Sunday, October 12, 2014

Maus Line Illuminator Week 1

Andrew Fischer
Line Illuminator
October 12, 2014

Quote 1: Page 32
     It was the beginning of 1938, before the war, hanging high in the center of town, was a Nazi flag.

Meaning:
     This quote shows that the people were scared and confused why there was a Nazi flag hanging in the middle of their own town. Also, they were wondering if the Nazi's have taken over their town, if they have destroyed their homes and buildings. In addition to what the citizens thought, the town did get worse. The Nazis were doing things to the Jews that people should never do to someone.


Quote 2: Page 33
     There was many stories, synagogs burned down, Jews beaten with no reason, whole towns pushing out all Jews, each story was worse than the other.

Meaning:
     During World War II, the Nazis did horrible things to the Jews. The had burn there religious places, they killed them, the tortured them, and they did worse things. In the book, they told what happened to the Jews that lived in their town. The Nazis came in a did whatever they wanted to, and nobody could stop them in their proses.

4 comments:

  1. Andrew:
    I also notice in the book that the quoted you wrote were really thoughtful and meant a lot for our story. I just wanted to add that even though the jews were already scared and they fear the germans, in the early years of the war they didn´t know about what was happening. Nobody told them about the germans´ thoughts and the plans they had. The Jews were really confused about what was happening and I think this is what the first and second line want to tell us: The confusion Vladek was feeling. Why do people wanted to kill Jewish people with no good reason? This one was Vladek´s question.
    Good job.

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  2. I found your research very interesting. The Holocaust was really the worst time around for the Jews, it was like Nazis and Jews were rivals, but only that Nazis had more power than them. Just like Spielegman put as cat and mouse. Cat and mouse are always rivals, except that the cat (Nazis) are bigger and stronger than the mice (Jews).

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  3. Just to expand on your analysis on reading this book what was the motives for the Nazis killing the jews and all these tragic stories that went down in history. According to "The Nazi hatred of the Jews" There has been an extensive history of christianity and Judaism having lots of conflict. Even Jews and Non-Jews had conflict because of the social and economic relations between Jews wherever there has been substantial communities of the Jewish population and non-Jews around them. This shows that the Nazis were bound to do something sooner or later even if the Jewish people did not see it coming.

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  4. Andrew,

    Good post, I was able to comprehend the meaning of the sentences in the book.

    To begin with, you said that the sentence of the hanging Nazi flag was about the confusion of the people, since they could wonder what happened to their town. This was the sentence that caught my attention since it made me think.

    In my opinion, you are completely correct about the explanation. In the sentence, you can see that the Nazi flag was standing in the town before the war, meaning that the Nazis were still getting ready. If a town was captured by the Nazis before the war, I can see why the citizens would be confused. An example that will make you understand better is, if a Jew goes into a Jewish town before a war is declared and sees that there is a Nazi flag in the town hall, he will be extremely confused, since he knows that the Jews didn't declare war. Furthermore, he does't know if the Nazi's surprise attacked or attacked by accident, making the person very confounded.

    A idea that makes me disagree with you about the confusion is Hitler. Since Hitler was known for his horrifying military acts in his dictatorship, then people all over the world would know that he exists. Continuing, if a Jew saw a Nazi flag in a town, he would think it is normal, since in that time, Hitler was investing a lot at the military, meaning that he could raid a village and conquer it. So in conclusion, the Jews might have not been confused in the book because of Hitler's infamous acts.

    A question I have is, did my thinking help you? The reason I ask this is because I wanted you to see if the vision of "fearing Hitler's military" is another meaning the sentence can have.

    Daniel

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