Questions on 'One Survivor Remembers'

One of the most powerful scenes of One Survivor Remembers was when her friend Hilda knew that she was going to die. This scene of the documentary was so powerful for me because she knew she was going to die but stayed calm. Hilda knew that she wasn't going to live much longer yet she stayed calm, and was still a good friend and enjoyed the last few moments that she had on earth. Hilda gave the one potato she was given away. I believe that this is so powerful because it is human nature to do whatever you can to keep yourself alive.
The Nazis dehumanized the Jews by making them feel like nothing, that one wrong move and they would be dead. You had one shot based on your age, if you were over a certain age you were no good and would be killed. The way the Jews had to witness the ones they loved being pushed to their death would be very dehumanizing, and the way the Nazis could be so non-chalant about it. Jews were also physically dehumanized by not being fed. The woman said that she was 70 pounds during the death march. I think that she worked to overcome it by forcing herself to persevere, and telling herself that she had to stay with the group and just hope that everything would be okay. The woman who ran the factory that she went to helped also. She was kind instead of being nasty like most other Nazis. I think that the fact that she wasn't treated so harshly there helped her to feel human.
I think if I were put in that position and forced to occupy my time by thinking about the little things I would think about the things I love to do. I would try as hard as possible to keep a positive attitude, and think, when I get out of this mess this is what I will do, even if the odds are against me ever making it out alive. I would think about the food I love to eat, and imagine how nice it will be when I eat them again. I think I take many things for granted, even though I always try to be grateful for everything around me, it is sometimes hard because it has become such a normal thing for me to have so I forget that it's possible for me to not have them. I mostly take for granted food I eat because I love to snack, the things I have like clothes a guitar a skateboard, and the people around me that love and care about me.
I mostly see persecution in the form of being stereotypical, and making jokes about it. I think that in Israel there is much persecution going on because of all of the hate for the different ethnic groups. I see that Muslims are commonly targeted because most people still see all Muslims as crazy and violent people. I think that it is hard to make people see that we should all be friendly towards one another. I think that to have all people properly educated about all of the different people in our world would help. However, I do think that we will never be able to fully attain a world where all people are approving of one another's beliefs. People are brought up to believe that things should be a certain way all over the world just like Nazis did with Hitler Youth. If you are raised as a child to believe one thing it would be very hard to learn that you are wrong, and that you need to be a different way. This is why I think that we can never fully eliminate prejudice in our world.
I think that one of the biggest heroes of the film is the man that she winds up marrying because he saved all of the women who were living in the bicycle factory at the end. Had he not showed up and saved them all they most likely would not be alive. Another hero is the woman Nazi who was so kind to her when she was forced to do labor in the factory. If that woman hadn't been so kind and told her that she had to look well and try to work she would without a doubt be dead. They make me hopeful because it makes it seem like no matter how bad things are there is always something to brighten things up a bit, and it makes me hopeful that there is always someone who would help me. I think that I could do anything I wanted to make the world a better place if I took initiative. However, I think that just being friendly to all, and being open to other's beliefs, and ways is very important if I want to make the world a better place.

The Boy Who Dared Blog Entry # 3

In the book The Boy Who Dared, Helmuth lives in Hamburg, Germany. When he is young he decides he wants to be part of the Hitler Youth. They took kids when they were at a young age. Adolf Hitler said, "These boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years of age." They would keep the kids in their own hands for long periods of time. When Helmuth was young and in school he realized that everybody around him was spewing Nazi lies, and believing everything they were told. It was hard for Helmuth because the people around him hated Jews, but he saw no reason for having any hatred towards them. The Nazis who ran Hitler Youth made sure that you had no thoughts of your own, and believed that Jews were bad people, Adolf Hitler said, "And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months . . . And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left . . . the Wehrmacht [German armed forces] will take care of that." This passage shows how the Germans made sure that the young kids thought what they wanted to think, and nothing else. In fact, most propaganda was targeted towards young minds to try and get them to be a part of Hitler Youth. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says, "From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful." Helmuth witnessed everyone in his school's beliefs changed, and all children around him that weren't Jewish, U.S.H.M.M. says, "By 1936 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939."
The Hitler Youth group targeted young minds, and at first would have had Helmuth if he hadn't eventually realized that what Nazis were preaching was wrong. Yet, people around Helmuth still tried to tell him that what Hitler was doing was right, such as his mother's boyfriend Hugo. All of Helmuth's teachers were constantly pointing out how Hitler was doing such good for the country, U.S.H.M.M says, "Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view...Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession." The second part of this quote shows why so many of Helmuth's teachers were always shoving the Nazi beliefs down the throats of the students. During school one day when Helmuth raised his hand to ask a question about a painting, the teacher misunderstood and took it horribly. His teacher yelled at him saying, "The greatest honor for any soldier is to die for his country rather then to let the flag fall." (p.44). This quote is very important because on the U.S.H.M.M website it says, "In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland." This shows another way that the teachers around Helmuth tried to influence him to think a certain way.
All of these quotes and points that I have made are very important because of the role they all play specifically in my book. The Hilter Youth Movement plays a huge part in The Boy Who Dared because of how they all tried to influence Helmuth. All of what I have written are all ways that Hitler Youth was so involved in my book, and how they poisoned the minds of young people in Germany.

