Devil's+Arithmetic

May 30, 2008 Shery Arce

Today, my group and I discussed about the first four chapters of the __Devil's Arithmetic__.  Thats all for now!!
 * Yuval starts off the discussion by asking the group if we think Hannah is a regular child and how. We all thought she was a normal thirteen year old that has to unwilling celebrate Passover with her family. Then, Yuval asks us if we'd be as angry as Grandpa Will would be is we were in the concentration camp. Kelly and Daymis would certainly have been as angry as he was because their families were killed as well as friends, neighbors, and others who were close to them. Yuval then brought us back to our own past, by asking if our parents ever made us believe we were so clever. Lastly, at the end of Chapter 3, readers were introduced to "Elijah." Hannah was suppose to open the door to Elijah to remind themselves "of the time the Jews were forced to keep their doors open to show the Christians we were not practicing blood rituals." (Yolan,19) We all wondered if there was really an "Elijah" who came through the door. I thought that it wasnt Elijah, but it was the start of the dream that Hannah was having. I think this because soon enough, Hannah finds herself in a group of people she doesnt know, but they seem to know her.
 * Kelly was next, and she was the Character Captin. She shared that Hannah was ignorant and innocent because even though she heard all about what happened to Jews all those years in the concentration camps, she still didnt seem to care. Hannah knows that Passover is all about remembering the awful years Jews had to face, but she was tired of remembering. I shared that although Hannah is 13 years old, she still isnt old and mature enough to really feel the way her Grandpa feels about the concentration camps. This also leads into why she's innocent--she doesnt much feelings for this holiday because she hasnt been through a catastrophe like the one her grandparents have been through. We all finally agreed on that if Hannah gets more information about the Holocaust and the genecide of the Jews, then she would be less ignorant.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Daymis was the Literary Luminary and brought up the part in the book where Grandpa's fits brings Hannah memories of the tattoo she had made him of a 5 digit number with a pen. With all that Grandpa Will has been through, he doesnt find this memory that Hannah still has very amusing. This brought us back to the EQ--horrible experiences brings out the worst in people. This is probably because with all the anger, sadness, etc that they keep inside, sometimes people tend to spread it to others who have nothing to do with it.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Lastly, Vlada was the historian and she brought a very old book that talked about all different religions, including the Jewish religion.

June 9, 2008 Vlada Kagan

Two days ago, my group and i were discussing the last chapter that we had read in The Devil's Arithmetics <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)"> Thats all for now!
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Kelly started off the conversation by reading some questions that she did as her job was Philosopher. One of her questions was "What effect do you think is going to affect Hannah now that she is transported back into the time period of the Holocaust?" Daymis answered first. She said that there would be a positive effect because now that Hannah (Chaya) knows how hard it was to survive each day, she will know why Grandpa Will always shakes his fists at the TV screen when the old photos of the concentration camps roll by. Now we know that it was very hard for people back then because they lost everything they owned.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Yuval was next and he re-read a part of the chapter which he thought was puzzling and interesting. The part of the story which he chose talked about how Chaya and her people were robbeb of their belongings. It also talked about the first part of her journey which was a very long ride in a boxcar with many people and almost no fresh air. The chapter also talked about how the Jews were treated like horses, even worse. The Nazis gave the Jews trought water which was full of hay and normally given to horses.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Next was Daymis. She talked about how the characters were alike and how they were different. She chose some words that described each character. One of the sentences that she wrote for Hannah (Chaya) was strong but not to interested in learning about her religion because she is somewhat stubborn and thinks that what is in the past isn't something should be remembered too often. This started a whole new converation which i responded to by saying that since Hannah never knew how tough it was to live during World War two, especially being Jewish, she doesn't understand how tough it was to actually be someone who was Jewish and someone who did lose family, friends and even part of themselves during the war.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Last but not least was Shery who was this week's historian. She brought in an article from wikipedia which was on Aushwitz. As many people know, Aushwitz was a concentration camp which was responsible for most of the killings. The whole group was then looking through all of the pictures while Shery was reading us the article.

