The Holocaust
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
One of the most realistic depictions of the Holocaust is the autobiography
entitled NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. Please click the link to go to the website.
Questions for NIGHT
1. In the Preface to the New Translation, please read the first two pages.
2. What four possible reasons did he give as to why he wrote the book, Night?
a.
b.
c.
d.
3. Elie Wiesel believed that as a witness, he had a moral obligation to do what?
4. On page 6, what happened to the foreign Jews?
5. What was the story told about the foreign Jews?
6. What really happened to Moishe and the foreign Jews? (still on the same page)
7. What page 6, what does Moishe try to tell the people?
8. On page 9, who showed up in the town of Sighet?
9. It says that these people were “billeted” in private homes. Define billeted.
10. On page 11, what were the Jews required to do?
11. What was Elie’s father’s response to this?
12. What did the new edicts say? (same page)
13. What came “next?”
14. On page 13, it says that the ghetto was to be “liquidated.” What does this mean?
The Concentration Camps
The most lethal and most well known Nazi
concentration camps include:
•
•Bergen-Belsen
•Dachau
Auschwitz
Auschwitz
One of the most ruthless, if not the ruthless
concentration camp, was at Auschwitz. About 1.1
million people died here. Many artifacts of these
people still survive.
Questions over Auschwitz
1. Name four artifacts that they list on this site.
a.
b.
c.
d.
2. What are clogs?
3. What was the dress made out of?
4. What did the prisoner uniform consist of?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Experiments at Auschwitz
One of the most notorious deeds committed at
Auschwitz were the experiments done on living
people. Experiments were performed on twins,
the elderly, the maim, and many other people.
Many of the experiments were overseen by Doctor
Josef Mengele.
Dr. Josef
Mengele
A Story from Dr. Josef Mengele’s Assistant
"In number one's crematorium's gas chamber 3,000 dead bodies were piled up. The Sonderkommando had already begun to untangle the lattice of
flesh ... The chief of the gas chamber kommando almost tore the hinges off the door to my room as he arrived out of breath, his eyes wide with fear or
surprise. "Doctor," he said, "come quickly. We just found a girl alive at the bottom of a pile of corpses."
I grabbed my instrument case, which was always ready, and dashed to the gas chamber. Against the wall, near the entrance to the immense room, half
covered with other bodies, I saw a girl in the throes of a death rattle, her body seized with convulsions. The gas kommando men around me were in a state of
panic. Nothing like this had ever happened in the course of their horrible career.
We moved the still-living body from the corpses pressing against it. I gathered the tiny adolescent body into my arms and carried it back to the room
adjoining the gas chamber ... I laid the body on a bench. A frail young girl, almost a child, she could have been no more than fifteen.
I took out my syringe and, taking her arm - she had not yet recovered consciousness and was breathing with difficulty - I administered three intravenous
injections. My companions covered her body which was as cold as ice with a heavy overcoat. One ran to the kitchen to fetch some tea and warm broth.
Everybody wanted to help as if she were his own child.
The reaction was swift. The child was seized by a fit of coughing which brought up a thick globule of phlegm from her lungs. She opened her eyes and looked
fixedly at the ceiling. I kept a close watch for every sign of life. Her breathing became deeper and more and more regular. Her lungs, tortured by the gas,
inhaled the fresh air avidly. Her pulse became perceptible, the result of the injections. I waited impatiently. I saw that within a few minutes she was going to
regain consciousness: her circulation began to bring color back into her cheeks, and her delicate face became human again ...
I made a sign for my companions to withdraw. I was going to attempt something I knew without saying was doomed to failure ... From our numerous
contacts, I had been able to ascertain that Mussfeld had a high esteem for the medical expert's professional qualities ... And this was the man I had to deal
with, the man I had to talk into allowing a single life to be spared.
I calmly related the terrible case we found ourselves confronted with. I described for his benefit what pains the child must have suffered in the undressing
room, and the horrible scenes that preceded death in the gas chamber. When the room had been plunged into darkness, she had breathed in a few lungfuls of
Zyklon gas. Only a few, though, for her fragile body had given way under the pushing and shoving of the mass as they fought against death. By chance she had
fallen with her face against the wet concrete floor. That bit of humidity had kept her from being asphyxiated, for Zyklon gas does not react under humid
conditions.
These were my arguments, and I asked him to do something for the child. He listened to me attentively then asked me exactly what I proposed doing. I saw by
his expression that I had put him face to face with a practically impossible problem. "There's no way of getting round it," Mussfeld said, "the child will have to die."
Half an hour later the young girl was led, or rather carried, into the furnace room hallway, and there Mussfeld sent another in his place to do the job. A bullet
in the back of the neck ..."
Questions on the Josef Mengele story above
Please read the story all the way through before answering the
questions.
1. How many dead bodies were piled in the gas chambers?
2. What did they find in the pile?
3. What was she having difficulty doing?
4. What did the others do to try to revive her?
5. What kept her from being asphyxiated?
6. What ultimately happened to the girl?
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the chemical
agent used in the gas
chambers at Auschwitz and
others. Originally, it used as
a pesticide.
Questions on Zyklon B
In five to six sentences, summarize the first three
paragraphs on the link above.
I would really NOT recommend reading further on this site
unless you have a really strong stomach.
Bergen-Belsen
Anne Frank
One of the most famous
prisoners at Bergen-Belsen
was the young author and
diarist, Anne Frank. Anne, a
teenage girl from the
Netherlands, wrote in her
diary:
“In spite of everything I still
believe that people are really
good at heart.”
Dachau