Final Exam Quiz - Holocaust Literature

Name three genres of literature

poetry, fiction, nonfiction

What concentration camp did Jankiel Wiernik survive?

Treblinka

What was his occupation at the camp? 

Carpenter, builder

Which of the following is NOT true of Charlotte Delbo?

a) She worked in the French Resistance

b) Her husband was executed by the Nazis

c) She survived Auschwitz

d) She was Jewish

She was (not) Jewish

In “Voices,” Delbo uses a striking metaphor in the first paragraph. What is it?

A snake shedding its skin

List 2 of the narrators that Delbo uses in “Voices.”

Herself, a young woman with her dying sister, a young man

Browning’s essay…

a.) details German execution squads in Poland

b.) is a first person survival account of Auschwitz

c) details a Jewish uprising in Poland

d) is about a Jew who escaped mass murder in Babi

details German execution squads in Poland

Which of the following statements is untrue with regard to Primo Levi and his essay?

a) He was tortured in Belgium

b) He talks of suicide

c) He discusses the shame of liberation

d) He talks about the changing moral codes in the camps

He was tortured in Belgium

In “Plea for the Dead,” author _____l, who survived the _____ concentration camp, is trying to speak for those who perished under the Nazis’ treatment.

Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz/Birkenau

Which author wrote this?

“. . . the hour of liberation was neither joyful or lighthearted.  For most it occurred against a tragic background of destruction, slaughter, and suffering.”

Levi

Which author wrote this?

“One can get used to anything.” 

Wiernik

Which author wrote this?

“In truth, Auschwitz signifies not only the failure of two thousand years of Christian civilization, but also the defeat of the intellect that wants to find Meaning . . . in history.”

Wiesel

Which author wrote this?

“They did not know there is no arriving in this station.

They expect the worst—they do not expect the unthinkable.”

Delbo

Author & Characteristic of:

“Bread”

Isaac Spiegel, Shimmele Glikke

Author & Characteristic of:

“Friendly Meetings”

Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, Irena (an actress)

Author & Characteristic of:

“The Key Game”

Ida Fink, a father is practicing hiding

Author & Characteristic of:

“This Way to the Gas…”

Tadeus Borowski, Canada, Henri

Author & Characteristic of:

“The Verdict”

Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, “the death of 156 girls from Krakow”

Author & Characteristic of:

“Spring Morning”

Ida Fink, Mela and Aron

Author & Characteristic of:

“The Last Morning"

Bernard Gotfryd, boy sees mother crying in garden by a lilac tree

List 2 moral dilemmas that characters face in this group of stories.  (There are many; choose only 2).  Be sure to list the story.

Is it better to have a more peaceful and ignorant death or to be aware and suffer more? (The Verdict)

Is desensitization and dissociation okay? (Friendly Meetings)

The concentration camp used for the setting in 4 of the fiction stories is….

Auschwitz

The only non-Jewish nonfiction author is…

Tadeusz Borowski

Name the story:

“The water is the color of beer.”

Spring Mornings by Fink

Name the story:

“ ‘Let’s not tell the girls anything.  Let’s not spoil their fun’ . . . To sing and joke was beyond out strength.  After all, you could not get used to everything.”

Friendly Meetings by Nomberg-Przytyk

List 4 genres of literature you have read this term and give an example of each:

Non-fiction:  Delbo “Sreets of Arrivals”

Journals/Diaries:  Lewin

Short/Long Fiction:  Fink “Spring Mornings”

Poetry:  Celan “Aspen Tree”

List 3 of the 4 points of view (an extra point if you can name all 4 [2^nd person is not one of them!]

1st Person, 3rd Person Limited, 3rd Person Omniscient

Define and give an example of Irony

Something that is the opposite of what you’d expect. Ex: Red crosses on vehicles carrying gas (Levi)

Define and give an example of Symbol

Something that means more than just the object or term means on the surface. Ex: Water meaning death (Wiernik)

Define and give an example of Flashbacks

Used in Day to bring in past information that adds to the current narrative

Define and give an example of Imgaery

Any language that helps paint a picture for the reader Ex: fire/smoke, cold

Define and give an example of Metaphor/Similie

Comparisons without and with using like or as :  comparing dead infants to chickens (Wiesel)

Define and give an example of Allusion

A reference to something:  Ex: Mengele (N-P)

Define what an author’s tone is in a piece and give a good example from your reading.

Tone is the feeling or emotion an author tries to give to the reader as they read the piece. In Wiernik’s “One Year in Treblinka,” there is a tone of blunt and detached horror.