Blog Entry #4

In the book The Boy Who Dared, I have been able to make a couple of connections between the protagonist Helmuth, and Bruno from The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. To get what is easy out of the way, Bruno and Helmuth are both German. Neither of them are Jewish, Helmuth is a Mormon, and Bruno’s religion was undefined. From what I can tell they are both characters that wish to make their families proud of them. Bruno and Helmuth both love their families. When Helmuth was young, like Bruno he wanted to grow up to fight as a soldier for Adolf Hitler. As far as the conflicts that they had in their stories, they’re not very relatable. As Bruno’s problems consisted of leaving his home, having to leave his friends behind in Berlin, and at the end of the book having to leave Shmuel behind which never happened because of his unexpected death. Bruno and Helmuth’s families both split apart, Bruno’s mother wished to return home. While Helmuth’s mother never got married to his father. Also Helmuth has two half-brothers, because his mother divorced her husband. Bruno and Helmuth both wish to fight as a soldier because they want to make their families proud of them. Helmuth also wants to fight because he wants to make Germany a nice place like it was before the Great War While Bruno might not have as good intentions as Helmuth because he doesn't understand the war, and poverty like Helmuth does. Bruno and Helmuth are both very into the idea of being a soldier though, and while they might have different reasons for wanting to do that, it says something about both of them. I think that both Bruno and Helmuth are both tricked almost into wanting to fight for Hitler because neither of them thinks that being Jewish is wrong. They don't get why everyone else around them has such a negative outlook towards the Jewish people. No questions linger about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas for me, seeing as the ending didn't leave anything for you to figure out on your own. In The Boy Who Dared I wonder, How does Helmuth get into a prison that is so cruel? Does he fight for Hitler? If he does, is it because he is convinced that being Jewish is wrong?

Blog entry #3, The Boy Who Dared

The story, The Boy Who Dared, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti starts off describing a prison room where Helmuth age seventeen lies on a bed watching the sun come into his cell. He is clearly described as being scared as it is Tuesday which is the day that the executioner works on. This book is one that seems to go back and forth between flashbacks that Helmuth is having, where he is currently in what seems to be a jail cell. Helmuth lived in Germany with his mother Mutti, he had a half brother Hans, and Gerhard. Helmuth spent time with his grandparents when his mother was at work, but I do not believe they will have a big part in this story.
So far in the first fifteen pages that I have read a couple important things have been revealed. One is that for the majority of my first night of reading, Helmuth has been describing when he was in school on January 30, 1933. He waits in  the auditorium with the rest of his classmates and teachers for a broadcasting on the radio. This will tell him something important, and he is sure it is about Adolf Hitler. Soon enough he hears the speakers saying that Hitler has been chosen as the chancellor of the Reich. Helmuth isn't quite sure how he should feel because he isn't very old yet, he hears lots of different opinions on the matter swirling around the room. In his school there are boys who belong to the Hitler Youth group so they follow his beliefs. Helmuth understands that they do not like Jews, however he doesn't understand why being Jewish is bad. I predict that this book will continue to flashback so that it shows how he got to his current position in prison. However, I am not sure what will become of him, because I do not believe that he is Jewish because he showed signs of liking Hitler and wanting to fight for him when he grew up. I am not sure what to think seeing as I have not read very far yet.

