Comparing Texts
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Freedom
What does freedom mean to you?
Write a list of all the words, images and ideas that come to
mind when you hear the word freedom.
Do you agree with these?
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Writers
Two writers who suffered a lack of freedom were Primo
Levi and Anne Frank. They are both important literary
figures, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during
World War Two.
Both were imprisoned because they were Jewish.
Do you know what the collective term for the murder
of the Jews during WW2 is?
The Holocaust
Do you know anything about the lives of Primo Levi or
Anne Frank?
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Anne Frank
Anne Frank is famous for her diary which she started
writing in 1942 on her thirteenth birthday. Just weeks
later the Nazis intensified their persecution of the Jews.
Anne went into hiding with her parents and sister in the
sealed-off back rooms of an Amsterdam office building
Anne’s diary was published in 1947, three years after her
death in a concentration camp at Belsen in 1944.
Anne’s diary is a true and constantly changing text which
chronicles her difficult life on a daily basis.
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Primo Levi
Primo Levi was a young Jewish chemist from Turin, Italy.
He fought against the Nazis until his capture in 1943,
when he was sent to a detention camp at Fossoli.
On February 22 1944, at the age of twenty five, Levi was
transported to Auschwitz. Of the 650 people sent there
that day, only three returned to Italy alive. One of them
was Primo Levi.
Soon after his liberation, Primo Levi wrote two books
about his ordeal; If This is a Man and The Truce. Later
Levi wrote more novels, stories and essays.
Levi died in Turin in 1987.
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Anne Frank’s diary
Here is an extract from Anne Frank’s diary.
Jews must wear a yellow star, Jews must hand in their
bicycles, Jews are banned from trams and forbidden to
drive. Jews are only allowed to do their shopping between
three and five o’clock and then only in shops which bear
the placard ‘Jewish shop’. Jews must be indoors by eight
o’clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that
hour. Jews are forbidden to visit theatres, cinemas, and
other places of entertainment. Jews may not take part in
public sports. Swimming baths, tennis courts, hockey
fields, and other sports grounds are all prohibited to them.
Jews may not visit Christians. Jews must go to Jewish
schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.
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Memory test!
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Primo Levi’s memoir
Here is an extract from the memoir of Primo Levi, If This
is a Man.
My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will
carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die… We are
slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult,
condemned to certain death, but we still possess one
power and we must defend it with all our strength for it is
the last – the power to refuse our consent. Se we must
certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and
dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes,
not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and
propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet,
not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive,
not to begin to die…
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Primo Levi’s memoir
…precisely because the Lager was a great machine to
reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; even in
this place one can survive, and therefore one must want
to survive, to tell their story, to bear witness; and to
survive we must force ourselves to save at least the
skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization.
How can you tell that Primo Levi is not free?
In what ways does Levi suggest that the people can
continue to express their freedom?
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Anne Frank’s diary
Here is another extract from Anne Frank’s diary:
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or
unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be
quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because
only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that
God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple
beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly
always will, I know that then there will always be comfort
for every sorrow… I long for freedom and fresh air, but I
believe now that we have ample compensation for our
privations. Riches can all be lost, but that happiness in
your heart can only be veiled, and it will still bring you
happiness again, as long as you live…
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Anne Frank’s diary
…I want to go on living even after my death! And
therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this
possibility of developing myself and of writing, of
expressing all that is in me.
I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows
disappear, my courage is reborn.
What does Anne Frank feel about her situation?
What does she look to for happiness?
Has she any solution to her problems?
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Primo Levi’s memoir
Compare the previous extract with this one, again from
Primo Levi’s memoir.
Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen.
Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the
Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years
old and is going to the gas chamber the day after
tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at
the light without saying anything and without even
thinking anymore? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time
it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what
has happened today is an abomination, which nothing at
all in the power of man can ever clean again?
If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer.
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Primo Levi’s memoir
What is Kuhn thanking God he has not been
chosen for?
Why is Levi angry with Kuhn?
What does Levi mean when he says that, ‘If I was
God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer’?
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Comparing texts
What is the difference in tone between Anne
Frank’s diary and Primo Levi’s memoir?
Why do you think this may be the case?
What solutions, if any, do the writers propose to
their problems?
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Comparing texts
Which writer do you find the most engaging?
Justify your choice with reasons:
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