Blog for book passage

Rianna, Anthony Portera, Christian, Alex

"Saturday, the day of rest, was the day chosen for our expulsion.

      The night before, we had sat down to the traditional Friday

night meal. We had said the customary blessings over the bread and the

wine and had swallowed the food in silence. We sensed the that we were

gathered around the familial table for the last time. I spent that

night going over memories and ideas and was unable to sleep that

night."

    This passage explains how important religion was to Moshie the

Beatle and the rest of his family members, very well knowingly they

could be in danger. Friday night services, also known as the holiday

of Shabbat, is a resting day where families and friends should come

together to enjoy a meal and pray. The characters in this story wanted

to come together to enjoy their last meal together not knowing the

darkness that lies ahead of them. There was no way to know how many

lives would be lost, or the horrendous events that would take place,

but this family took advantage of the time they had left. During this

time period, religious beliefs were stronger than ever and they wanted

to keep their Jewish faith alive, as displayed here in this passage.

This piece of writing may be overlooked, but displays importance in

the characters' beliefs, which might be important later on in the

novel.

Were Jews able to escape concentration camps? If so, how many and what was the outcome?

Concentration camps were a horrible place and it was probably just as difficult to tolerate the agony of being inside rather than finding a way to escape. It's hard to just think about how they could withhold the terror and scary situations they had to wake up to every single day. Some even driving them to insanity and others thinking there was a way out. They did not want to be toretured and finally decided to try to escape. It must have been a hard task because of how many soldiers there were and how much protection, tramps etc was set around the camp. As well as surprise gas showers, they never knew when they went inside and could have been killed hours before their escape plan. It sure isn't an easy thing to do, but some had to have made it out. There is also fifty-fifty chance that they made it and got away or they didn't and got caught again. Some even escaped the camps before getting inside but all were eventually found one way or another. According to new research, over 764 Jews jumped from nazi trains. Some even were angered at them because they were scared for themselves. Many would use clever ways to be able to escape like prying open bars of the train to jump off and then successfully fleeing away, others would leave on nightfall. A handful of Jews were able to cheat death by escaping and managing to stay out of harms way. I chose this question because a lot of Jews were killed and it is fascinating to know that some were able to get out. The stories they share and that some would still have hope that they would get out of that desperation.