, wrote:
[N]ever has there existed a state that was really "totalitarian." ... Never has some form of reaction, a corrective of the total tyranny, been lacking, not even in the Third Reich or Stalin's Soviet Union: in both cases, public opinion, the magistrature, the foreign press, the churches, the feeling for justice and humanity that ten or twenty years of tyranny were not enough to eradicate, have to a greater or lesser extent acted as a brake. Only in the Lager [camp] was the restraint from below non-existent, and the power of these small satraps absolute.[8]
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3. (a) Poles, Soviet Prisoners of War, Roma (Gypsies) and Jews were killed in
approximately equal numbers in Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II, Birkenau and
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2. (a) The most accurate estimate is that approximately 1.1 million people (mostly Jewish
people) were exterminated in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, mostly in the gas chambers
between 1942 and 1944.
(b) The most accurate estimate is that approximately 3 million people (mostly Jewish
people) were exterminated in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 2.5 million in the gas chambers
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Auschwitz I
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3. (a) Poles, Soviet Prisoners of War, Roma (Gypsies) and Jews were killed in
approximately equal numbers in Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II, Birkenau and
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Auschwitz I was the original camp, serving as the administrative center for the whole complex. The site for the camp—16 one-story buildings—had earlier served as Polish army artillery barracks. It was first suggested as a site for a concentration camp for Polish prisoners by SS-Oberfuhrer Arpad Wigand an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia, Erich von dem Bach Zelewski. Bach Zeleski had been searching for a site to house prisoners in the Silesia region as the local prisons were filled to capacity. Richard Glucks head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate sent former Sachsenhausen commandant, Walter Eisfeld to inspect the site. Glucks informed SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, that a camp would be built on the site on February 21, 1940.[9] Rudolf Höss would oversee the development of the camp and serve as the first commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Josef Kramer was appointed Höss's deputy.[10] Local residents were evicted, including 1,200 people who lived in shacks around the barracks, creating an empty area of 40 sq kms, which the Germans called the "interest area of the camp." Three hundred Jewish residents of Oświęcim were brought in to lay foundations. The first prisoners—30 German criminal prisoners from the Sachsenhausen camp—arrived in May 1940, intended to act as functionaries within the prison system. The first transport of 728 Polish prisoners which included 20 Jews arrived on June 14, 1940 from the prison in Tarnow, Poland. They were interned in the former building of the Polish Tobacco Monopoly adjacent to the site, until the camp was ready. The inmate population grew quickly, as the camp absorbed Poland's intelligentsia and dissidents, including the Polish underground resistance. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned there, most of them Poles.[10]
The SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called: kapos). Although involved in numerous atrocities, only two were ever prosecuted for their individual behavior; many were deemed to have had little choice but to act as they did.[11] The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by
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special marks on their clothes; Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the associated arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved for cleaning and showering. The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners.
Block 11 of Auschwitz was the "prison within the prison", where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some prisoners were made to spend the nights in "standing cells". These cells were about 1.5 m2 (16 sq ft), and four men would be placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day to work with the other prisoners. In the basement were located the "starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here were given neither food nor water until they were dead.[12]
In the basement were the "dark cells"; these cells had only a very tiny window, and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the cell; sometimes the SS would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs, thus dislocating their shoulder joints for hours, even days.[13]
On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 Polish inmates by cramming them into the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B, a highly lethal cyanide-based pesticide.[14] This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as an instrument for extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to 1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed therein; it was then converted into an air-raid shelter for the use of the SS. This gas chamber still exists, together with the associated crematorium, which was reconstructed after the war using the original components, which remained on-site.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau
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4. (a) “Standing Cells”, “Starvation Cells” and “Dark Cells” were where Zyklon B was first used to kill people in
Auschwitz
(b) “Standing Cells”, “Starvation Cells”, “Dark Cells”, Gas Chambers and Crematoria were all methods of
torture used in Auschwitz and all were created by converting bunkers.