Blog entry #2

In the last couple of chapters that I have since my last post only one stunning revelation has been exposed. After Bruno looked out the window and saw what he saw, he didn't take it as a big deal, and instead casually mentioned it to his sister. After he told her, Bruno brought his older sister Gretel into his room and told her to look out the window. Even his sister wasn't able to fully comprehend what was going on behind the fence that is described as, "...a huge wire fence that ran along the length of the house and turned in at the top...the fence was very high, higher even than the house they were standing in...at the top of the fence enormous bales of barbed wire were tangled in spirals."(p. 31-32). Already you are able to tell that the tide has changed, and you are able to infer that whatever is beyond the fence is something much like a prison. At the end of my reading Bruno and Gretel come to the conclusion that whatever is beyond that fence is something that they didn't want to be near. However, Bruno still doesn't quite understand that it is a concentration camp, I can tell because he looked at all of the prisoners and noticed they were all wearing striped pajamas and said to himself, "How extraordinary."(p. 38). I have inferred that Bruno will approach whatever is behind his house behind the mysterious fence, because he doesn't understand the dangerousness of what is going on, and is clearly fascinated about the people behind his new home. I do wonder if Bruno will try to make contact with the people he has seen, and if so what will be the outcome of it all. Will he be in true danger? Will he get in serious trouble? I am not sure what will happen, but I do believe that Bruno will try to go near the fence. I believe this because firstly, he is a nine year old boy who has his curiosities, secondly he is described as adventurous almost earlier on in the book. I think that these characteristics will leave him wanting to figure out just what is going behind his new house.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas entry 1

Bruno is a nine year old boy from Berlin. He lives with his mother, father, his sister Gretel, lots of servants and a cook. One day when he comes home from school he finds one of his family's maids Maria, taking everything out of his wardrobe and putting it into suitcases. When he asks his mom why she is moving all of his clothes she tells him that they are moving out of their house for a little while. When he is told this he is very unhappy and asks why they have to move and his mother tells him because of his father's job. Bruno's father is a Nazi soldier and I am able to infer that he is of high ranking, "...leading the way towards the large dining room where the Fury had been to dinner the week before."(p. 2). This quote is showing that the Fury(meaning Hitler) had been to dinner at Bruno's house the week before. If Hitler had eaten dinner at their house then his father must have been a highly ranked officer. Bruno comes from a very wealthy family, he lives in a big house, has lots of maids, and enjoys living in Berlin amongst his friends. When Bruno and his family arrive at his new house he is very disappointed, it is small and isolated. Being a nine year old he didn't understand the situation so he told his mother the thought they should just leave and she tells him no. He is sad that they had to move and is unhappy about the new house they are living in which is when we learn about his friendship with one of the maids Maria. Bruno likes Maria and is one of his favorite maids, he feels like he can talk to her about anything. The second chapter ends with Bruno looking out the window of his bedroom and seeing something that made him feel cold and unsafe. I infer that what he sees is a concentration camp, I think this because his father is a Nazi officer. So far in this book the only problem is Bruno being disappointed with having to leave.

Flower Garden Assignment

The story Flower Garden by Shirley Jackson is a story that shows the effects that racism has on the people that surround it. The protagonist in this story is Helen Winning. A woman named Mrs. MacLane moves into the town Helen lives in with her son, Davey. They soon become friends after Helen introduces herself and offers help if Mrs. MacLane had needed any, their kids also become friends. After a few weeks Mrs. MacLane meets a boy named Billy Jones, he is half black, and half white. Mrs. MacLane decides that she needs assistance in her garden and offers Billy a job to help her with her garden. Billy accepts but the next day when he is supposed to start his father goes with him and says that he should work and not his son. Mrs. MacLane accepts, and Helen is there and sees everything. Mr. Jones starts working there every day and his son Billy becomes friends with Davey. Soon her garden begins to become beautiful, but when the entire town realizes that she has blacks at her house everyday they don’t approve. They are not friendly to her and they don’t comment on her garden anymore. Mrs. Winning has also begun to stop talking to her and they are no longer close friends like they once were, Helen also doesn’t let her kid play with Davey. The townspeople start to tell Helen that she should say something to Mrs. MacLane about having blacks at her house. As she becomes completely alienated from the rest of the town a tree falls on her garden completely ruining it leaving her unsure of whether or not she will move back to New York.

As I read this story I realized that everything that happens to Mrs. MacLane’s garden shows symbolism. When she first moves into the town everybody is very friendly with her and likes her, her garden is beautiful and has flowers everywhere. When she hires black people to work for her the garden slowly but progressively starts to get worse, her once beautiful and colorful garden starts to lose its color and becomes greyer. As everyone starts to alienate her it continues to get worse. The last straw leaving her garden destroyed is when the tree falls on her garden. I made a prediction when I finished it that she was going to go back to the city. I decided this because when Helen is looking at the garden she does not say anything and does not offer any help, she simply turns her back on Mrs. MacLane.  I think that symbolizes that Mrs. MacLane will turn her back on her garden and just go back to the city. I think that the point the author was trying to get across was to be understanding of people, and be open to what they think. I think that was the theme because in the town and time this book is set blacks are lower class citizens and even talking with them is frowned upon. Mrs. MacLane came from a place where blacks were accepted as citizens so her views were much different than those of the townspeople. I think that Shirley Jackson was trying to show that everybody at one point or another comes to be like Mrs. MacLane where they see things differently than most and we all have to learn to be accepting of that.