June 11, 2008 Yuval Shafir

Yesterday, my group and I had a discussion on the chapters we read, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)"> That's all for now!
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">The class started off very confusing. We didn't know which pages we were supposed to read up too, because Mrs. Cunningham said something about reading double, so me and kelly thought that we decided to take out the last part in the book, then to read double on the last day, and just to read like a regular class. However, Daymis, Sherry and Vlada didnt do that and they all read ahead of us. So we worked it out and they gave us a summary of what we missed.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Then we started our actual discussion and Daymis started us off, as she was the philosopher and she had some interesting questions. one of the questions she asked was "Why didn't the others care about what Hannah had to say?" Vlada was quick to answer as she told us how they thought that Hannah was crazy because she was talking about Nazis killing, which they had no clue about. Then she brought up the fact that if one of our relatives was to start talking about somebody killing us, when there was no evidence and we had no clue what he/she was talking about, and we all understood her answer. Next was Connector.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Vlada was the connector for this week. She brought up a movie that she saw, not knowing the name, and how it relates to __The Devil's Arithmetic__ She brought up the fact that both talk about children in the Holocaust, and the similarities sucha s the boxcars and the lining up, then shooting. Then Vlada used a text to world connection and related it to the genocide in Darfur. We had a discussion about that, but then needed to get back on topic so Shery was next.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Then Shery, as the character captain, chose to speak about Fayge. She called Fayge impatient, because she always repeats "I want to get married" and she can't wait to get married. But after a few minutes of talking abotu that, we decided that Fayge can't be characterized as impatient, because when it comes to marraige, everyone is basically impatient. Then Shery said that Fayge igets frustrated easily. We all agreed with that. Shery's evidence was that Fayge was always yelling at Hannah as Hannah was "talking nonsense."
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Last, Kelly was the historian, and she brought in a wikipedia site about Shabat. She gave us an entire wikipedia site and facts to look at, and then Mrs. Cunningham gave us some extra information about it.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Our group also brought out an interesting answer to the EQ--What brings out the best and worst in people? the answer was nationality and/or race. The best that it brings out is that if there is a problem in your native country, you will donate and try to help them as much as possible, bringing the best out of you. However, it can also bring out the worst in you too. Obviously, the racism between whites and blacks has a lot to do with that. Racism, brought slaver and the wors tout of people. Also another vlear example of this is the whole subject we are learning abotu, the holocaust brought the worst out of Germany, because of nationality.

June 13, 2008 Kelly Vasilopoulos

Yesterday my group and I discussed the chapters from __The Devil's Arithmetic__ that we read for homework: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)"> -xoxo-
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">The first one to speak was Shery. She was the Philosopher. One of her interesting questions was: "In the concentration camps Jews have to take showers and cut off all their hair. Why do they do all this if they're just going to be killed?" I said that the Nazis wanted the Jews to be living in the concentration camps as long as they would work. If they couldn't work then they were killed but if they were working then it was fine. Daymis pointed out that the Nazis didn't want the Jews to get lice so that's why they cut off their hair and made them take showers. Another interesting question that Shery asked us was: "Why were there prisoners giving the Jews orders? Were they actually Nazis? Why did they trust those prisoners so much to give Jews orders? Didn't they think that other prisoners would escape or help Jews escape the camps?" My group had a little difficulty with that question but we assumed that the other prisoners (like the woman with the three fingers) weren't Jews. Since we weren't sure we asked Ms. Sarah for help and she said that the prisoners that weren't Jews were people that had spoken out about Hitler in a bad way so they were thrown in concentration camps. However, they were treated a lot better then the Jews. The Jews were the lowest of the low.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">The second one to speak was Daymis. She was the Character Capitan. She chose Gitl and said that she is a very head-strong person. She is affectionate towards her family and she is not afraid to call the Nazis "monsters". Daymis also said that throughout the book Gitl was the one who helped those in need. She took in Chaya after her parents died, she helped Fayge when the Nazis ruined her wedding, and she helped the little kids. We all agreed with what Daymis said.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">The third one to speak was Vlada. She was the Literacy Luminary. She picked the part on pages 103-104 when Gitl tells Hannah that she will always be Chaya to her, life, never J197241. Gitl tells Hannah that she is a name, not a number, and that she is her brother's child, her blood. Vlada pointed out how this connects to what Daymis said, that Gitl is very affectionate towards her family. We all agreed on that.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">The last one to speak was Yuval. He was the Historian. Yuval brought in information on the shtetl from wikipedia. Yuval read us the article. He said that a shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Daymis and I discussed how Yiddish is a very hard language. There aren't a lot of vowels and pronouncing the words is very hard.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Towards the end of the class Yuval asked us a very interesting question. He asked us if that had happened to us, would we buy German products? Daymis and I immediately said no, we wouldn't buy products from that country. Shery said that she would. Vlada wasn't exactly sure, she would have to be in that situation in order to be sure. Yuval agreed with Shery and said that he also would buy the products. Yuval and I had a small argument over that but we each have our own opinions.