(c) All inmates had to work making armaments and “Standing Cells”, “Starvation Cells” and “Dark Cells”
were where violators of prison rules could be placed
(d) All inmates had to work making armaments and “Standing Cells”, “Starvation Cells”, “Dark Cells”, Gas
Chambers and Crematoria were all methods of torture used in Auschwitz
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Construction on Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp, began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp. It was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than through Auschwitz I. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp in the context of Heinrich Himmler's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the extermination of the Jews.[15] The first gas chamber at Birkenau was "The Little Red House," a brick cottage converted into a gassing facility by tearing out the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by March 1942. A second brick cottage, "The Little White House," was similarly converted some weeks later.[16]
The Nazis had committed themselves to the final solution no later than January 1942, the date of the Wannsee Conference. In his Nuremberg testimony on April 15, 1946, Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, testified that Heinrich Himmler personally ordered him to prepare Auschwitz for that purpose:
In the summer of 1941 I was summoned to Berlin to Reichsführer-SS Himmler to receive personal orders. He told me something to the effect—I do not remember the exact words—that the Fuehrer had given the order for a final solution of the Jewish question. We, the SS, must carry out that order. If it is not carried out now then the Jews will later on destroy the German people. He had chosen Auschwitz on account of its easy access by rail and also because the extensive site offered space for measures ensuring isolation.[17]
Picture of Birkenau taken by an American surveillance plane, August 25, 1944
British historian Laurence Rees writes, that Höss may have misremembered the year Himmler said this. Himmler did indeed visit Höss in the summer of 1941, but there is no evidence that the final solution had been planned at this stage. Rees writes that the meeting
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predates the killings of Jewish men by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and the expansion of the killings in July 1941. It also predates the Wannsee Conference. Rees speculates that the conversation with Himmler was most likely in the summer of 1942.[18] The first gassings, using an industrial gas derived from prussic acid and known by the brand name Zyklon-B, were carried out at Auschwitz in September 1941.[19]
In early 1943, the Nazis decided to increase greatly the gassing capacity of Birkenau. Crematorium II, originally designed as a mortuary, with morgues in the basement and ground-level furnaces, was converted into a killing factory by placing a gas-tight door on the morgues and adding vents for Zyklon B and ventilation equipment to remove the gas.[20] It went into operation in March. Crematorium III was built using the same design. Crematoria IV and V, designed from the start as gassing centers, were also constructed that spring. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational. Most of the victims were killed during the period afterwards.[21]
The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies, most of whom were convicts) and sonderkommandos (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommandos prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed periodically. The kapos and sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.
Command of the women's camp, which was separated from the men's area by the incoming railway line, was held in turn by Johanna Langefeld, Maria Mandel, and Elisabeth Volkenrath.
Auschwitz III
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5. a) Auschwitz, and particularly Auschwitz II Birkenau was very suitable as an
extermination centre because of its space, isolation, large civilian population and
facilities
(b) The SS, assisted by Kapos and Sonderkommandos used Auschwitz II Birkenau as a
“killing factory” or extermination centre and the gassing capacity and numbers of
crematoria were steadily increased in 1943.
(c) Kapos and Sonderkommandos were members of the SS
(d) Langefeld, Mandel and Volkenrath were female Kapos and Sonderkommandos
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Buna-Werke, Monowitz and subcamps
The largest of the Auschwitz work camps was Auschwitz III-Monowitz, named after the Polish village of Monowice, and regarded from the fall of 1943 onwards as an industrial camp. Starting operations in May 1942, it was associated with the synthetic rubber and liquid fuel plant Buna-Werke owned by IG Farben. 11,000 slave laborers worked at Monowitz. Seven thousand inmates worked at various chemical plants. 8,000 worked in mines. Approximately 40,000 prisoners worked in slave labor camps at Auschwitz or nearby, under appalling conditions.[22] In regular intervals, doctors from Auschwitz II would visit the work camps and select the weak and sick for the gas chambers of Birkenau.
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6. (a) Monowitz was a camp where most inmates worked either making synthetic rubber, liquid fuel and
chemicals or in mines.
(b) Monowitz was a camp which was owned by the IG Farben company.
(c) Monowitz was only one of a number of labour camps in Auschwitz, although it was one of the major
ones, with 40,000 prisoners working there.
(d) Monowitz was the biggest camp in Auschwitz and contained mines, chemical factories, synthetic
rubber and liquid fuel plants and gas chambers and crematoria.
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Selection process and genocide
Selection on the Jewish ramp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant labor; to the left, the gas chambers.[25]
By July 1942, the SS were conducting the infamous "selections," in which incoming Jews were divided into those deemed able to work, who were sent to the right and admitted into the camp, and those who were sent to the left and immediately gassed.[26] Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys. The group selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit. Auschwitz II-Birkenau claimed more victims than any other German extermination camp, despite coming into use after all the others.
