Sunday, February 27, 2011

Thing a Day: 25.9

I know that today is actually the 27th but this is actually a continuation of Day 25.

This is a very sad topic but I do have many Jewish friends who may want to see this as well as other people that have read the book without "having to".





Here is a copy of my 13 year old son's Project for Elie Wiesel's Night...And he didn't make me wait for it to get graded after I told him how good I thought it was.


Foreign Jews deported by the government
Rail cars intercepted by the German Gestapo
Forced under gunpoint into digging mass graves
For themselves
The babies used as target practice



Germany invades Hungary
Nice, with much freedom
Then starts an anti-Semitic presence
Forced to stay in homes
Arrests of Jewish leaders
Gold, silver, money, watches, other valuables
All taken away
All Jews marked by their own star
With the threat of death on not wearing them



Moved to live behind the barbed wire fences
Kept prisoner in their own neighborhoods
Then forced to abandon all possessions
And march into cattle cars
Eighty in each one



Oppressive heat
Little breathable air
Darkness everywhere
Not enough room to sit down
So they sleep standing
Germans nail the doors shut
People become lunatics
As they near the destination
Fire can be seen through the small windows
And the smell of burning flesh moves through the car



The arrivals step out of the train car after it enters Auschwitz
And proceed towards processing at Birkenau
The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele leads the “selection”
Making the “good” live to work
And the “bad” to get executed with gaseous pesticide in false showers
And cremated in open pits
Those too old and too young, get killed
Those ill, insane, crippled, disabled in any way, get killed
Others that do not meet Nazi standards, get killed



They are forced to take off their clothing
Then every part of their body shaved
The hair used for textiles
They are showered
They are disinfected with gasoline
They are clothed in prison uniforms
They are now homogenized
Alike in their suffering and torture



They are forced to walk under gunpoint
Through villages
At an almost leisurely pace
Until they arrive at the work camp
Auschwitz III
Buna



Stripped of all valuables
Even gold teeth
And sometimes shoes
Forced to work to support the Nazi cause
Beaten by their superiors and other prisoners
Some are transferred away
Others given twenty lashes for occurrences that are not even crimes
Their possessions consist of eating utensils
Living in fear of American air raids
German-led executions
The constant threat of “selection”
And the omnipresent danger of death



No one knows whether to stay or to leave
Staying means liberation
Or possibly certain death
Leaving means if one survives the transit
He does not face certain death
Marching through the dark and snow
The SS with orders to shoot all that stop
Sons abandoning fathers
Forty-two miles of torture
Ending at a deserted village
Where the prisoners are allowed to rest
And where sleep is the cruelest enemy



From there they march to Gleiwitz
Three days without sustenance
They are herded into cattle cars
Sans roofs
One hundred in each one
When passing through towns
People throw in bread
The prisoners fight to the death
Less than twenty leave each car



People fall very ill in the barracks
And do not leave until it is time for their cremation
On April 5, the murder of Jews begins
On April 10, it stops
On April 11, the prisoners are prisoners no longer
The starved eat and drink
Finally free



4 comments:

  1. Amazing. Very well done. Great job!

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  2. Thanks C. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm very proud of his work here.

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  3. That made me cry. The most horrible atrocities ever done to humans.

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