Julie H. and Gabriela R.
For our ELA project, we chose to do the book Marika, written by: Andrea Cheng. This book is mainly about a girl named Marika who grew up in Budapest, Hungary, during the Holocaust. She is Jewish, and forges birth papers that say she and her family were born catholic. She grew up living with her mother, who was partially deaf, and her brother, Andras. They used to live with their father, but he put a wall through their apartment, separating them from their father. Marika had only three friends, two boys who lived next door (Tibor and Tamas), that were twins and a year older than Marika, and a girl in her class named Zsofi.
During the summer, she was sent to Vac where her Uncle Lipot would meet her. After a few days, she met her father in Danube, so they could spend some time together. But, while Marika is there, she finds out her father has a lady friend. The lady friend is the mother of the twins who live next door. Her name is Sari Neni. Marika is horrified. Her grandfather moves into her father’s apartment, and her father moves down the road. More bad news for Marika, the German soldiers come and say they have 24 hours to leave their homes. Then, on the radio it said they needed to go to the police station and get a yellow star to wear so everyone can see, if you were Jewish. Marika went to stay with her father’s friend, for her own safety. Next, Marika was taken to rabbinical school to be put in concentration camps. But, Marika’s father bails her out. Her and her father go live in an apartment, where all the Jews had to live in one apartment building, in a ghetto. Another friend’s wife, a friend of the father, pretends that Marika is her niece. Marika makes another fake Birth certificate, saying the woman is her aunt. Police officers came to inspect that there were no Jews in the house, while the aunt was gone. They checked Marika’s Birth certificate papers and left. Right after that, the aunt came home. There was lots of bombing, so everyone in the apartment building moved to the basement. The father one day came to get Marika. They went to live in the old high school gym where all the Jews lived, because they had nowhere else to go.
Finally, the war settled down, and they heard on the radio that a bunch of Jews were coming back home from concentration camps. One-day Marika’s mother, brother, Tibor, and Sari Neni returned home. Then all of them went back to their old house. Tamas and Marika’s grandfather never showed up because Tamas was killed. They never found out what happened to the grandfather.
For our I-Search paper, we had to have Social Studies, Science, Math, and Art connections. Our first connection is to the S.S. curriculum.
For our Social Studies connection, we got a picture of the flag of Hungary. We got the flag of Hungary because that is where our story takes place. The flag is parted horizontally by three parts. The colors of the flag are red, yellow, and blue, with the city’s coat of arms on the center. The blue shade is very bright and strong. The yellow shade is peaceful and relaxed, and the red shade is also bright and almost shows a sense of war. The coat of arms has the same crest as on the national flag of Hungary. The shield is red. There is a silver wave that separates the two castles, one castle representing Buda, and the other castle representing Pest. Buda is on the western part of the Danube, and Pest is on the east side of the Danube. Both of the cities were untied as one in 1872 ((http://flagspot.net/flags/hu-budap.html).
For our Science connection, we did the natural resources of Hungary. Hungary, as you know, is where our book takes place. We talk about the main resources and mineral deposits. We also talk a little bit about the annual production for the natural resources. We mainly chose to do the natural resources of Hungary because we thought that it would be appealing and important to others, since it was to us.
For our Math connection, we made a bar graph comparing the total population of Jews, and the number of Jews killed during the war. We only did the countries that are included in the setting of our story, and countries that are mentioned in our novel. We did the countries Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia.
Last, for our Arts connection, we wrote a poem. Our poem, “ WWII in Hungary”, is a short summery of what Hitler had done to the poor, innocent, Jews. The poem is written from our point of view. We put our true feelings about what happened during the holocaust and also thought about our reactions to the Holocaust, while writing the poem.
In conclusion, we learned how many Jewish people lived during the Holocaust, and how many Jewish people died from Hitler’s horrible plot of making the world full of people with blond hair and blue eyes. We wrote a poem, as you know, to express the cruelty of him. We had already known how bad Hitler was, but after reading some more details about the concentration camps, we were horrified! Also, we honestly feel that what happened during the Holocaust was awful!
We also learned that lots of Jewish families during the Holocaust were not nearly as close as they are now. Back during the War, many people changed their lives to subsist. There are many reasons for divorce. The one thing that most couples argue and divorce over is money. More than 50% of all marriages end up getting divorced. Another reason for couples breaking up is lack of communication. Also, couples cannot seem to work together as a team to sort things out. There are many more reasons why couples get a divorce, but these are the three main situations. When couples with children split-up, not only the parents, but also the children suffer greatly. In our novel, Marika feels that the wall, separating her mother and father, in her apartment shouldn’t be there, and neither should the divorce between her parents.
Learning about the natural resources and information on the Budapest flag was fun and interesting to research. We hope you enjoyed our presentation. Thank you for your time and cooperation. Sincerely, Julie Hackett and Gabriela R.
Hungary’s
main resources are fertile soil, and it’s climate, which is most helpful for
agriculture. Farms cover about 60% of Hungary’s land and produce most of the
food the people need. About 20% of Hungary is forests. Hungary’s most
significant mineral deposits include bauxite, copper, and manganese.
The
annual productions for the main resources are, bauxite -1 million tons, copper -
159 million tons, and manganese - 37000 tons. Some other minerals are iron,
coal, natural gas, and oil. Hungarians have limited amount they can use these
minerals, because of small supply. As minerals, with small supply, there is also
a shortage of electric power. As a result extra power is important (Janusz
Bugajski, 443).
By,
This
is the flag of Budapest.
We chose to do the flag of
Budapest
because this is where our book “Marika” takes
place. The flag interested us with its beautiful picture and bright colors. The
colors of the flag were so bright it caught our attention. Also, we compared
this flag with our flag, of the
U.S.A.
By,
Gabbie R. and Julie H.
Hungary was under attack
By a selfish man, whose heart was black
Because they tried so hard to survive
So must hatred, at what cost?
Now all of the Jews are free
Why Hitler did this, no one will know
We decided to write a poem on WWII in Hungary because this is where our book takes place. Also, we enjoy writing poems and we are very good at it. Our poem is a short summary of what Hitler did to the Jewish people. In our poem we had three elements of poetry. Those elements are stanza, meter, and rhyme. Stanza is a division of a poem consisting series of lines arranged together in usual recurring pattern of meter and rhyme (Webster’s Dictionary). Meter is a pattern of syllables per line. For example, our pattern is 7, 9, 7, 9, etc.