SS officers told the victims they were to take a shower and undergo delousing. The victims would undress in an outer chamber and walk into the gas chamber, which was disguised as a shower facility, complete with dummy shower heads. After the doors were shut, SS men would dump in the cyanide pellets via holes in the roof or windows on the side. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, more than 20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. The Nazis used a cyanide gas produced from Zyklon B pellets, manufactured by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent held by IG Farben.
Hungarian Jews on selection ramp, May, 1944
Sonderkommandos removed gold teeth from the corpses of gas chamber victims; the gold was melted down and collected by the SS. The belongings of the arrivals were seized by the SS and sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada," so-called because Canada was seen as a land of plenty. Many of the SS at the camp enriched themselves by pilfering the confiscated property.[27]he gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from April-July 1944, during the massacre of Hungary's Jews. Hungary was an ally of Germany during the war, but it had
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resisted turning over its Jews to the Germans until Germany invaded in March 1944. From April until July 9, 1944, 475,000 Hungarian Jews, half of the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period.[28] The incoming volume was so great that the SS resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.[29]
Life in the camps
The prisoners' day began at 4:30 a.m. with "reveille" or roll call, with 30 minutes allowed for morning ablutions. After roll call, the Kommando, or work details, would walk to their place of work, five abreast, wearing striped camp fatigues, no underwear, and wooden shoes without socks, most of the time ill-fitting, which caused great pain. An orchestra often played as the workers marched through the gates. Kapos—prisoners who had been promoted to foremen—were responsible for the prisoners' behavior while they worked, as was an SS escort. The working day lasted 12 hours during the summer, and a little less in the winter. No
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7. (a) Those who were immediately gassed numbered around 50% of those who
arrived from all over Europe: all children, women with children, all the elderly
men, and all those who appeared to be completely unfit after a detailed
examination by an SS doctor
(b) Those who were to be immediately gassed were sent to the right, given a
shower first and then had the gold in their teeth removed before being gassed
(c) Those who were to be immediately gassed had their belongings stored in an
area of the camp known as “Canada” before they were shipped back to their
relatives.
(d) Those who were immediately gassed numbered about 75% of those who
arrived from all over Europe: all children, women with children, all the elderly,
and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor
not to be completely fit.
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rest periods were allowed. One prisoner would be assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels.[30]
After work, there was a mandatory evening roll call. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing in place until he was either found or the reason for his absence discovered, even if it took hours, regardless of the weather conditions. After roll call, there were individual and collective punishments, depending on what had happened during the day, and after these, the prisoners were allowed to retire to their blocks for the night to receive their bread rations and water. Curfew was two or three hours later, the prisoners sleeping in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen.[31]
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8. (a) If a prisoner went missing at evening roll call, the others had to remain standing
in place until they received their rations of bread and water, before going to bed
when they wished.
(b) An orchestra often played as the prisoners marched through the gates on their
way to work, and prisoners did not have to work in bad weather
(c) Prisoners had to wake up and be ready for roll call at 4.30 am and the Kapos made
them work in ill fitting uniforms and shoes for twelve hours with no breaks.
(d) “Reveille” and “ablutions” are two names for the same thing
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Medical experiments
Block 10, the medical experimentation block
German doctors performed a wide variety of experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. SS doctors tested the efficacy of X-rays as a sterilization device by administering large doses to female prisoners. Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them shut. Bayer, then a subsidiary of IG Farben, bought prisoners to use as guinea pigs for testing new drugs.[32]
The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death". Particularly interested in research on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took a special interest in dwarfs and deliberately infected twins, dwarfs and other prisoners with gangrene to "study" the effects.[33]
Mengele, at the behest of fellow Nazi physcian Kurt Heissmeyer, was responsible for picking the twenty Jewish children to be used in Heissmeyers' pseudoscientific medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. These children, at the conclusion of the experiments, were infamously hung from wall hooks in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school in Hamburg.
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9. (a) Mengele was the doctor from Auschwitz who is most notorious for carrying out experiments on
prisoners but Clauberg, the Chemical Company IG Farben and Heissmeyer were also involved.
