A Hero's Journey

 

In class, we are doing connections, and this is my slideshow for A Hero's Journey on the movie Ratatouille, which was made by Brad Bird. By using this, we learned how stories are narratively structured.

Reflection on Night

 A. Look back over all the work in the Night workspace and answer the following questions:

1. What did you learn about Judaism?

-Judaism is a religion. I also learned that it is one of the oldest monotheisic religion. In meaning that they believe that there is only one God.

2. What did you learn about the Holocaust?

-I personally have learnt a lot about this topic, I learnt about how the Jews were treated and many other innocent people that had been effected. I learnt about the camps and how badly people were treated. And I found it horrible finding out about people getting thrown into the crematorium.

3. Do you think you increased your own empathy, integrity and compassion, and how?

-I think it did, because by hearing about the things that happened that opened a door in my heart that caused me to react upset from hearing about peoples experiences.

4. Which activities did you enjoy the most?

I liked writing the essay because it allowed me to talk about my emotions.

5. What recommendations do you have for Mrs Torley to change anything if she is teaching this again next year?

-Everything that we did was interesting and good.   

Video reflection on speech techniques-Keita

My class is doing speeches and we are discovering and learning new techniques to use in our speech, our task was to write and say in our words how to write a good speech.

Essay about Night.

My class has been reading the book Night by Elie Wiesel and we have written and essay on it, we had to write about at least 3 writing techniques that had an emotional impact on us.

The Holocaust, or the annihilation of Jews, is the topic of the memoir "Night". One of the reasons Elie Wiesel wrote his memoir "Night" was to share the time he was held in Auschwitz so no one would forget about what happened in the camps. "To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." He uses language techniques, including metaphors, repetition, and first-person narration. These techniques help create images that imprint into our memories so that we remember what happened, and it made me feel connected and concerned even though I wasn't there. All of these methods truly help in bringing the book to life by allowing you to picture what it would be like to walk in his shoes. This book both astounds and repulses me because it reveals how unconcerned all the SS officers were. And it amazes me how the SS officers could just torture innocent people like that.

Elie Wiesel was only 15 years old when he and millions of Jews were deported to concentration camps. Elie and his family ended up at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland. He and thousands of others were brought from the ghettos to Auschwitz in cattle cars. Each cattle car had barely enough room for the 80 passengers who boarded it. When they arrived at the camp, at that point in time, everyone was getting divided into groups. One group was certain to die, the other group would work. From there, an SS officer would determine whether he or she was fit for forced labour. "I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever." The technique that was used was first-person narration, using the first person pronoun I. The way Elie stated this impacted me because it made me think about how I would feel later learning that the last time I saw my mother and sister was in a life or death situation. This gave me an unsettling feeling because that is no way to lose your loved ones. The whole situation was inhumane, and it was unbelievable how disinterested the SS guards were in everything.

Learning that the people thrown into the crematorium were deemed "not fit enough" would have been a horrifying experience. Babies, young children,pregnant women, and many others are killed, and for what? So that the SS had fewer Jews to deal with in the camps? Because they were commanded to do so? Just because they could? Elie described how he saw multiple babies that were in a truck get thrown into the fire and how he would never forget these petrifying experiences, "Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." This technique was repetition and sibilance. To me, repetition really imprints what the writer is saying into your head. "Never shall I forget" honestly makes me very upset because he is stating that this experience will never leave their minds. The Germans decided to murder these defenceless people. The babies hadn't done anything, the children hadn't done anything, and any sort of future they had waiting for them was taken. This was very disturbing to read as it makes me sick to my stomach that all these innocent people died just because the Germans were racists and believed that their race was superior to others. And for sibilance, the example in that text is smoke/silent/sky. I think that this was portrayed in a sad but nice way. Although it was upsetting to read, I feel that it's good to know that these young children didn't have to suffer much longer.

Not too far into the book, Elie started talking about all the hangings that started happening, although there was one hanging that affected him and many others the most; "Three prisoners in chains--and, among them, the little pipel, the sad-eyed angel... That night, the soup tasted of corpses." That was the hanging of the pipel. The reason for his hanging was that he was caught with weapons and helped ruin an electricity plant that supplied energy to hurt prisoners. It wasn't a small matter to hang children in front of thousands of people. The technique used in this was two metaphors: "sad-eyed angel" and "tasted of corpses." He was described as a sad-eyed angel because he was compared to an angel and had done nothing wrong. And "tasted of corpses" meant that all that night, all people could think about was his death. These metaphors had an emotional effect on me because the fact that young children and adults are being hanged upsets me, and making people witness the hangings of children and other individuals is such a cruel thing. Although everything the Germans did was awful , they didn't have to make people's lives more difficult by forcing them to witness the deaths of the individuals they cared about. I would never forget it if I had seen something so heinous.

In the end, once the camp was liberated, Elie survived and was put into a hospital. In his memoir, he wrote about getting up one day to look in the mirror and seeing a corpse. After what happened, he refers to himself as a corpse since he feels lifeless on the inside and out. "Although I left Flossenbürg as soon as I could, Flossenbürg never left me. For us former inmates, the events of our past became the foundation of our lives. " This quote is said by Jack Terry, and it represents the people who were in the camps and how this impacted them for the rest of their lives. Some didn't want to return to their homes because they were scared of antisemitism (hatred of Jews). And in Poland, there were a few anti-Jewish riots, so I understand how hard it must have been for Jews even after the war. Due to the memoir's techniques, I felt a lot of pity for those who had gone through everything in the camp, and it helped contribute to how I felt about the war. To me, in this book, I understand that in war, most people fight and stand for themselves, and it's quite rare for people to stay and help their families. This memoir taught me a lot about the war, how much the Jews suffered, and how the media portrayed it as less brutal than it actually was.        

Poem- Night 14.9.22

It's not something I've ever experienced.

The smell of gas.

The cries of children.

The blank eyed-stare.

It's not something I've ever experienced.

My silver necklace taken from my neck.

My home becoming the ghetto.

My every step watched by people with guns.

It's not something I've ever experienced.

Families, friends, strangers shot at, killed and murdered.

Having to have a gold star on my chest to point out differences.

Wondering if I will be alive tomorrow.

That's not something I've ever experienced.

And I hope I never will.

By Keita

In class we had to write a poem about what we have learnt about the holocaust, I wrote the things that I found horrifying and how I hope I will never experience.

Elie Wiesels life after the war- 4.8.2022

 

Elie's life after the war

Here are some answers to some questions i thought and wondered about. And i put all of them onto a slideshow.

Elie Aged 16

Near the end of the book Elie felt like all hope was gone, at the end he saw himself in the mirror and he described it as if he was looking at a corpse. 

He had now matured, his family were gone now and Elie now had a different view on life and even though his freedom was taken away and his family and friends, i'm sure he was now grateful that he was free and no longer had to have his every move watched.

It made me feel super upset there was so many unnecessary things that they did, like hanging people in front of others, babies, old and sick and children getting thrown into the crematorium.

Some of the main things that made me upset was that probably that a lot of people got hanged and that many people died for no reason. Although everything that the people in the camps went through were horrifying.

It made me feel a lot better when Elie got out of the camp, and although it was sad that Elie's father died, it made me feel a bit better that he was put out of his misery.

It made me think that peoples attitudes are different depending on who they meet or encounter.

Like if the soldiers did not believe everything Hitler was saying would they still obey orders?

I think that you should always be grateful for what you have and help people in need in anyway you can.