Use the following questions to guide your reading and your response:What are you left thinking and feeling after reading Crystal Night?
What does the last stanza of the poem describe? What does it seemingly predict?
What is the main idea of Niemoller's piece?
What does Niemoller's piece mean for us as citizens of the United States and of an increasingly interdependent global community?
November 9, 1938: Kristallnacht literally translates into the "Night of Broken Glass." Hitler ordered the SS to attach Jewish synagogues to see how the world would react. He then continued his efforts to eliminate all Jewish people in Germany.
[from Voices of the Holocaust, Perfection Learning, 2006].
Crystal Nightby Lyn Lifshin
windows slashed
like skin pulled
tight frozen with a
stone slammed thru
it smashed blue
glass crystal a
whole lake of ice
a plane crashes
into smashed
tea cups bowl of
glass glass
shattering in the
night something like
a mirror walked
into they came beat
people up blue
jars the glass piled
in an alley calf
deep. All night the
sound of ice in
the branches poking
holes in the roof
A warning stained
glass from the
synagogue slashed
plum peach cherry
frosting over in
the chill NOvember
light an arm
torn bleeding
a whole family
in shards and this
just the beginning
The next is a famous piece from Pastor Martin Niemoller. Portions of this poem were used in the play we watched at Nazareth College. Niemoller spent seven years in concentration camps after protesting the Nazi mistreatment of Jews.
[from Voices of the Holocaust, Perfection Learning, 2006].
In Germany, first they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out -
because I was a Protestant
Then they came for me -
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
14 comments:
this story is disterbing. the pepol cam thar for a job and lon behold in the end they get sloterd. this shud never hapen to any person i dont car who it is it is not riught.
josh
reading the story gives you more of a look at what it was like for these people to just wait for there time to come when they would be taken to the concentration camps and wondering what was gonna happen to them. i cant imaging living in fear for days months and years just waiting for possibly the worst.
KFRED
hey,
Emmy you da best great times together!!!
It is obviously horrible what these people went through. I would not want to spend my life being opressed, and living in fear waiting to die. I interpreted that last verse as a way of expressing how families that fell victims to the holocaust got forcibly seperated, and that it would not stop unless good people tried to silence it. The main idea for the second passage is to recognize that if someone is in trouble, or needs assistance that they cannot provide themselves, then you should help them. The Nazis were horrible evil people, and they were brought to justice thus freeing the Jewish from their oppression. The main point he is trying to make is if someone needs help with something, you should have their back.
We didnt win the war because we got lucky, we won because we knew what was right...plain and simple.
the poems he'll explaned the horrers these people went through it must have been very hard to deal with that and when he said the order in witch the people were taken by there religien
the poems he'll explaned the horrers these people went through it must have been very hard to deal with that and when he said the order in witch the people were taken by there religien honestly it was hard to read it was just crual what the nazis did
cody
I agree with Devon. We won the war because we tried our hardest and we had strategies that we didn't leave behind or we didn't forget to use.
emmy
hola,
KFRED lol we are so cool we are talking to eachother so everyone can see what we have written eventhough this has nothing to do w/ Global. We totally had da best times together. Mr. Hermance is amaz-za-zing lol =)
1. It must have been hard to hear all of the windows smashing. I would be terrified and unable to sleep. It is terrible what was going on for so long without people saying anything or doing anything.
2. This has just started and it will spread throughout the country effecting all of the Jews.
3. If you worry just about yourself, when they come for you there will be no one left to help you and help stop them.
4. The last piece demonstrates the idea of nationalism because it is important to care about others and not just one place or one person.
-Jennifer-
Hey eveyone-
I appreciate you all being dilligent in your posts, but please make sure you read the original passages thoroughly along with any context provided. Feel free to post questions if you don't understand. Its kind of a given that the Nazis were evil -- go deeper. What emotions did these poems illicit? How did they complement each other?
Jen, I liked your post. Remember, nationalism is extreme love of your country or the pride in your ethnic group. It can both bring people together or rip a nation apart. The Nazis used the German national identity and a long tradition of Anti-Semitisim in Europe to portrary the Jews as enemies of the nation...
Emily, its cool that you responded to someone elses post, but please make sure you read the blog post yourself and share your opinion or questions.
i think he is going to die because he had to speak out at the end and i also think the other people died when they spock out because he was the last one to speack
Kialen McLovin
i think the first verse talks about people's homes being broken into, looted, and destroyed. the second verse seems to say that so many homes were destroyed so quickly that the glass fell all over, forming what seemed to be a lake. the third and a fourth verses refer to the constant beatings, destruction of buildings, and tossing the remnants onto the street as if they were meaningless. the fifth verse seems to say that trees were burned and fell into roofs, and that so many were killed so heartlessly that not even the synagogues and places of worship weren't even safe. i think the sixth verse says that by the time all the killing and chaos was over even the beauty of november in autumn was marred by the horror. the last verse is very simple, al most all, if not every family was borken up, possibly forever.
Ryan
i think that the poem is talking about there will and how the bomber out side and the glass braking was go on all the time and the 2 poem was that he should of said some thing because some one could of said some thing for him.
Brian
This poem definitely speaks to me. In this poem the writer admits to not caring about other peoples till he was prosecuted. I think the message he is trying to convey is that you should always be concerned with the misfortune of others even if their circumstance does not evolve you because if when it comes time for your torment who is going to look out for you.
-matt
The poem was not something i easily understood. I did like the symbolism though and his ideas do show. The fact of the crystal poem i think talks about when the jews were begining to become threatened as the enemy. It is really disturbing from what the holocaust really was and it can really show. The second poem i think talks about how almost everybody in the area during the holocaust not just the people targeted. The jews, gays, blacks etc etc were just the main targets when rather it could have effected people in the war, people in the area during the war and just anybody involved in the whole ordeal no matter where they were.
-Ethan
1. After crystal night I see a town that has been destroyed, a fire, and everything is dark, dark and covered in glass.
2. The last stanza of the poem predicts that this will happen again. It implies that there will be much more destruction to follow.
3. Niemoller is trying to say that you should stand up against something because if it's wrong, not just if it affects you. He says that if you don't say anything when something bad is happening to someone else, they surely won't be there to stand up for you.
4. Niemoller is telling the world, that, to be globally united, we must act when something wrong is going on in another country. If a genocide occurs somewhere, you try to stop it because it's horrible, cruel and morally and ethically wrong, not because it affects you.
-Sam Conner
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