Using Simplicity to be Thankful for What You Already Have

By

Hunter Griffin

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, so this is always a time where you think about the things that you are thankful for. When you think about being thankful, you think about things you have, such as your iPod or your TV. Most people would be more than thankful for just something to eat. Most people see simplicity as having nothing. But I think that in the kind of community we live in, we should look at it as just living simpler and not having so many wants. Instead of constantly looking at what you don’t have, just be thankful for what you do have.

            I think that this poem, What I'm thankful for by Ila Ann, is a great example of being thankful for what you have.

(Play PowerPoint)

 I think this poem shows that you should be thankful for the things that are given to you. Instead of wanting so much, just take what is already given and enjoy that.

This week’s query is: How can you be simple by being thankful for what you already have?

The Power of Simplicity

          "It is of the highest urgency that we invent new ways of living that are sustainable......With conscious simplicity, we can seek lives that are rich with experiences, satisfaction, and learning rather than packed with things."-Duane Elgin. I chose these quotes from The Choice for Simplicity because I agree with what they state. I agree with this entire passage and not just the quotes I chose because I think we do have to find new ways to live that will make things more simple. But with this particular quote I agree because I believe that without the constant want for so much excess we would be able to have better experiences in life.
         I think that the first part of my quote I chose spoke to me so much because a lot of the stuff I have done so far in this school year reflects a lot on the constant state of our environment. I think that the way we are currently living is not okay. If we stayed more simple then there wouldn't be so many problems with our environment. I think that creating a new way of living doesn't mean completely changing the way our society is and saying goodbye to the things we love because they aren't needs. I just think that a lot of the things we do in society nowadays isn't necessarily smart, and that doing things differently would be. If we just made some changes to the way we live then our environment may heel, it is very important that we at least try because at the rate we are going many species will be extinct and the earth will be in bad condition. The way we are living is not sustainable and isn't okay, changing doesn't mean changing everything, but giving up some things that aren't really necessary.
        The second part that I quoted spoke to me in particular because I am always trying to get more satisfaction out of every opportunity that is given to me and try new things. I think that simplicity is wonderful because without the worry of so many things our minds stay clear, and give our lives much more purpose. I think that this part of the passage is about living life to the fullest and not worrying so much about the little things, and instead just to enjoy your life. I think that without so many things we would be able to live much more purposeful lives instead of worrying so much about things just try to think more simple and just enjoy what is given.
        I believe that the power of Simplicity is something that everyone should have, the constant want for so many things isn't necessary. If we lived simpler than our lives would be much clearer, and we would exceed further then we could imagine. But being simple doesn't necessarily mean giving up everything, just some things so that our lives aren't so cluttered with our wants.

Read the simplicity packet. Choose an idea from the packet and write about it. Be sure to quote the article or passage you are referring to a nd make sure you cite you source. 3 paragraphs minimum. Grammar and mechanics correct.

This I believe

This I believe

I believe that you can do anything you set your mind to and that if you try your hardest and never give up that you will do good in life. So I think that no matter how hard something is, if you get passed it things will get easier. I think that I have taught myself these beliefs because when I feel down, and I’m sad I just try to push through it because I believe after that things will get better or easier.

I think that in my life there are times where things have put me down, and made me sad, or maybe something just turned out differently than I expected. My beliefs are tested because I feel depressed and like not doing anything But this is where my beliefs come in, there is something in me that always makes me want to move on and get better. Because I know that once I am through the bad, I will arrive at something good, and that all I have to do to get to the good is push through the bad. This is why I think my beliefs will never change too much, I think there is something inside of me that makes want to get through the bad. Because I know that no matter where I am and how bad it is that if I push through it, it will get easy again and I will be happy with where I am in life.

I use this in my daily life because when I am doing something that may be hard I know that I have to try my hardest and that I will persevere if I do this. I think that without my beliefs I would let things eat at me instead of moving on. So I try to live in the present instead of the past as much as I can and not worry about what will happen in the future so much because I know that I will prevail so long as I try my hardest in whatever I am doing.

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