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Erin M. Rock
Instructor Hobbs
English 121.003 Humanities Literature
19 March 2007
Moments In Time
People keep diaries for different reasons. Some may keep a food diary while others may keep a diary of their medications. No matter what the reason is, they are charting important things in their life in order to reflect upon them at a later time. A diary for personal reasons is being discussed in this case.
When someone writes in a diary, they are telling their life narrative. They are giving information about their life as they live it. A diary is something very special to the individuals who choose to keep one. Writing in a diary can be a very private thing for some. Inside, it holds their deepest, darkest secrets, things they would never tell anyone else. It plays a role as a friend that they can tell anything to and get no judgments made upon them in return. A diary can be looked upon years down the road and experiences can be reminisced.
Dawid Sierakowiak kept a diary for similar reasons. He was a young man at the age of fifteen when his diary began (Sierakowiak, vii). He was heading off to summer camp and decided to start a diary. He probably thought a diary would be a good idea because his time at camp would be fun and full of memories that he would never want to forget. Unfortunately, things turned out completely different from what he expected.
At the beginning of his diary, while he was at summer camp, the mood was very light (Sierakowiak, 21). He was having a good time and wrote about all of the different activities that he and his friends were participating in. Slowly things got progressively worse. The people of Lodz were going poor, grocery stores were running out of food, and then suddenly on September 1, Germany declared war.
Eventually the Germans took over Lodz (Sierakowiak, 36). When school began, Dawid badly wanted to go, but his parents refused. His parents told him that they didn’t want to lose him yet. He regretted ever complaining about going to school and getting up in the morning. It’s interesting how hungry for education children get when they are not allowed to attend school. When Dawid quit going to school all together, the diary helped him through the transition. He benefited from keeping the diary, in that it was a way of educating himself and keeping up with his literary skills. It’s clear that his skills got better as the story progressed.
On September 18, 1939, Dawid wrote about his family’s unfortunate situation with money (Sierakowiak, 40). He explained that his mom went to his father’s boss to ask for some money. His father’s boss refused. Dawid proclaimed that his family will probably die of hunger. If he only knew what was to come of him later in his life.
It’s interesting that at the beginning of his diary he is having so much fun that he doesn’t write in his diary every day. He usually wrote about every other day. Then, by the end of the book, and long before that, he writes every single day. I believe it really helped him keep his sanity during this time. It was a way for him to escape, just for a few moments, from the gloomy world surrounding him.
Although Dawid’s diaries were written around seventy years ago, the same things hold true today. Similar to children today who keep diaries, Dawid wanted to keep a record in order to look back upon it years down the road. He also wanted to have something to confide in so that he didn’t have to hold back his feelings. He wrote whatever he was thinking with no worries of offending anyone. In a way I believe Dawid was hoping that his diaries would be found down the road. Just like the children who make time capsules today. Dawid’s diary was his own personal time capsule.

Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. Ed. Alan Adelson. 1996. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996

