End of book: Night

The memoir of Elie Wiesel was all in all, very emotional, historical as well as interesting to read about.  Although the topic of the book was over a tragedy (the holocaust), it was told in a very unique and impressive manner; first-hand experience. The story itself presented the pain and anguish of a boy who from the age of twelve to sixteen practically grew up in the time of the Holocaust. Early on in the story, Elie and his family were taken from their safe life to all over Poland/Germany in concentration camps. During the beginning of their travels, the men and women were separated; Elie would never see his mom and sisters ever again.  The horror brought by the Nazis was painted very well in Wiesel’s memoir, showing the true savageness and cruelty behind the time period. Overall, I feel the memoir Night was very well written; although at times different to understand to language barriers, and all things considered quite enjoyable to read. 

Blog 2- Part 1 & 2

Part 1:

The relationship between Elie and his father at this point in the story is starting to dwindle down. It's not that Elie and his father are avoiding each other or hating each other, but it seems that Elie's father really seems to be physically drained and cannot seem to handle the 'experience' anymore and does not seem to have the energy to keep going with life. "What are we going to do?", said Elie (My father didn't answer). "What are we going to do?", said Elie (He was lost in thought). This really showed how Elie truly started to not consider his father's lead and some doubt of how far they'd go together kicked in.

Part 2:

Elie was contained at the worst concentration camps during the Holocaust; Auschwitz. Auschwitz all in all, had a death rate of over 1.1 million people; Jews as well as minorities or "imperfect people". The concentration camp was located in Oświęcim, Poland; being set up after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. The camp was operational from May 1940- January 1945, after Soviet troops liberated it on January 27, 1945. Auschwitz was ran with an "iron fist" to keep German control over the prisoners. Throughout the camp and its sub-camps; nearly 20,000 people were cremated or gassed in a single day. Also, prisoners were even tested on such as: how long a person can stay awake before death; by the "Angel of Death", Dr. Josef Mengele, demonstrating the true torture and pain brought during the Holocaust.

Blog Part 1-2

Part 1: 

All in all, Mrs. Schacter was a very valuable character to the story, due to her fear and paranoia she projected onto the other characters. Mrs. Schacter was brought into the story as they are all on the convoys getting transported to the concentration camps. She overall was delirious on the trip; claiming to see fire at every turn. However, although the other passengers were in disbelief of her "craziness", her paranoia seemed to prove true after all. As the convoy turned into Auschwitz, her fellow prisoners found that there was indeed a fire for bodies to be cremated, and it was then when all the passengers became afraid of what was to come. Mrs. Schacter represented the fear as well as the pain that was soon to come to the Jewish people during the Holocaust, and her character really helped change the mood of the story into complete fear. A man came up to Elie and his father and said "poor devils, you are heading for the crematorium"; really emphasizing her initial fear that she brought to the group. 

Part 2:

Elie had a gold crown filling in his tooth, which proved to be a good source of money for the Nazis. So as prisoners arrived to Auschwitz, prisoners were forced to give up their riches, gold, silver or jewelry. Elie proved to be somewhat stubborn about his filling and decided to fake sick to avoid the dentist. However it was pointless, the new dentist was not sympathetic to the "sick" boy. But luckily he seemed to avoid the pulling after much work. As Elie was in prison and was tired of the criticism that was given to him as he began to teach his father, he took a rusty spoon and removed his "stubborn" gold crown filling.  

Part 1:

    Throughout my life I have been taught about the holocaust and the overall damage brought by it. I learned that roughly 6-7 million Jews as well as minorities and countless other "lesser people" (at least viewed like that to the Nazis) were killed. I know that Adolf Hitler led the Nazi party and overall hated those who were not blonde haired, blue eyed and he hated Jews. I also know that as history has shown us Hitler himself was an Austrian Jew raising questions on why he developed his hatred towards Jews and others.


Part 2:

Image 1-

• Cold
• Children standing behind barbed wire
• Sadness

     Keyword: Captive

Image 2-

• Pained
• Starved
• Pained men
• Cramped together

     Keyword: Malnourished

Image 3-

• Pile of glasses only assuming burned corpses
• Tons of glasses meaning tons of deaths
• Torture
• Pained
• Slaughtered

     Keyword: Death

Video-

• Pain
• Blood dripping away from a dying man
• Concentration camp
• Kid and man getting shot
• Girl hiding under bed
• People boarding a train

     Keyword: Fear

Part 3:

   The captives of Hitler's persecution were treated with nothing but disrespect and were tortured and killed exemplifying the severity of his overall final solution. 

Reflection Blog

     As a whole, I feel I have done very well in Senior Comp so far. Aside from a few hiccups I had with participation, I have received nearly 100% on all my assignments and work. Although on some vocab quizzes I have made a few mistakes, I am nearly flawless in my work and assignments. I got a 99% on the reflective narrative essay; after putting copious amounts of effort into it, I feel very proud of my writings and knowledge got in this class.

     The scholarship assignment  I feel was very well composed and good enough to possibly earn me a scholarship. My narrative essay in my mind was one of my best writings I have produced in high school and was graded appropriately at 99%.

     The class blog is helpful to keep me up to date with what is going on as well as missing assignments in class, and I find it very useful.

    All in all, I feel that I am doing very well in this class as of now with my 102%, and other than a few minor mistakes I really don't think that I am doing much wrong in this class overall.