<span style="color: rgb(14, 118, 170)"><span style="color: rgb(29, 48, 84)">June 16, 2008 Daymis Vargas

Today, our group discussed the different events that occurred in the last few chapters we read for homework yesterday:


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)"><span style="color: rgb(14, 118, 170)"><span style="color: rgb(29, 48, 84)">Vlada started out by asking four questions that are relevant to the chapters we read:

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"> -"Under the leader ship of Moses, the Israelites escaped from Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and made their way to mount Sinai." This quote shows that Jews had been in other situations similar to that of the Holocaust. -"The Jews are not a race, for they include many racial types and have accepted many converts." This quote is relevant to the fact that the Nazis thought Jews as their own race, and even though they were not Orthodox, since they were Jewish, they'd get the same treatment as those who are greatly religious.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)"><span style="color: rgb(14, 118, 170)"><span style="color: rgb(29, 48, 84)">Do you think that if you were Fayge, you would want to still get married or would it be too hard to worry about your loved one while you barely had enough to get by? Well, I answered by saying, that if I were Fayge  I would, obviously, be worried about the well being of my loved one. But, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, since our camps are separate. And the only thing that I should be worried about, is that both of us survive the horrible experience so that we would be able to carry on through the wedding. The only chance of actually getting married is dependent on survival.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">If you were put into a concentration camp, would you try to do something to rebel against the Nazis? Would you risk your life by trying to escape. Kelly started to answer this question by saying that she would of course rebel against the Nazis because she wouldn't like to be bossed around. She said that she would try to escape because she just couldn't stand being treated like she was a rag doll. Yuval, Vlada, Shery, and I tried to persuade her to be a bit more realistic about it. The only option you really had was to work. If you wanted to be alive, you had to do labor. We agreed that that was the most probable choice, because there was a small chance of escaping. And even if you did manage to escape, you were stuck in the middle of nowhere, no German or Polish would hand you shelter—unless, of course, you were lucky—and what food could you possibly eat?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Do you think that since Chaya made a friend, there will be a higher chance of her surviving the Holocaust? Are there any clues as to who Rivka might be? Well, it was pretty much starting to get a bit obvious as to Rivka might have been. We knew that Hannah's Hebrew name was picked out by Aunt Eva who had a friend that was in the concentration camp along with her, so we have a clue as to who Rivka is...
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Why do you think Gitl stays so strong? She has seen bad things happen to her friends and family...and to her people and yet she is strong. All of us stated that she has to stay strong in order to survive. And if she does so, she might manage to encourage others to stay strong and many others will survive; it's kind of like a chain.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Yuval wasn't able to participate in sharing homework assignments since he didn't attempt at doing his assignment at all.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Kelly, the literacy luminary, chose the quote: "The officer cleared his throat. 'You will have discipline,' he said suddenly, without preamble. 'You will work hard. You will never answer back, complain, or question. You will not try to escape. You will do this for the Fatherland. You will do it or you will die." The officer turned smartly on his heel and left." —Yolen, 109-110. Kelly said that this is when the Jews are introduced to the type of works and punishments that they will endure throughout the camp. They are given a warning of the penalties of breaking camp rules.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0)"><span style="color: rgb(144, 19, 19)"><span style="color: rgb(238, 180, 220)">Shery was assigned the rule of the historian. She brought a small encyclopedia, named Children's Britannica. She shared a few important quotes on the Jewish religion, few of which are: