Today in class we researched and explored the National Holocaust Memorial Museum website. Some of the information I read on the website I could directly relate to the books my class has been reading on the same subject. Milkweed, the book my group is currently reading, is about a boy, who is an orphan, living on his own in the streets of Poland while struggling to survive. On the National Holocaust Museum website, I found an abundant amount of information relating to orphans and the ghettos where the characters now live. The ghettos are remnants of the towns that have been ruined by the Germans in their pursuit of control, which are now fenced in by cement walls topped with barbed wire. These towns where once productive communities that people lived in. Now holding areas for these same people and others all controlled by the German forces. “After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, more than two million Polish Jews came under German control.” This is a direct quote from the website about the ghettos in Poland.
Like in Milkweed, children became orphans every day. According to the Website, when in the ghetto, in order to survive, children had to be resourceful and make themselves useful. Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes helped smuggle food to their families and friends by crawling through narrow openings in the ghetto wall. They did so at a great risk, as smugglers who were caught were severely punished. This also happens in Milkweed, Uri and Misha Pilsudski escape the ghetto through holes in walls in order to feed themselves and their friends they now live with in the ghetto. Like Mr. Abraham Lewent says in his interview in 1989, “every day you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is lying dead, covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found.” The author of Milkweed also references this when Uri and Misha Pilsudski are walking the streets and they see a man with newspaper spread over him. Uri explains what it is and that it is the right thing to do. Also in the book, Misha Pilsudski depicts the look of newspaper spread over a young boy and that you can tell because only one piece of newspaper covers the entire body. Most of this death is caused by starvation. Germans deliberately allowed only a small bit of food to all men and women, hoping that it would exterminate the population in the ghetto. Which, like I said, is the leading cause of the escapes and returns of most of the younger population in the ghetto.
Like in Milkweed, children became orphans every day. According to the Website, when in the ghetto, in order to survive, children had to be resourceful and make themselves useful. Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes helped smuggle food to their families and friends by crawling through narrow openings in the ghetto wall. They did so at a great risk, as smugglers who were caught were severely punished. This also happens in Milkweed, Uri and Misha Pilsudski escape the ghetto through holes in walls in order to feed themselves and their friends they now live with in the ghetto. Like Mr. Abraham Lewent says in his interview in 1989, “every day you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is lying dead, covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found.” The author of Milkweed also references this when Uri and Misha Pilsudski are walking the streets and they see a man with newspaper spread over him. Uri explains what it is and that it is the right thing to do. Also in the book, Misha Pilsudski depicts the look of newspaper spread over a young boy and that you can tell because only one piece of newspaper covers the entire body. Most of this death is caused by starvation. Germans deliberately allowed only a small bit of food to all men and women, hoping that it would exterminate the population in the ghetto. Which, like I said, is the leading cause of the escapes and returns of most of the younger population in the ghetto.
Thanks, Robert. You've made solid conenctions between history and the events in the book. Thanks for citing your source.
ReplyDelete5/5 points.