The Odessa File Sparknotes

Over the past couple of week I have been reading the book Prisoner B-3087 which is a book about a Jewish boy named Yanek Gruener during WWII. Yanek was very young at the start of the war, around 10, and he lived in Poland his whole life in a flat apartment. He was growing up with Germans approaching him. His father always said that they would never reach them, but one day they did. The Nazis came marching in, took over the city and built a wall with gates so no one could leave. The let out all the non Jews and kept pushing more jewish families into the “Ghetto”. When the Ghetto started to fill up the Nazis would soon start killing people and taking them to the concentration camps. Yanek’s family soon started to be taken in trucks off to

Many Americans Have read Night by Elie Wiesel. The book tells his experience at the german concentration camps. Another story, through a less known is David Faber.

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 is book written by the British military historian, Antony Beevor. Stalingrad covers the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Stalingrad was a city in Russia where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fought for control. This was part of Adolf Hitler’s plan to crush the Soviet Union and extend his Third Reich into Russian territory. The battle lasted from August 1942 to February 1943. However, the battle ended up with the destruction of the entire German 6th army and with a victory for the Soviet Union. Beevor has won three awards for this book. I wish to give brief summaries of the five sections of the book and give reviews on their main content.

Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eye­wit­ness Account by Dr. Mik­lós Nyis­zlI is a non-fiction mem­oir of a Jew­ish Hun­gar­ian med­ical doc­tor who per­formed alongside Dr. Josef Mengele in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz from 1944-45 to conduct “research” on Jews. This book is a lot to swallow and doesn’t beat around the bush, it’s straight to the point.

Mansur Abdulin takes his experiences on the front ranks and shares them in great detail in his book Red Road From Stalingrad. By describing all the things that are happening in the day to day combat, Abdulin is also giving the readers a glimpse at himself. He tells of mental and physical aspects of battle and shows how it effects all involved. His descriptions and feelings bring the readers into his mind and heart and they see the real Abdulin. His intent is to show and share the “real” life of war and battle. He cares for the cause and is a strong passionate Soviet soldier; however he also creates a different kind of hero by letting his loyalty and conscience to be his guide.

The Holocaust was a genocide that occured from 1933-1945, and one of its survivors was Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal was an architect before he was captured by the Nazis. After he was set free, he dedicated his life to finding Nazi war criminals and persecuting them in court. Later on in his life, he wrote a memoir, The Sunflower. It was about one of his many experiences at the Lemberg concentration camp where he got roped in to listening to a dynig SS soldier, Karl. Right before, Wiesenthal leaves Karl’s room, Karl asks for Wiesenthal, on behalf of all the Jews he persecuted, for forgiveness. Wiesenthal left Karl’s room without forgiving him, and then asks the readers, “ What would I have done?” At the end of The Sunflower, people who Wiesenthal picked to respond to his question, had their answers published. The most interesting response was Jose Hobday’s. Hobday believed that Wiesenthal should have apologized to Karl because it would have given Karl a sense of peace, making it easier for him to pass on. Hobday has the correct answer to Wiesenthal’s question because even though all of the Jews that Karl persecuted are dead and will not be able to apologize to him in person, Karl just wants someone to know that he is sorry for his actions.

Perrett, Anna. “Students Learn First Hand\Holocaust Survivor Recounts Ordeal”. Atlanta Journal-Constitution[Atlanta, GA] Gale 28 February 2002, Infotrac Newsstand, galegroup.com March 16

During the last days in Buchenwald camp, the Germans starts evacuating the Jews through killing them in

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Night by Elie Wiesel are two tragic stories about the experience of these Holocaust survivors during the horrors of the second world war. In the 1940’s it was a very difficult time for Jews who were victimized by the German Nazis and sent to concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, where conditions were worse than imaginable. Elie first entered a concentration camp when he was 12, along with his father, mother, and three sisters. Levi, an Italian jew, was 24 when he was sent to the camps for participating in a resistance group, but unlike Wiesel, did not have his family by his side. Levi, despite his bitter character, acquires hope from the humanity and compassion of others while Wiesel, even with his strong relationship with his father, can't maintain his desire to hope for survival or alliances.

"It was crying and praying. So long we survived. And now we waited only that they shoot, because we had not else to do" (267). This quote from the end of the novel ironically describes what the Jewish people endured after the concentration camps. Vladek Spieglman among other suffered through traumatic experiences; though Vladek certainly did survive the holocaust, old Vladek did not. Post-Holocaust it is revealed by Spieglman that his father, Vladek, develops two personalities—before and after the concentration camps. Vladek’s post-holocaust life was haunted by the horrors he witnessed while being in the concentration camps; he went from a young, handsome resourceful man to a miserable, old man who does nothing but complain.

This book is very educating about the history of the concentration camps and Holocaust. “…The spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread...the old man was crying, ‘Meir, my

“The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942” is about a man remembering what

Frankl endured much suffering during his time in the concentration camp. All of his possessions were taken away, including his manuscript in which he recorded all of his life's work. He went through rough manual labor, marching through freezing temperatures, and little or no

This is the environment that many, including Lev and Kolya, grew up in, and these are the experiences they had to endure. Benioff has done his research, and it shows; the things that are happening in the story were based off of experiences the author has taken from real life. Lev talks about the lack of food and starvation in the city, mentioning that the rumours of people eating their family pets may have been true. He also mentions the ration bread being made out of sawdust because in the book and in real life, bakers had to get creative and come up with ways to make bread without their usual ingredients. The history of Leningrad is an important connection in regard to the novel because it wasn’t fictional, but a real place. The story gives

There is a part where we watch as humans are so ugly that it is hard for us to imagine that what they had done is possible. Liesel is playing soccer in the park and all of a sudden all the kids stop because of a noise they hear coming down the street. They think it could be a herd of cattle, but that not what it is. It is a group of Jewish people being led, or forced, to the death camps by German soldiers. On there way we watch a man die “He was dead. The man was dead. Just give him five minutes and he would surely fall into the German gutter and die. They would all let him, and they would all watch”(Zusak 393). This is talking about how when a Jewish person would die, the Germans wouldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t care that a man died right in front of them. While the Jews are walking Hans, Liesel adopted father, gives them bread. While Hans is giving this man bread a German soldier notices what is going on. He walks over to the man and, “The Jew was whipped six times. On his back, his heart, and