Group Leader Response LC #1

1.       Critical Stance

Not knowing that the Jews were being relocated to concentration camps set all over the country, they remained calm and came to terms with it because they were misguided of the fact that they were told they were going to be safe. Slowly, after noticing their hope dying down, they had to learn how to adjust with their ties and privileges being cut off quickly with no notice at all.

2.       Dialectical Journal Entries

Page 32

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night.”

“Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”

These two quotes from the book has a repetition of the first four words which emphasizes the fact of what he’s seen and experienced throughout the first few days of the concentration camp is etched into his mind and will never be erased and forgotten. No matter how hard he tries. We don’t take into consideration of the fact that he’s our age and he goes through all that while we just read and try to imagine it ourselves. The difference being that we’re stuck with the thought of it while he’s in stuck with the experience.

Page 37

“Had I changed so much then? So quickly? Now remorse began to gnaw at me.”

While being at the concentration camp, he slowly realizes that he himself changes as well. Both physically and mentally. He would’ve jumped at the moment his father got hit, but he never did. In other words, what’s important about this quote is the fact that he’s changing at the camp before he realizes it.

“A caption: “Warning. Danger of death.” Mockery: was there a single place here where you were not in danger of death?”

The importance of this quote is the indeed mockery of it. The situation he’s in shows that even though he’s in the worst case scenario thought possible, he could add in a tiny, small ounce of humor. Being that fact that it’s a life/death situation, he goes on and sees what god and fate has for him.

Page 39

“I became A-7713. After that I had no other name.”

They were not only stripped of their important valuables in the beginning, they were now known as letters and/or numbers. The lost their identity seeing that they were not human beings in the eyes of the Germans anymore.