Reading Night

Nothing much has been discussed about the event lately in 5th period. We've been focusing mainly on the book. So far, we've watched part of a video of Holocaust survivors, taken our first quiz on Night, and discussed it with small groups and the class.

Hearing people tell the stories instead of reading them was more accessible for me. There were scenes where the survivors showed their descendants where they had stayed and what they did there. By looking at what had become of those places, I would have never known if they were concentration camps if someone had not told me. The brick factory that one woman worked at looked bright and cheery instead of all the normal Holocaust pictures that were glum.

We discussed how survival in the Holocaust depends on chance. The motivation to survive may be to be assigned to the same group as a friend, for example. Soon after, we realized that somehow, everything relies on chance. Just like an A on a test relies on the chance of knowing the material, survival for people like Elie in the Holocaust depended on motivation. And that motivation came from chances like being put together in the same group as a friend.