Manni Valencia

December 6, 2011

English 112B

T 4:30-7:15

Dr. Mary Warner

Annotated Bibliography

Ein Kampf der Pein:

An Annotated Bibliography

High school is uniquely situated in modern human times, that it can characterize how an individual unfolds in the course of his or her life. The turmoil, triumphs, and experiences found during this astounding period will color a young adult’s perspective indefinitely. It is then, with much concern, that studies in human history be explored in-depth.

There are such few harrowing times in world history as World War II. It culminated in some of history’s most heroic and horrifying stories and experiences. World War II brought to the attention of the modern world crimes against humanity with the attempted genocide of Jews in Europe. But to understand the many facets of the Nazi invasions, it takes more than just reading a history book. It involves reading from many different perspectives from different periods of time of the Nazis: before, during, and after.

Exposure to Holocaust literature should be an important piece in a young adult’s life. The repercussions of World War II can be found throughout our lives in the boundaries of European nations, United Nations charter, and the lasting effects of the Nuremburg Trials to name a few. In a time as influential as adolescence, Holocaust literature is an intimate study in the nature of humans and the capabilities of each one of us to be both compassionate and cruel.

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Pocket, 1978. Print.

Anne Frank is a 13-year old Jewish girl hiding from the Germans. She experiences love, anxiety, annoyance, and fear whilst hiding with her family during a Nazi infested Amsterdam.

Quite possibly the most widely read Holocaust memoir, Anne Frank encompasses the completely human emotions of a girl living in constant fear in a time of prejudice and violence.

Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Print.

In Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, Annemarie worries for the safety of her Jewish friend, Ellen Rosen, as the Nazis invade Denmark. Annemarie, along with her family, bravely claims Ellen to be her deceased sister Lise, and struggle against the Nazi regime.

Lowry crafts an unforgettable tale of friendship and the lengths that a person is willing to go to keep that friendship.

Baer, Edith. A Frost in the Night. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998. Print.

Eva is a young girl living in Germany in 1932. She experiences the mixed emotions of a new political party gaining terrifying momentum throughout Germany. Eva is a witness to the rise of the National Socialist Party, or as they’re better known: the Nazis.

Edith Baer attempts to capture the image of a German people joining up with the dangerous political party of the Nazis. “So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own” (Captain America: the First Avenger).

Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas follows nine-year-old Bruno as he moves from his home to a small place he calls, “Out-With.” Bruno’s family moved because of his father’s promotion, and in this far away place makes friends with another boy, Schmuel that lives on the other side of a long fence. This is the story of a remarkable friendship that develops between Bruno and Schmuel and the line that divides them.

Told through the eyes of the innocent and naïve Bruno, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about friendship and the horrors of a time marked in history.

Friedman, D. Dina. Escaping into the Night. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print.

After her home in the Warsaw ghetto is evacuated, Halina Rudowski, 13 years old, escapes into the woods with other Polish Jews hoping to find safety from the Nazis. Escaping into the Night, by D. Dina Friedman, is about the Jews that, against surmountable odds, found life in the woods through the eyes of Halina.

It’s important to realize that not everyone can live an ideal mode of life even in harrowing situations such as the Holocaust, and “in Halina, Friedman has created a reluctant heroine who is also a believable adolescent” (Steinberg). With a character flawed like Halina, young readers can experience a heroine most like themselves.

Keneally, Thomas. Schindler’s List. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Print.

Oskar Schindler is a German industrialist whose chief concern is his business and himself. That is until the Nazis invade Poland and spread throughout Europe. Schindler slowly comes to realize that there are more things in life beside oneself and proves that there is good in all of us when he uses his factories to conceal more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis.

A story based on true events that teach readers the sense of good in all of us, and how remarkable we all can be in times of turmoil.

Kor, Eva Mozes and Lisa Rojany-Buccieri. Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Menegele Twin in Auschwitz. Terre Haute: Tanglewood, 2009. Print.

“Josef Mengele was an SS physician, infamous for his inhumane medical experimentation upon concentration camp prisoners at Auschwitz” (USHMM, 2011). Eva recants the horrors of the experiments Dr. Mengele performed on herself and her sister as twins in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

This real life memoir explores the dark, horrors of being less than human: an experiment.

Matas, Carol. After the War. New York: Simon Pulse, 1997. Print.

War is never an isolated event, and neither are the repercussions of war. Carol Matas’ After the War is about Ruth, a Polish Jew, returning to her hometown of Buchenwald to discover that although the Nazi reign is over, the ideas and persecution remains.

Matas calls attention to the sociopolitical effects of an organization as powerful as the German Nazi’s and their ability to have longstanding repercussions on nations all around them.

Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.

Misha Pilsudski is not his name. Misha is the name Uri, his new friend, gave him to memorize. Misha has been known as Stopthief, Gypsy, and Filthy-Son-of-Abraham. Misha knows one thing though: that the trains taking everyone in the ghettos to resettlement camps aren’t going where they say they are!

Milkweed attempts to bring a fresh perspective to Holocaust literature through the character of Misha, an innocent street orphan without bias or prejudice.

Yolen, Jane. The Devil’s Arithmetic. New York: Puffin Books, 2004. Print.

Hannah is tired of remembering the Holocaust. She doesn’t care who lost whom in the camps. When Hannah’s chosen to open the door for the prophet Elijah at Passover, she is unexpectedly transported to 1940s Poland and everyone keeps calling her Chaya. Then the Nazis invade.

The saying goes that, “history repeats itself,” and no one understands that more than Jane Yolen’s Hannah in The Devil’s Arithmetic. Yolen illustrates the fear and terror of the invading Nazis and why the lessons of the Holocaust should never be forgotten.

Works Cited

Steinberg, Renee. School Library Journal: Grades 5 & Up. School Library Journal. March 1, 2006. Web. December 5, 2011. <http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6313520.html>

“Josef Mengele.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. December 5, 2011. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007060>

Captain America: the First Avenger. Dir. Joe Johnston. Perf. Chris Evans and Stanley Tucci. Paramount Pictures, 2011. Film.