(b) Heissmeyer alone was solely responsible for the atrocities on the twenty children whose bodies
were hung from wall hooks in a Hamburg museum.
(c) Mengele was known as “The Angel of Death” but was only interested in using identical twins in his
experiments.
(d) The prisoners used as guinea pigs by the Bayer subsidiary of IG Farben were all volunteers.
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Escapes, resistance, and the Allies' knowledge of the camps
Auschwitz camp photos of Witold Pilecki, 1941
Information regarding Auschwitz was available to the Allies during the years 1940–1943 by accurate and frequent reports of Polish Army Captain Witold Pilecki. Pilecki was the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp, spending 945 days at Auschwitz not only actively gathering evidence of genocide and supplying it to the British in London by Polish resistance movement organization Home Army but also organizing resistance structures at the camp known as ZOW, Związek Organizacji Wojskowej.[37] His first report was smuggled outside in November 1940. He eventually escaped on April 27, 1943, but his personal report of mass killings was dismissed as exaggeration by the Allies, as were his previous ones.[38]
Vrba during the war
The attitude of the Allies changed with receipt of the very detailed Vrba-Wetzler report, compiled by two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who escaped on April 7, 1944, and which finally convinced Allied leaders of the truth about Auschwitz. Details from the Vrba-Wetzler report were broadcast on June 15, 1944 by the BBC, and on June 20 by The New York Times, causing the Allies to put pressure on the Hungarian government to stop the mass deportation of Jews to the camp.[39]
Starting with a plea from the Slovakian rabbi Weissmandl in May 1944, there was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. At one point Winston Churchill ordered that such a plan be prepared, but he was told that bombing the camp would most likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation, and that
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bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. The debate over what could have been done, or what should have been attempted even if success was unlikely, has continued ever since.
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10. (a) The Allies knew about what was going on in Auschwitz from Pilecki’s reports
from 1940-1943 but chose to do nothing about it until the Vrba-Wetzler
report in 1944 shamed them into action.
(b) The Allies did not at first believe Pilecki when he reported on the
systematic extermination and genocide from 1940-1943 and it was only
with the compilation of Vrba-Wetzler report in 1944 that Allied leaders
were finally convinced of the truth about what was going on in Auschwitz.
(c) Pilecki’s reports from 1940-1943 were not believed by the Allies until the
Vrba-Wetzler report in 1944 said the same thing, and then the Allies made
the Hungarian government stop sending Jews to Auschwitz and tried to bomb
the camp.
(d) After the reports of Pilecki and Vrba-Wetzler, the Allies, especially Churchill,
planned to bomb Auschwitz and the railway lines leading to it, but the plan
was stopped because Weissmandl pointed out it would not stop the killing
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Narrative Technique
There are two basic ways of telling a story:
1. Third Person Technique. This is where the person telling the story sits outside the story, and tells the story as “He said this,” and “she did that” and “They all felt this,” etc. Stories told in this way are often referred to as using the ‘Eye of God’ technique, because the teller of the story seems to be able to move all over the place and “stand above” everyone in the story and describe all of the important events and characters from ‘on high’. A third person narrator is NOT a character in the story, but stands outside it.
2. First Person Technique. This is where the person telling the story describes himself or herself as “I”. A first person narrator is a character in the story. This is a more interesting technique, because we’re not always very sure as to how much we can trust the person who is the “I’ of the story to tell us the “whole truth”. Often the reader has to work out how far the teller of the tale should be believed. For instance, if you have a story supposedly written by a three-year old girl that says something like, My father is the biggest man in the world, as a reader, you have to decide for yourself whether the little girl’s father is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest man in the world, or if he just looks big to her (because she is small) or if she means something else.
Some writers try to combine aspects of both of these techniques. The writer, John Boyne does this in The Boy In Striped Pyjamas.
This story is told using the Third Person Technique. BUT John Boyne also tries to exploit some of the interesting possibilities that the First Person Technique can open up, as well. For most of the story, we only see things and hear things from Bruno’s point of view. However, Bruno is never described as “I” by the writer. He is always referred to as “Bruno” or “He”. And Bruno is a nine year-old boy who has had a fairly strict and sheltered upbringing, and is kept in ignorance of the fact (and never realises himself) that his father is directly involved in deliberate exploitation and systematic mass murder (the Holocaust) under the dictatorship of an evil, racist psychopath (Adolph Hitler, the Fuhrer or The Fury as Bruno calls him).