Brooke Decker
Dr. Lee Hobbs
English Humanities Literature 121.003
9, March 2006

An Awkward Circumstance: 150-year-old Boy keeps a Diary
Is it important for people to keep a diary? A diary is solely a day by day record of facts, kind of like a journal of experiences that someone goes through in life (Webster’s Dictionary). Keeping a diary may be significant to some people, but not to everyone, it all depends on the individual and what their perspectives on keeping a diary are. Diaries are intended to keep the actions or events a person endures through in life or to just essentially express their feelings in a matter that no one else will be able to understand. Writing in a diary may perhaps be the only way someone can honestly express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
The class read a book called The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak,, written by Dawid Sierakowiak himself, edited by Alan Adelson, and translated by Kamil Turawski. These diary entries were written specifically by Dawid Sierakowiak, a 15 year old boy, himself. The diaries are written within five different notebooks and are all from the “LODZ GHETTO.” It was said in the book that there were additional journal entries but they got lost, and these were the only entries left (Sierakowiak, Dawid). Dawid was a young Jewish boy who had to experience life threatening, and aggressive obstacles like the Holocaust. Dawid’s diary entries begin on June 28, 1939, a few days before he turned 15 years old and they end on April 15, 1943, a few days before his 19th birthday, and all were written during the time of the Holocaust (Sierakowiak, Dawid. Foreword). Sadly, Dawid did not survive the Holocaust; he died on August 8, 1943 of Tuberculosis (Sierakowiak, Dawid Foreword).
Dawid’s motives for keeping these diary entries were without a doubt, very different from any other 15 year old boy in today’s society. Motives are mental forces that induces an act, or determining an impulse, something that is intentional or on purpose (Webster’s Dictionary). When I first began to read this narrative, my initial thoughts were that Dawid was an extremely, intelligent young teenage boy, and he had a passion for writing, and expressing his feelings and ideas through writing in a diary. Within each of his diary entries he stated what was specifically going on around him, and his actual feelings towards the Holocaust. Many times through out the entries, Dawid would state the little amounts of food that they received, or about the work he would have to perform at his job (Sierakowiak, Dawid 192). Dawid didn’t always express exactly how he felt, but rather the events that are typically happening around him. In some parts of the entries he did express his feelings like when he wrote about the pain from his tooth and when his father and he get into an argument with his father, because his father was being greedy with the food (Sierakowiak, Dawid 192-198). These diary entries are very personal and heart-felt. I am sure that when Dawid was writing these; he was writing them to look back on in years to come.
The difference between Dawid keeping a journal back then, and a 15 year old boy keeping one today is that society has changed so much. In today’s society, it’s more about fitting in with the other children, and if people found out that a 15 year old boy was writing in a diary, they would get made fun of, but back during the Holocaust, it didn’t matter, it seemed as though it was the normal thing to do. Today’s society is based on stereotypes; it isn’t the normal everyday thing to do for a 15 year old boy to write in a diary. Now, in today’s society, it is normal for them to be outside playing sports or hanging with their friends. In today’s society, the motives to writing in a diary now are very simplistic compared to the diaries written during the Holocaust time period. Boys and children today express their feelings through actions rather than writing. Also, in today’s society, people would find it common for young girls to write in diaries, but it is still different than Dawid’s, because the young girls tend to write about there latest crush, or what them and their friends do, compared to Dawid’s which was more serious and heart touching. Dawid’s diary has a little more meaning to others rather than people who write their own personal diaries today. All this boils down to the actual individual themselves and how they feel, and if they believe that keeping a diary is important, I believe it is important since its about individuals personal life.

Works Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto.
1939-43. Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil Turowski. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Morehead, Albert and Loy. The New-American Webster Handy College Dictionary. 3rd edition. Phillip D. Morehead. 1995.

Melisa Parsons
Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121. 003 Humanities Literature
8 March 2007
Everything Isn’t What it Seems
After reading The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, many people would assume that Dawid’s father is mean and very selfish. The people who believes Dawid’s father is mean, nasty and selfish may not have taken into consideration that he is probably going through the worse time of his life. The mean things that Dawid’s father is doing would not be in his personality characteristics under normal circumstances. Before the Holocaust, men were supposed to be the protector and the provider to their families, with the Nazi taken over, men were not allowed to do the things they were used to doing for themselves and their families. I would assume from the behaviors Dawid’s father displayed throughout the story that he is suffering from depression. The living conditions that his family was living in were unbearable and there was not anything he could do about it, which might make him feel less than a man.
The things that were non-fictive about Mr. Sierakowiak is that he was doing things that seemed to be very odd. Mr. Sierakowiak took portions of food from his family although he knew his family only had a limited a supply of food (Sierakowiak pg 95). When Dawid received a job his father stated that Dawid was changing (Sierakowiak pg 107). Instead of being happy for his son, Mr. Sierakowiak seemed to be angry with his son and jealous as well. When Dawid’s father lost his job he did not try to look for another job he stayed at home and ate up his family’s food. The Holocaust changed Mr. Sierakowiak for the worse because during a troublesome time, he treated his family badly. During a troublesome time family should come close together instead Dawid’s father only thought about himself.
Moreover, here are some things that are fictive about Dawid’s father that he is a selfish person. What I believe is that Mr. Sierakowiak could not handle all stress that was going on in his life. He probably felt very ashamed that he could not do for his family. Although, he was working his family was still struggling to get by. Dawid’s father was not thinking in his right state of mind. Dawid’s father was still eating up the family’s food when his wife looked very sick; clearly she was not getting enough food. Once he realized that his was very sick and she looked like she was not going to make he went out and looked for a job but, soon he was back not working and eating up his family’s food. The different things that Dawid’s father did showed that he was confused and not in his write state of mind. He really did not know what to do, he did not know weather he was coming or going. Soon after his father was injured, he died I believe he gave up the will to live.
There are three things people can take out of reading The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak is that Dawid father is a mean selfish person or he is overwhelmed and stressed out with the living conditions he and his love one are living in. The facts are that Mr. Sierakowiak was taking food from his family (Sierakowiak pg95). He caused a lot of conflict between him and his son and was not supportive at all. I came to the conclusion that his father was depressed do to his irrational behaviors he displayed towards the one he loved. Sometimes he tried to do the right things by working then he was right back to not working and eating all the food again. Mr. Sierakowiak and his son traded places because his son became the provider. Dawid’s father was very uncompromising and seemed like he was the child rebelling against a parent. My conclusion is that Dawid’s father went crazy.

Worked Cited
The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak 1996

Mr. Hobbs,

Here is my new revised copy of my DDS paper.

Erin Knisley
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
18 March 2007
A Spark of Light
At some point in life, a thick veil melts like liquid plaster, solid and heavy, over individual consciousness as it slowly disintegrates all light and hope. To some this veil may come as ‘lightly’ as a friend’s deception or heavily as a sudden, horrendous and life-altering change. Men, women, German, Pole—to darkness, differences between cultures and peoples mean nothing. Dawid was no exception. In his Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, life in the World War II German occupied Poland was unraveled before the reader as a series of increasingly devastating events and deepening darkness. No darkness, however, is completely without the tiniest pinprick of light. Therefore, even in Dawid’s journey of misery, there came a brightening light. Though Dawid seemed unattached to females in general (even toward his sister there was a certain level of indifference), his faith in women was restored by his mother. She was undoubtedly his shining light, the candle that fought against the stark darkness the German occupation built around him. Dawid spoke lovingly and devotedly about his mother as he presented her in a shining light. He held her in high esteem despite her womanhood, proved her time and time again to be the only female worthy of his esteem, and admitted how she was his soothing presence. Each characteristic was individual to this woman alone. Dawid perceived her as not a typical woman (the crying housewife) but as a model to be emulated.
Dawid spoke of his mother reverently. She was a being, not a woman, for whom he showed great respect. Of other women Dawid returned to his usual sarcastic wit, making one comment of “I went to Mrs. Perec’s to find out about the tutoring, but she wasn’t home. The ‘lady’ apparently forgot” (Sierakowiak 54) with the intention of the word ‘lady’ to sound as something one discovered caked on the bottom of one’s shoe. When Dawid spoke of his Mother, this disdain towards women was non-existent; instead there was love and respect. In one such show of caring, Dawid wrote “I’m more and more saddened by Mom’s appearance. The long distance to work has withered her completely” (Sierakowiak 195). If Dawid did not respect his Mother as he did, he would have referred to her in the same way he did his sister. There would be no worrying care in his tone.
Both his Mother and sister gave shares of their bread rations to Father, but when Mother did it Dawid remained silent, when Nadzia (his sister) gave away her bread, Dawid angrily wrote “Stupid girl” (Sierakowiak 177). Nadzia did not hold the place of respect in Dawid’s life that Dawid’s Mother held. Dawid’s respect for his mother showed itself in other ways as well. When Father and Dawid were arguing, Dawid’s Mother asked Dawid to stop and make peace (of at least some sort) with his father and Dawid agreed. Later he recalled in his diary, “but at Mom’s request…I finally decided to forget the whole thing” (Sierakowiak 151). Had his Father requested the apology, Dawid would have bitterly walked away to drabble in spite. Only Dawid’s mother commanded respect from him. She alone represented womankind in his eyes. All other women were hard pressed to come close to touching his Mother’s pedestal. Even his sister never reached the pinnacle of respect his Mother tread upon in her daily life.
Besides the ultimate respect Dawid held for his Mother, Dawid also displayed a fond caring towards her in his writings. Mother was the only one that ever received his devoted love. This absolute loyalty was emphatically at its most crystalline transparency when Dawid’s Mother was taken away. Dawid exclaimed angrily “My most Sacred, beloved, worn-out, blessed, cherished Mother has fallen victim to the Nazi beast!!!” (Sierakowiak 218). Dawid was furious, in a rage that the Germans dared to take his mother. Dawid use of the term “Sacred”! solidified the elevation of Mother from a normal woman (women on this level seemed to gain only indifference from Dawid, or sarcastic remarks) to a goddess of light glittering in the gathering darkness which cloaked Dawid’s life. For the same event, Dawid continued to bestow praises upon his Mother, “my unfortunate dearest mother” (Sierakowiak 218), as the terror of the situation