Fatelessness: Chapter 2

 

1.- What characters are introduced?
Uncles Willie and Lajos


2.- Choose two characters and select a quote to describe them physically and psychologically
Uncle Lajos: psychologically; page 29, 1st paragraph
Annamarie: psychologically; page 33, 1st paragraph


3.- What is the narrative technique? Provide evidence
1st person and shown throughout the chapter, by mentioning himself as I and not as another character.


4. Describe the setting of this chapter
Summer, workplace, Fleichmann’s place, Georg’s place, war time.


Analyze the following quote (p.28)


"The workplace is in Csepel at a company called The "Shell Petroleum Refinery Works" As a result, I have actually acquired a privilege of sorts, since under any other circumstances those wearing  yellow stars are prohibited from traveling outside the city limits. I, however, was handed legitimate identity papers, bearing the official stamp of the war production commander, which provide that i "may cross the Csepel customs borderline."


What can you say about the perspective and mood of the narrator in this extract, and how is it in contrast with the title of the book?
In this situation, the narrator feels empowered at the moment he got the identity papers, because these papers allowed him to trespass city limits, so he get the feeling that he is no longer controlled and repressed (but he still is). This is a brief moment of hope in the narrator’s story, so it represents a contrast to the book’s title, because, to himself, he is no longer fateless

Concentration Camps

After September 1939, with the beginning of the Second World War, concentration camps became places where millions of ordinary people were enslaved as part of the war effort, often starved, tortured and killed. During the War, new Nazi concentration camps for "undesirables" spread throughout the continent. According to statistics by the German Ministry of Justice, about 1,200 camps and subcamps were run in countries occupied by Nazi Germany, while theJewish Virtual Library estimates that the number of Nazis camps was closer to 15,000 in all of occupied Europe and that many of these camps were created for a limited time before being demolished. Camps were being created near the centers of dense populations, often focusing on areas with large communities of Jews, Polish intelligentsia, Communists or Roma. Since millions of Jews lived in pre-war Poland, most camps were located in the area ofGeneral Government in occupied Poland, for logistical reasons. The location also allowed the Nazis to quickly remove the German Jews from within the German proper. In 1942, the SS built a network of Extermination camps to systematically kill millions of prisoners by gassing. The extermination camps(Vernichtungslager) and death camps (Todeslager) were camps whose primary function was genocide. The Nazis themselves distinguished between concentration camps and the extermination camps. The British intelligence service had information about the concentration camps, and in 1942 Jan Karski delivered a thorough eyewitness account to the government.

Internees

The two largest groups containing prisoners in the camps, both numbering in the millions, were the Polish Jews and the Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) held without trial or judicial process. Large numbers of Roma (or Gypsies), ethnic Poles, political prisoners, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholic clergy, Eastern European intellectuals and others (including common criminals, as declared by the Nazis). In addition, a small number of Western Allied aviators were sent to concentration camps as spies. Western Allied POWs who were Jews, or whom the Nazis believed to be Jewish, were usually sent to ordinary POW camps; however, a small number were sent to concentration camps under antisemitic policies.

Sometimes the concentration camps were used to hold important prisoners, such as the generals involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler; U-boatCaptain-turned-Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller; and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who was interned at Flossenbürg on February 7, 1945, until he was hanged on April 9, shortly before the war’s end.

In most camps, prisoners were forced to wear identifying overalls with colored badges according to their categorization: red triangles for Communists and other political prisoners, green triangles for common criminals, pink for homosexual men, purple for Jehovah's Witnesses, black for Gypsies and asocials, and yellow for Jews.

Treatment

After 1942, many small subcamps were set up near factories to provide forced labour. IG Farben established a synthetic rubber plant in 1942 at Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III); other camps were set up next to airplane factories, coal mines and rocket propellant plants. Conditions were brutal and prisoners were often sent to the gas chambers or killed if they did not work quickly enough.