There is a basic tension between the innocent, naive and basically good and likeable Bruno and the evil horror that surrounds him. The “story” we get is like the third side of a triangle. The first side of the triangle consists of what we are told about (mainly) Bruno’s reactions to events; the second side of the triangle consists of the knowledge of the history of the Third Reich, Nazism, the Holocaust and WWII that the reader brings. One of the main ways in which this tension is maintained is that what characters (e.g. Bruno) tell us “in the lines” of the text is often re-interpreted by the reader “in between the lines” because the characters obviously don’t realise some things that we do realise and don’t know some things that we do know.
Matt is great! He can run really fast!
I am great! I can run really fast!
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Below are two columns. In the left hand column are some quotes from the first five chapters of the novel, which illustrate aspects of the narrative technique. These consist of direct quotes of lines from the text. In the right hand column, write what the reader can “read between the lines” (something which Bruno (or other characters) don’t know or realise or can’t tell us). One example have been done for you.
What We “Read In The Lines” What We “Read In Between The Lines”
1. He looked at her without saying anything for a moment and thought to himself that she couldn’t have applied her make-up correctly that morning because the rims of her eyes were more red than usual, like his own after he’d been causing chaos and got into trouble and ended up crying.(P.3)
Mother is also very upset about having to move and she has been crying from sadness uncertainty. She is trying to keep it together for the sake of her children.
2. But when they asked Bruno what his father did, he opened his mouth to tell them, then realised that he didn’t know himself. All he could say was that his father was a man to watch and that the Fury had big things in mind for him. Oh, and that he had a fantastic uniform too. (P.5)
3. In Berlin there had been tables set out on the street, and sometimes when he walked home from school with Karl, Daniel and Martin there would be men and women sitting at them, drinking frothy drinks and laughing loudly; the people who sat at these tables must be very funny people, he always thought, because it didn’t matter what they said, somebody always laughed. (P.13)
4. ‘And where are all the girls?’ she asked. ‘And the mothers? And the grandmothers?’
‘Perhaps they live in a different part,’ suggested Bruno .(P.30)
5. There wasn’t any grass after the fence; in fact there was no greenery anywhere to be seen in the distance. Instead the ground was made of a sand-like substance, and as far as she could make out there was nothing but low huts and large square buildings dotted around and one or two smoke stacks in the distance (P.32).
6. Some were formed into a sort of chain gang and pushing wheelbarrows from one side of the camp to another... (P.36)
...Some carried spades and were being led by groups of soldiers to a place where they could no longer be seen. (P.36)
7. There were two tracks separated by a wide platform, and on either side a train stood waiting for the passengers to board. Because there were so many
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soldiers marching about on the other side, not to mention the fact that there was a long hut belonging to the signalman separating the tracks, Bruno could only make out the crowds of people for a few moments before he and his family boarded a very comfortable train with very few people on it and plenty of empty seats and fresh air when the windows were pulled down. If the trains had been going in different directions, he thought, it wouldn’t have seemed so odd, but they weren’t.; they were both pointing eastwards. For a moment he considered running across the platform to tell the people about the empty seats in his carriage, but he decided not to as something told him that if it didn’t make Mother angry, it would probably make Gretel furious, and that would be worse still. (P.41)
8. ‘Did you do something bad in work? I know that everyone says you’re an important man and that the Fury has big things in mind for you, but he’d hardly send you to a place like this if you hadn’t done something that he wanted to punish you for.’...
“You don’t understand the significance of such a position,’ Father said. (P. 50)
9. ‘The people I see from my window. In the huts, in the distance. They’re all dressed the same.’
‘Ah, those people,’ said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. ‘Those people...well, they’re not people at all, Bruno.’
Bruno frowned. ‘They’re not?’ he asked, unsure what father meant by that.
‘Well, at least not as we understand the term,’ Father continued. “But you shouldn’t be worrying about them right now. They’re nothing to do with you. You have nothing whatsoever in common with them.’ (P. 53)
10. He pushed his two feet together and shot his right arm into the air before clicking his two heels together and saying in as deep and clear a voice as possible – as much like Father’s as he could manage – the words he said every time he left a soldier’s presence.
‘Heil Hitler,’ he said, which he presumed, was another way of saying, ‘Well goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.’(P.54)
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