Night: How Elie Changed

2/24/2016

John Zalazinski 

One of the first major changes is Elie's belief in his religion. How it first unravels is when he suffers so much in the concentration camps that he doesn't even believe God can help him. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust." He suffered so much he didn't have the will to ask God, and figured he can trudge along the problems he was going through without him. 

Elie had an even harder time believing in his religion towards the middle of Night. After the hanging of two adults two Jewish adults asked where is God, and he answered with, "He is hanging here on this gallows....." This explicitly states that Elie thinks his God is completely dead. Which would also mean Elie would almost no longer rely on him.

Another major change that I noticed in Elie is the connection between him and his father. Throughout the book they go through so much, thick and thin. They had a link that was special, as if the role of father and child were reversed, Elie was mostly taking care of his father. That's why it is heartbreaking when his father unfortunately parishes. "After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more." This quote means that no matter happens nothing can motivate to go on.

Night Blog

                                                                       Elie Wiesel

2/18/16

Prompt: If you could talk to the author, what questions would you ask? Why?

John Zalazinski 

The first question I would ask is, "How did the people who you interacted with affected you for your life?" I would ask this because if I was around people who suffered greatly it would take me a long time after that experience to recuperate. For example, when he saw the two men's corpses hung on a rope, that would be extremely traumatizing for me, and I wouldn't be able to understand how anybody can live a normal life with that memory stuck in their head. I would wonder how much time it would take to recover or if you could recover at all. I feel like a Holocaust survivor like Elie Wiesel, would know best because of how much he has grown the years after the events of the Holocaust. 

The second question I would ask would be “Was there any possible lessons you may have learned throughout that experience.” I would ask this question because when you go through an experience that will change you for the rest of your life, you'd naturally take something out of it. No longer taking something for granted, or even being more thankful for a certain thing, place, person, etc. My best guess is that he would definitely be more thankful for a warm meal, family, and for his freedom. He wouldn't have been able to tell us about the experiences if he didn't take something out of it.

The third and last question I would ask him would be "Do you remember the first thing that came to mind when it was all over." I would ask him this because that would be moment when all of the weight is off your soldiers and it would be a event by itself. Elie was free again after the longest time, and he most likely had starting over on his mind because after events like that you want to go back to a regular life immediately, but you can't.

Holocaust AoW Impressions Blog

2/14/16

John Zalazinski

Although some were informative, some articles were unique and unexpected. A great example of this would be Paolo's article on how a Holocaust survivor would teach kids. A man who had a wealthy family before the Holocaust and is now teaching kids with a tub full of chocolate. I never really thought that was possible, for me, teaching youth with a tub full of chocolate would be incredibly difficult, and hard to interpret how to.

Some articles to me were also very shocking. One out of the two examples would be Yareli's article about concentration camps. The article basically stated that researchers have found out due to interviewing about 40 people that there is around 42,500 concentration camps total. Then that there was Emily's article about how the Holocaust survivors may have been facing a greater risk of schizophrenia. Those who faced the holocaust directly have a 41% chance higher of developing schizophrenia, and people who face it indirectly would have a 29% higher chance of  developing schizophrenia. To me, that was really shocking and I didn't know that affected them that much that they would have or develop dual personalities and have to live with that for who knows how long.

"The Closed Town" by Anonymous (Side 2)

"The Closed Town" by Anonymous (Side 1)

"The Closed Town

Everything leans, like tottering, hunched old women.

Every eye shines with fixed waiting
and for the word, "when?"

Here there are few soldiers.
Only shot-down birds tell of war.

You believe every bit of news you hear.

The buildings now are fuller,
Body smelling close to body,
And the garrets scream with light for long, long hours.

This evening I walked along the street of death.
On one wagon, they were taking the dead away.

Why have so many marches been drummed here?

Why so many soldiers?

Then
A week after the end,
Everything will be empty here.
A hungry dove will peck for bread.
In the middle of the street will stand
An empty, dirty
Hearse.

--Anonymous
Commented On: Justin R. Nick F. Joseph H.
  

Berlin Memorial Blog

2/3/16

Berlin Memorial Blog

John Zalazinski

What I learned is that as Hitler grew in power the restrictions for Jews grew constantly. Many of them were really not fair, examples of this would be the Jews not being able to take their pets with them, or not being able to be a Jewish actor or actress. Starting off with the pet restriction law, they lost an extension of their family, and really never knew what happened to him or her, sometimes without even getting to say goodbye. A man refused to go without his bird and as a result he got killed by Hitler's men. As acting being a restriction, some Jewish actors and actresses never got to show their full potential as an actor or actress, and wasn't really expressed their love for what they really liked to do. 

I think the monument was built to remember what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust and what they lost during it. The musical notes to me are really self explanatory to what their meaning is to be on that sign. They are there because there was most likely a large portion of the Jewish community was passionate about music and unfortunately lost their lives in the Holocaust. The sign, translated into English, says, "Jews are at the Bavarian space using only the yellow marked benches," my best guess is that those benches were used to indicate which people were Jews during the Holocaust so the Nazis who needed to be taken away.

I feel more laws were passed when Hitler was and/or felt more powerful. When he first started in  1933, he was passed 12 laws restricting Jews from multiple hobbies and jobs. In 1938, he definitely felt powerful because he was Time Magazine's person of the year, so he passed 18 laws in one year, some examples are, revoking Jews of their driver's license, Jews can no longer be members of the German Red Cross, and Jewish doctors can no longer practice. It was also the year that "The Night Of Broken Glass" occurred, Hitler's army destroyed Jewish communities and massacred many Jews that night. Then in the years 1942 - 1945 was when Hitler was fully in power. He was passing laws that were strongly unfair. A huge example of a strongly unfair law would be that Jews were not allowed to have milk, so couldn't get even somewhat the protein that was necessary for a normal human being.

I think the restrictions that would be the most trouble dealing with would be the Jews not being able to emigrate and Jews not being allowed to use a public cellphone. The reason for emigration being hard to deal with is that Jews would not be able to get to safety from being sent to a concentration camp or any other danger for that matter. Jews not being allowed to use a public cellphone would be hard to deal with because of no simple communication. They would not be able to call for help or even say a quick goodbye.