gripped him. Had he lost his Father in similar fashion, Dawid would not have been half as distressed. In truth, he would have felt something akin to devious pleasure. Instead, Dawid was forced to a distraught state. “I swear on this human life that’s holy to me that if I only knew that my mother wouldn’t have to die, that she’d survive the war despite the deportation, I could accept what has happened” (Sierakowiak 219). Dawid swore on his life for knowledge of his Mother’s wellbeing. This did not seem an action of an uncaring boy, but of a dedicated son. He was losing the only person he seemed to have deeply loved. Fear rattled him at this sudden and unreasonable seizure of his “dearest mother”. With her departure, Dawid’s outlook on women becomes more stark—the indifference rearing its head more clearly. As a parting remark to the incident, Dawid consoled himself softly with the thought that “even the greatest rainfall can’t wash away a completely broken heart, and nothing will fill up the emptiness of the soul, brain, mind, and heart that is created by the loss of one’s most beloved person” (Sierakowiak 226).
When Dawid lost his “beloved person” he lost a part of himself as well. His hope wafted away more quickly for gone was the resilient wall which shielded him from the harshest of the oppressive winds. His soothing presence was gone. Dawid was left with “such shudders and heart palpitations […] that it seems to me I’m going insane or delirious” (Sierakowiak 226). New strains and tensions were forced upon Dawid now that the integral balance of his life was stolen from him. Left in its place were the responsibilities of gaining income, caring for his sister, the upkeep of the home; everything which gradually slipped into nothingness as his own ‘deportation’ from life drew closer. The last months of his life lost most of their joy, returned to mindless drudgery and familial problems at home all due to the loss of Dawid’s center of balance—his Mother. Only one record of where his Mother came to him for support survived, the day that “Mom threw herself at me, crying” (Sierakowiak 155). This event was the cause of the fear of being taken from her family without hope of return. However, never again did she show such an emotion. She was the strong, silent sufferer. She was his stabilizing rock. Mother was the one he relied upon, not the other way around. When the doctors and their escorts came to Dawid’s apartment and took Dawid’s Mother rudely away, with no reasonable explanation, she responded with a calm Dawid could not comprehend. With “complete presence of mind […] she spoke to us about her fate” (Sierakowiak 219-220). There was no doubt Mother was extremely nervous, however, she put on a brave front for her family when all their emotions were wracked with fear. Dawid commented further:
“When I told her that she had given her life by lending and giving away provisions…she
admitted it with such a bitter smile that I could see she didn’t mind her conduct at all, and,
although she loved her life so greatly, for her there are values even more important than
life, like God, family, etc” (Sierakowiak 220).
Mother did not have a fear of dying that surpassed her need to keep her family safe. Thus, she proved her strength of character and further emphasized why Dawid held her in such high esteem. Though the world tumbled in around Dawid after his Mother is taken, he maintained at least some of the strength she left behind, having left her mark upon him for all time; his “blessed, beloved, unforgotten in any moment of the day or night mother!” (Sierakowiak 247).
Women, as a whole, had no effect upon Dawid. They seemed to disinterest him, and he either responded with indifference or sarcastic commentary. However, it cannot be said that no woman had an effect upon Dawid. Dawid’s Mother was the only female in Dawid’s life worthy of his respect. To her, he showed love and devotion. She was his soothing, calming, stable presence; the candle flickering in the darkness which lead him along the path and provided a comforting presence only a light in pitch darkness can give. When the light was huffed out by the winds of German oppression, the one relying upon the glowing light was quickly lost to the suffocating and ever present shadow of melancholic despair. Dawid lost the one person he cared the most for and thus lost himself. Women were nothing, one woman was everything. Trusted, loved, blessed, sacred—Mother.