In the early spring of 1941, the SS – along with doctors and officials of the T-4 Euthanasia Program – introduced the Action 14f13 programme meant for extermination of selected concentration camp prisoners. The Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps categorized all files dealing with the death of prisoners as 14f, and those of prisoners sent to the T-4 gas chambers as 14f13. Under the language regulations of the SS, selected prisoners were designated for "special treatment (German: Sonderbehandlung) 14f13". Prisoners were officially selected based on their medical condition; namely, those permanently unfit for labor due to illness. Unofficially, racial and eugenic criteria were used: Jews, the handicapped, and those with criminal or antisocialrecords were selected. For Jewish prisoners there was not even the pretense of a medical examination: the arrest record was listed as a physician’s “diagnosis”. In early 1943, as the need for labor increased and the gas chambers at Auschwitz became operational, Heinrich Himmler ordered the end of Action 14f13.Many of the prisoners died in the concentration camps through deliberate maltreatment, disease, starvation, and overwork, or were executed as unfit for labor. Prisoners were transported in inhumane conditions by rail freight cars, in which many died before reaching their destination. The prisoners were confined to the boxcars for days or even weeks, with little or no food or water. Many died of dehydration in the intense heat of summer or froze to death in winter. Concentration camps also existed in Germany itself, and while they were not specifically designed for systematic extermination, many of their inmates perished because of harsh conditions or were executed.

After much consideration, the extermination of the Jewish prisoners (the “Final Solution”) was announced to high ranking officials at the Wannsee Conferencein 1942.

 

Towards the end of the war, the camps became sites for medical experiments. Eugenics experiments, freezing prisoners to determine how downed pilots were affected by exposure, and experimental and lethal medicines were all tried at various camps. Female prisoners were routinely raped and degraded in the camps.

Nazi Propaganda

 

What political message(s) are these pictures trying to convey?

 These images are trying to show and spread the Nazi Ideology, by tempting the German population with the "benefits" that came along the Nazist "lifestyle", like a car accessible to all, a communist and Jewish-free world, and that the Nazis will finally bring absolute peace to the world.

What image of Germans are these pictures trying to convey?

These images are trying to portray Germany as a solid, idealistic nation, united under the same banner, the Nazi faction. 

How do they portray this image? 

Through portraits of their leader, Hitler, which is used as an inspirational model, and also as shown in the picture "Sower of Peace", depicted as a peacekeeper and the face of a brighter future. This and much more were used to attract people to folow his ideal, the party's ideals.

What colors are used?

Depends on the message tried to deliver. There are some pictures that show mostly light colours, because they are trying to present an atmosphere of happyness or related to. The others that present dark colours or black and white, are made this way to strike the viewer with a strong message (like the political campaign, for example)

How do the people look?

It also depend on the message. If they're trying to refer to themselves (German Nazis), they only show carefre, happy people. If it is about thier ideology or their leader, people are shown serious and devoted to their work. Sad and gloomy ambiances are shown when refering to Jewish population and communists

What characteristics of these men are similar?

They're mostly people of global importance (like Hitler or Stalin)

How do the artists convey these characteristics? 

By exalting the person's characteristics, like a posture that inspires power or dominance, or on his facial gestures, among others

Homework

1.-

1. The victims are the Jews, obviously.
2. The perpetrators are the Nazis.
3. The bystanders are the rest of Germany, those who didn't belong to neither parties

2.- Among the important factors that determined your "alignment" to one of these "factions", I may highlight race or nation, because if someone belonged to the Jewish community, he should be immediately be considered a victim. To split the rest of the German population, it should be considered political affinity, because there were Nazis and common Germans, so if considering his/her political affinity, one could determine whether he/she should be considered a perpetrator or a bystander.

3.- The largest group should be n°3, the bystanders. The term "Silent Majority" is appliable in this case because common German folk acted (ironically) as bystanders, just watching as they pass by through their common lifes, not helping neither side.

4.- Practically none, because of Nazi oversight, the bystanders were terrified enough to not try to interact with the Jews. There should have been a bit of help towards the Jews, in matters of supplying, housing, among others

5.- The Jewish couldn't use their passports (forced to stay), didn't own a proper place to live. They were stripped of all kinds of possessions, but more importantly, they were stripped of their freedom.

6.- Mansions, the consul, commitee, public meeting, politicians, the old yew and the birds singing in the trees. All of this are mere references to State bureaucracies, or at least related to the subject.

7.- A refugee is simply an innocent fugitive (most of the times). They are forced to be always on the run, hidding and seeking shelter, and they are being pursued by someone or something. In my opinion, someone might become a refugee at their own home. This is generally caused by social pressure, because when someone is mistreated by society for being different, this person gradually adopts this kind of behavior, fearing society and using their own home as a shelter to protect themselves with.

