After World War I
Nazi Germany
Jews in the Holocaust
Important Quotes
Important Quotes
100
This country had to accept all the blame for causing World War I.
What is Germany?
100
This group of Boy/Girl Scouts were encouraged to spy on their parents and report if they were against Hitler.
What is the Hitler Youth?
100
The Jews had to wear this colored badge to identify themselves.
What is a yellow star?
100
"I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."
A prisoner said this in Auschwitz. He means that the Jews believe that God loves them and has promised to protect them from harm--He made a pact with Abraham in the Bible to protect his descendants--but so far God has not rescued them from the Holocaust. Hitler, however, is the only one to follow through with what he says he's going to do--which is to annihilate the Jewish race. This passage is important to the book because it shows how Jewish people--who were killed just because of their religion--felt angry, betrayed, and abandoned by God.
100
"The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? It's not lethal..."
Elie's father says this when the Jews are forced to live in the ghettos and wear a yellow star on their clothing to show they are Jewish. Elie's father is saying this to tell people that wearing something on your clothing won't literally kill you. The irony of this statement is that the yellow star is actually lethal... because Elie's father was Jewish and had to wear the yellow star, he was sent to the concentration camps and died.
200
This country, along with England and France, won World War I, and subsequently was launched into being a global super power.
What is the United States of America?
200
Hitler believed this race of Nordic ancestry, with blonde hair and blue eyes, was the "perfect" race.
What is the Aryan race?
200
These were established to round up Jews and force them to live in poor conditions.
What are ghettos?
200
"Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!"
Moishe the beadle says this to Elie at the beginning of the book, when he is teaching Elie the Kabbalah--the mysteries of the universe in Jewish religion. This is ironic because by wanting to get to know God better by questioning His reasons for letting the Holocaust happen, Elie will lose his faith in God. Elie and the rest of the Jews are going to question God for letting the horrors of the Holocaust happen to them, and they will become angry and lose their faith when God remains silent.
200
"Look! Look at it! Fire! A terrible fire! Mercy! Oh, that fire! Jews, listen to me! I can see a fire! There are huge flames! It is a furnace!"
Mrs. Schachter says this on the train to Auschwitz. She has lost her husband and son and has gone mad. The Jews think she is talking about fire because she has a fever, but later Elie finds out that her words are prophetic--foreshadowing how she and six million other Jews will be burned in a fiery crematorium.
300
This country, along with Germany and Italy, lost World War I. Germany felt betrayed by this country and later invaded it.
What is Austria?
300
Hitler would use these in his speeches to get people to believe ideas that defied logic, filling them with nationalistic pride.
What are emotional appeals?
300
This is the systematic murder of an entire ethnic group.
What is genocide?
300
"The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me."
Elie says this about his own reflection after being liberated from the concentration camps. Elie hadn't been able to see his reflection during the time he was in the camps, and after the Holocaust he didn't even recognize himself--he looked like a skeleton with skin, a walking corpse. "The look in his eyes" is probably one of horror, disgust, fear, anger, or maybe nothing--because Elie had everything taken from him, even his identity.
300
"Bite your lip, little brother. . . . don't cry. Keep your anger and your hatred for another day, for later on. The day will come, but not now. . . . Wait. Grit your teeth and wait."
The French woman working in the factory says this in German to Elie after Idek beats him. Elie later finds out that she was actually a German Jew pretending to be a French Aryan--she had faked her identity and spoke in another language to keep from being sent to the concentration camps. The French woman had risked everything in that moment to encourage Elie not to give up.
400
Germany was forced to pay this to all countries damaged by World War I.
What are reparations?
400
Once Hitler gained power, he took back this area that Germany was forced to give up after World War I.
What is the Sudetenland?
400
In 1938, a Jewish minor assassinated a member of the Nazi Party, resulting in this destruction of over 1,200 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish shops. 91 Jews were killed.
What is Kristillnacht?
400
“I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!”
Elie says this about his father after his father dies of dysentery. Elie asks God not to make him like Rabbi Eliahu's son, who abandons his father during the death march because he wanted to be rid of the responsibility of taking care of him. Elie ends up just like him. Elie has everything taken from him: first his home and possessions, then his mother and sisters, then his dignity, then his independence, then his Jewish identity, then his own identity, then his very humanity. When his father dies, he has nothing left. He doesn't feel anything, because only humans feel grief.
400
“For God’s sake, where is God?”
A prisoner says this during the hanging of the innocent pipel. The prisoner is crying out for mercy and justice from God, who is supposed to love and protect them. Elie replies: "Where is God? He is there, hanging from the gallows." Elie means that God is dead.
500
This conference was where the nations involved in World War I signed a peace treaty, declared a formal end to World War I, and politically humiliated Germany.
What is the Treaty of Versailles?
500
These laws passed by Hitler prohibited Jews from society, taking away many of their basic rights.
What are the Nuremberg Laws?
500
This is what Hitler called his proposed plan to annihilate the Jewish race from the earth.
What is "The Final Solution"?
500
“Meir… my little Meir… don’t you recognize me?”
The old man says this on the train to Buchenwald. Germans toss in pieces of bread so they can watch the starving Jewish prisoners tear each other apart to get them. One old man hides two pieces of bread, one for him and one for his son, only to be killed by his own son for both pieces. The Nazis have taken everything away from the Jews, even their humanity, reducing them to behaving like animals.
500
"Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories."
Elie's father says this on the first night in Auschwitz, as he and Elie march towards the crematorium. They see babies being tossed into a fiery pit. "Humanity is not concerned with us" relates to the book because, even though the twentieth century was a modern age of technology, Germans were okay with treating the Jews like animals.
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