Give 3 examples of conflict in literature:

Man Vs. Man, Man vs. Society, Man vs. God

What does it mean when you are asked to analyze a works’ structure.  Give  examples of 2 works whose structure was interesting to you and why.

Delbo: “Voices”  changes of point of view and different stories and forms or writing. Wiesel in Day (no chapter numbers, flashbacks)

List three themes that run through Holocaust literature.

Survivor guilt, changing moral codes, the cost of survival

Much Holocaust literature presents characters who have had moral dilemmas in their lives.  Define what is meant by that term and give a couple of examples from the literature.

Moral dilemmas:  actions that require a person to make a decision where neither option is good or a decision that goes against their moral codes: stealing or killing to survive in the camps and ghettos, stealing bread from your family, whether or not to tell people they are going to die

Who is the author of Day? 

Elie Wiesel

In “Day”:
What is the main character’s name? ( for 2 pts extra credit: His mother’s name?)

Eliezer, Sarah

In “Day”:
What is the occupation of the main character?

Journalist

In “Day”:
What accident does the former title of the book refer to (literally)?

Eliezer is hit by a cab

In “Day”:
Where does the accident happen? 

NYC

In“Day”:
what nearly happens while he is on a boat at sea?

He nearly jumps overboard

In “Day”:
Match the characters with their identity:

Paul Russel, Kathleen, Gyula, Sarah, Shimon

Paul Russel: the doctor who treats him after the accident
Kathleen: the narrator’s American girlfriend
Gyula: An artist
Sarah: A prostitute
Shimon: a friend in the Hebrew Resistance Movement

In “Day”:
What happened to the main character’s grandmother?

She dies in Auschwitz

In “Day”:
Name two of the settings in the novel:

Paris, NYC

In “Day”:
What happens to the portrait of the narrator at the end of the book?

Gyula burns it

In “Day”:
What point of view is this novel told from? 

First person

“I Have Never Been Here Before” is poem by…
a.) Gladstein b.) Sutzkever c.) Sachs d.) Celan

Gladstein

What is the difference between blank verse and free verse?

Blank verse has meter but no rhyme.

Free verse has neither.

This poet died on a forced death march.

a)   Sutzkever   b) Pagis    c) Celan    d) Radnoti    e) Sachs   f) Glatstein

Radnoti

This poet survived by emigrating to Sweden

a)   Sutzkever   b) Pagis    c) Celan    d) Radnoti    e) Sachs   f) Glatstein

Sachs

This poet survived the Vilna Ghetto.

a)   Sutzkever   b) Pagis    c) Celan    d) Radnoti    e) Sachs   f) Glatstein

Sutzkever

This poet committed suicide by drowning.

a)   Sutzkever   b) Pagis    c) Celan    d) Radnoti    e) Sachs   f) Glatstein

Celan

This poet’s child was poisoned by the Germans.

a)   Sutzkever   b) Pagis    c) Celan    d) Radnoti    e) Sachs   f) Glatstein

Sutzkever

In Celan’s “Aspen Tree,” the author juxtaposes natural images with the death of his….

Mother

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

“A mad Shakespeare, who will sing a song, where might and wit is:

--My spirit, Ariel, bring here the new fate.”  

Allusion

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

“And time will tell you quietly

Like a cricket caught in a fist.”

personification/simile

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

“Our bodies continued to lament

with their mutilated music”              

personification/alliteration

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

“He’s cold in the morning breeze;

a diligent angel”         

metaphor

What poetic device is used in the underlined parts of the poems?

“Smoke to omnipotent smoke

That has no face or image”

personification

Who is the subject of the Sach’s poem with these lines:

“You who raised no hand in murder

But who did not shake the dead

…..

You who halted there, where dust is changed

To light.”

onlookers

Which poetic device is used in each of the following lines?

“Screams shut tight with the shredded mandibles of fish,

Woe, tendrils of the smallest children.”

“The night is furred with fear.”

“Behind my back a breath closes. . .”

alliteration

Who is the “us” in the following lines? 

“Screams shut tight with the shredded mandibles of fish,

Woe, tendrils of the smallest children.”

“The night is furred with fear.”

“Behind my back a breath closes. . .”

Survivors, the liberated

What are the following lines an example of?

a.) Onomatopoeia   b) rhymed couplet c) free verse   d) allegory   e) none of the above 

“for none could here pronounce the dark, demanded, verse

but that Isaiah, master of the fitting curse.”

rhymed couplet

The structure of a poem can be analyzed by…

a)    the number of lines  b) stanzas   c)  rhyme scheme    d)  narrator  e) all of the above

all of the above