Letters

In this blog entry, I'll be showing you the letters we had to write about living in the 1930's:

Mary Ann:

I’ve got to tell you, living around these parts is really depressing. This town really is a little sad, actually. Since this Great Depression thing was announced on the radio, I’ve seen lots of people living in the Street, back alleys, etc. My mother says that, because we are a “good family”, we have this big house, three cooks, two nurses, a guard and a butler. Does that mean that they’re a “bad families”? No, I don’t think so. My father says that those people are just passing though a hard time.

Anyway, what I was going to tell you is that my house has just been restored! I love to be at home, you know. It´s really big, with lots of rooms and a huge backyard to play all day long. The funniest thing is when you get hungry, because you have to cross the whole house just to eat. It’s really tiring, but it’s funny at least. Also, the bedrooms are now bigger that before, and so are the bathrooms and the living room. The only thing left alike is a small, isolated room behind the kitchen that my mom left for one of the employees to stay if they want. The problem of having this big house is that it has to be under surveillance at all times, or there has to be someone in every corner of the property, just for safety, because my mom says that a bad person or a Negro could get in at any moment. To warn us that someone entered the property, the guard has a dog, and there’s a bell in the courtyard. I don’t know why they bother to do this. I think that we should have to use the room at the back of the kitchen to welcome people to the house, since it’s so big and all. The problem is that my mother says that we shouldn’t bring those kinds of people to the house, especially Negroes.

Well, I hope that you are doing great

Sincerely,

Vito

Mary Ann:

It’s been a long time since I last wrote to you. How’s everyone over there? Anyway, I’d like to tell you something great that happened this weekend, so great that we had a party on Sunday, after church. My father got promoted! Now he’s the main surgeon at the town’s hospital. The only problem, the only nuisance about this is that we wont spend much time together, since the hospital is really far away and he’s got to be there earlier. To balance this, I get to spend a lot more time with my mother, because she resigned of her job at the bakery. She said that this depression thing is putting people on a diet, so they wont eat pies and cakes anymore. Well, I guess that what she did was to change jobs, because now she is like my dad’s manager. Since he is very, very forgetful, so he sometimes forgets to charge people for his services, so my mom now takes care of that. Also, now she goes to pay our bills, collect my dad’s paychecks, and a lot of other things that my dad usually forgets. I guess that’s pretty tiring too!

What made me sad is that we wont go to the lake on my holidays to fish like we always did. I really liked to go fishing with my dad, since it’s the only thing we did together lately. Do you do anything like that with any one of your parents? I guess you should…

Always waiting for your reply

Vito

Mary Ann:

I’m writing this letter to you from the detention room. Want to know why? My friend Phillip and I broke a window at the math class today! The senior students were teaching us geometry, really boring stuff, so we tried to survive that boredom. We began playing with our copybooks, hitting each other. Since there were like a hundred kid in the room, and we were at the back, none of the “teachers” could see us pushing each other, throwing one another’s, hitting each other with our copybooks, and some other funny stuff we were doing. Sometimes, one of the “teachers” would hear us laughing, so he went to our desks, gave us a brutal slap at the back of the head, yelled at us “stop fooling around and concentrate!” and went back to where he originally was. Even though it hurt like hell, as son as he got back, we resumed our silliness. When Phillip hit me with his copybook at my face, all that playing turned into fighting. We pushed each other harder, but since I’m stronger than him, I made him fell off his chair. He went straight into the wall, and with his elbow he smashed the window into pieces. It sounded so loud that the “teacher” immediately noticed us. He stopped the lesson, took us by the ear and drove us to the detention room. He threw us in, and of everything that he yelled at us, the only thing that I heard was that we were going to miss this afternoon’s the football match.

At that moment, I got furious at Phillip, because I was going to play at that match! The fact that I’ll be missing will piss off the whole team, and they’ll probably try to beat me up later. Has something like that ever happened to you? Probably not, but I guess it would be funny to have a common anecdote.

It is nice to catch up with you,

Vito

And here's the one that should be used for grading:

Mary Ann:

This will be the last letter that I’m going to send you. Around these parts, I see lots of poor people, trying to make a living out of anything. The other day, my dad hired some guys that were living at a park nearby, to help him take care of the garden. They were two, a Scottish guy whose name I can’t recall now, and a guy from this town, named Colin. Both of them are now living at the room behind the kitchen. I can see in their faces that they’re truly grateful of what my dad is doing for them.

