Daniel’s Story
By: Carol Matas
In class we read Carol Matas’s World War II, Daniel’s Story, Daniel’s Story was published in conjunction with an exhibit called “Daniel’s Story: remembering Children” at the United Stated Holocaust Musuem in Washington D.C. The book tells the story of how a 14 year old boy and his family struggle to survive the Holocaust during WWII.
The story begins with Daniel and his family on a train leaving Frankfurt. They are with what looks like over a thousand other Jews from Frankfurt. They don’t have any idea where they are going, only that the Germans don’t want them in Germany anymore. Daniel bends over and pulls out his photo album from his rucksack. He feels the need to look at pictures of his life in hopes of understanding how he came to be on this train. He looks at picture after picture, face after face, remembering what life was like before Hitler.
Daniel’s family is forced from their home in Frankfurt and sent on a long and dangerous journey, first to Lodz ghetto in Poland, where they are ordered off the train and into a wasteland and slum. They live there for three years and Daniel supposes he’s lucky to have lived this long. His mother, his favorite Uncle Peter, anunt and cousin had all been killed along with many others. He meets Rosa who he falls in love with. He is separated from his cousin, Friedrich.
In 1944, Daniel, now 17, finds himself on a train again. The Natzis told them they were going to a work camp, which was Auschwitz-the death camp. He doesn’t have his album with him, but he does have his memories. The Allies are advancing. The Russians are nearing Auchwitz and the Germans are starting to evacuate the camp. They are being taken back to Germany to be killed. The nazis want to kill the Jews because they hate them and because they don’t want the world to know what happened. Daniel is more determined than ever to live. He will remember even though he doesn’t have all of his pictures.
Daniel took pictures to prove the terrible things that were done to the Jews. They were burned in ovens and placed in gas chambers. These pictures were in Daniel’s mind. The worst thing he had ever seen was bodies burning in pits because the crematoria weren’t eliminating the bodies as quickly as the Natzis were gassing them. Daniel and his friend, Adam, schemed to take photos of the gas chambers and all the corpses, in hopes of getting proof to the outside. His father supported him.
Again Daniel is sitting on a train. He has just turned 18. Once again he decides to go through the pictures to organize everything he can remember. Some pictures are in his mind, and others he holds in his hand. He is now taken to Buchenwald, a work camp. Here Daniel meets Karl, a communist and a member of the resistance in buchenwald. Daniel informs Karl that he is willing to help the resistance. He “would do anything to make sure that a gas chamber is never built here”. Fortunately, all the workers feel the same way and they work slowly during the day, then dismantle it at night.
The prisoners overtook the camp and it was all over. Daniel and his father helped in the taking over. His father was shot in the arm. The next picture Daniel sees is that of an American soldier smiling to the cameras. The next several weeks were kept busy with celebrations, concerts, and meeting with Foreign Delegates . All Daniel wanted to do was go back to Lodz and see Rosa, try to find Erika and Freidrich. He finds Peter and they are on a train to Lodz. His father sits across from him. There is little to say.
They reach a small town in Poland and the train stops. Four huge Polish farm boys attack Peter and Daniel. Peter is brutally beaten. Daniel finds his gun and shoots. A policeman comes running. They take Peter to a Hospital, only he dies after surgery. Daniel goes back to the Ghetto where he finds Rosa waiting for him. She tells him that she has lost her father and brother to Typhus. She also tells him that Erika has died, but Freidrich has made it. Rosa and Daniel are happy to have survived and to have found each other again. They will marry and name their children after those murdered. They will go to Palestine and help build a country and dedicate their lives to making sure that this never happens again. Daniel will keep all his pictures and tell his story.
By: Fani C.
The conditions of war are perfect for typhus to explode into a strong outbreak because poverty, crowding, mass migrations, poor housing, and famine pushed its spread. Typhus is a deadly disease passed on by louse (lice). It is one form of rickettsiae. A louse becomes infected with typhus by taking some blood from a human with a fever. Once in the louse's gut, the rickettsiae reproduce so much that they cause cells in the insect's gut to break. The rickettsiae then are in the feces of the louse. Rubbing or scratching the lice feces into their skin or into their mucous membranes get the humans infected. It is an interesting disease because even though lice drink human blood, the disease is not passed on to humans during this process. Most of the other diseases carried by insects are passed through the bite, but typhus is not. Once infected, humans experience a high fever that continues for about two weeks. Immediate symptoms might include terrible headaches, bronchial trouble or having trouble breathing, and mental confusion. After around six days, red dots start to appear on the upper body, hands, feet, and face. Now all these terrible things are only immediate symptoms. Without a doubt, typhus is from the Greek word typhos meaning trance, coma, or to be out of it. If you look above, you will see a diagram that shows where the person is affected (www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/typhus.htm - 7kwww.vdh.state.va.us/epi/typhusf.htm).
We chose to draw this German Solider because it shows the cruelty and inappropriate behavior that they showed to the Jewish people. We drew him with a whip, to show how they abused the people in the concentration camps. On the right of him, we drew a Jewish person being hung; this is also show how they punished the Jewish people if they had tried to escape. In the distance, on the left of him there is a mother and a smile child being separated by other German soldiers
a. 4,000 c. over 6 million
b. 999,999 d. 4 million
How many Jewish people died in Auschwitz?
a. 2,100 c. 3,000,000
b. 5,000 d. 1,100,000
How many Jewish people were interned at Terezin?
a. 140,000 c. 100,000
b. 900,000 d.100
How many Jewish people in Terezin died?
a. 23,000 c. 34,000
b. 33,000 d.56, 000
How many other Jewish people were transported to other Nazi death camps? a. 87,000* c. 15, 000
b. 97, 000 d.78, 000
How many Jewish children were in Terezin?
a. 15,000 c.890
b. 130, 000 d. 980
How many Jewish children survived in Terezin?
a. 132 c. 90
b. 789 d. 567
How many of the Jewish people were polish?
a. 4,000 c. 890
b. 140,000 d. 900