Anyway, I want to know how are you doing at the United States? I saw the other day at the telly that this Depression is hitting pretty strong, and not only at the US. Canada, Australia, France, the Germans, my beloved Italy, a country named Chile too (I even heard it was a really hard blow to them), and even my new home, the UK! Nobody escaped from it! I hope that you haven’t had to suffer that whole mess. I haven’t, since my dad’s doing well at his job and the fact that we came with a little fortune from Cesarò, at Sicily. The fact that we’re immigrants has not made our life over here easier, though. Even though we got here like five or six years ago, strangers still look down on us. That contempt has recently increased, especially with the looming war against the Fascists. Nobody has announced anything yet, but you can realize that there’s nothing left to do to avoid it. There are lots of issues going on these days. This crisis that threw everyone out of their homes, this incoming war… I don’t know, I guess I shouldn’t bother you with this anymore. Well, I hope that your doing fine.

Sincerely,

Vito

To Kill A Mockingbird Summary

On this blog entry I'm telling you a little bit about Chapter 8-9 of the book "To Kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee:

8

In this Chapter, and for the first time in years, Maycomb county suffers a real winter. It even snows, an event rare enough for school to be closed. Jem and Scout collected as much snow as they could from Miss Maudie’s yard to their own. Since they didn't have enough snow to make a full showman, they made one out of dirt and covered it with snow. They tried to make it look like Mr. Avery, a weird man who lives down the street. The figure’s likeness to Mr. Avery is so strong that Atticus tells them to disguise it. Jem places Miss Maudie’s sunhat on its head and sticks her hedge clippers in its hands.

That night, Atticus wakes Scout and helps her put on her bathrobe and coat and goes outside with her and Jem. When they arrive, they see that Miss Maudie’s house is on fire. The neighbors tried to help her save her furniture, and the firemen arrived in time to stop the fire from spreading to other houses, but Miss Maudie’s house burned to the ground. In the confusion, someone covered Scout with a blanket. When Atticus later asks her about it, she says she had no idea who put it over her. Later, Jem realizes that Boo Radley put it on her, and he reveals the whole story about the knothole, the presents, and the mended pants for Atticus. Atticus tells them to keep it to themselves, and Scout, realizing that Boo was behind her a while ago, nearly throws up.

Despite having lost her house, Miss Maudie is cheerful the next day. She tells the children how much she hated her old house and that she is planning to build a smaller one to have a larger garden. She says that she wishes she had been there when Boo put the blanket on Scout to catch him in the act.

9

At school, Scout nearly starts a fight with a classmate named Cecil Jacobs after Cecil declares that “Scout Finch’s daddy defends niggers.” Atticus has been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. It is a case he cannot hope to win, but he tells Scout that he must argue it to uphold his sense of justice and self-respect.

At Christmastime, Atticus’s brother, Jack, comes to stay with Atticus for a week during the holidays. Scout generally gets along well with Uncle Jack, but when he arrives in Maycomb, she begins cursing in front of him (a habit that she has recently picked up). After supper, Jack has Scout sit on his lap and he warns her not to curse in his presence. On Christmas Day, Atticus takes his children and Jack to Finch’s Landing, a rambling old house in the country where Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, and her husband live. There, Scout endures Francis, Alexandra’s grandson, who had been dropped off at Finch’s Landing for the holiday. Scout thinks Francis is the most “boring” child she has ever met. She also has to put up with the prim and proper Alexandra, who insists that Scout dress like a lady instead of wearing pants.

One night, Francis tells Scout that Dill is a runt and then calls Atticus a “nigger-lover.” Scout curses him and beats him up. Francis tells Alexandra and Uncle Jack that Scout hit him, and Uncle Jack spanks her without hearing her side of the story. After they return to Maycomb, Scout tells Jack what Francis said and Jack becomes furious. Scout makes him promise not to tell Atticus, however, because Atticus had asked her not to fight anyone over what is said about him. Jack promises and keeps his word. Later, Scout overhears Atticus telling Jack that Tom Robinson is innocent but doomed, since it’s inconceivable that an all-white jury would ever acquit him.

English Podcast

This is about the activity related to the novel "How to kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee. Well, This is a podcast that answers this three questions:


What do they do in the Boo Radley game? Do you think the game is an accurate version of what happens in the Radleys' home? How can the social context affect children's games?