Works Cited

Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak; Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto.
Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil Turowski. New York: Oxford U.P, 1996.

Bettina Herold
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
19 March 2007
Change for the Better
Growing up, my grandmother lived with my family and basically raised me. From when I was a baby until about fourteen years old, she took on the motherly role and tended to me since both of my parents worked full time. My grandmother would cook for me, brush my hair, take care of me when I was sick, etc. However, when she passed away, I was rather lost at first without her guidance and support. Eventually, I learned to be my own person and to do everything for myself. I still pay tribute to her for all my good mannerisms and habits that she taught me during out time together. I think that many people can relate to this memory and can recall someone who once cared for them and showed them the skills of life. Still, inevitably, everyone also loses someone important to them and must learn how to cope in times of hardship. In The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, Dawid went through one of these self journeys as he experienced the war and the affects it had on his family. During these hard times and struggles, Dawid lost important people and learned to move on by himself. As a result of the happenings of the war, Dawid’s personality went through dramatic changes as his respect for his father diminished, his responsibility towards his family grew, and his personal motivation to push through increased.
Once Dawid’s father become unemployed, the family and its tight unity started to unravel. We see as Dawid starts to lose respect for his father as food starts disappearing and selfishness on his father’s part begins to arise. This is a defning feature to Dawid’s experience since such a change affected not only Dawid, but the rest of the family both physically and emotionally. Dawid and his family begin to see his father as a greedy man who cannot control himself. The tension rises quickly as food is in short supply and the greediness of his father is causing the rest of the family to whither away without nutrition. In the section “We Live in Constant Fear,” Dawid notes that his father has, “taken to stealing from us and harassing us, as though that will help him (177). It is at this point that Dawid’s father has gone out of his mind and become so out of control he cannot stop himself from hurting his family. This is quite ironic as usually it is the father who provides for his family and makes sacrifices to see his wife and children are healthy before himself.
From the shock of the hard times resulting from the war, Dawid beings to realize his duty to become the support his family is in desperate need of. Since his father was becoming rather useless, Dawid had no choice but to step up to the plate and become the man of the house. Dawid strives to help his mother and protect his sister as best he can. Sometimes, children can grow up too fast when they are put in a predicament like this. This is true of Dawid and his sister, who take on the roles their parents once fulfilled for them. In “The Never Ending Hunger” section, Dawid writes that since both his parents work all day, “Housekeeping falls on Nadzia’s shoulders; she takes care of all the food lines, cleaning, etc.” (94). Since Dawid’s father lost employment, his mother had to work harder and longer to try to support her family. The family struggles through as each member has to work harder to support the others. Dawid also had to work to support them with the little money he was paid for tutoring. This left Nadia, his younger sister, to take care of the house all day. Dawid sees this struggle for his sister and does what he can to give her nourishment or help whenever possible.
In spite of the hardships, Dawid takes the situation, to be a motivation, to do more with his life. He aggressively tries to become more optimistic and to encourage others to keep their heads up as well. In times of hardship such as death, divorce, war, argument etc., families often fall apart before they fall together. Even the strongest and most intellectual people can fall to pieces when put under pressure. Dawid, on the other hand, had the courage and the motivation to take the situation of the war as a chance to mature and learn about him self and society. Even though Dawid’s family members were hard stuck by the effects of the war and the Nazi’s rule, he became the reliant rock they could trust to keep them calm and clear minded. As he watched his mother become severely stressed out and his father lose all sense, Dawid was able to keep a level mind and a good attitude to encourage his surrounding family to follow his lead.
The war was a time that brought out many emotions in Dawid. The effects on his personal life as well as interaction with his family were clearly affected. As unemployment burdened his family, Dawid underwent a journey of change in his relationship with his family members, himself, and fate. As the story carries on and finishes out, it is surprising to see how positive he kept in spit4e of the obstacles that faced him everyday. Many children rely on their parents for financial support as well as emotional support. When parents are not able to provide for them, some children may become lost and fall into the cracks of despair. Dawid was able to miraculously rise above his oppression and to quickly become an adult during a very serious time in history.
Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, Oxford, NY. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Jenny Troutman
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
28 March 2007
Rumkowski: Good guy or bad guy?
As a community leader of a town, city, or even a ghetto, strong characteristics are good to have because of having people looking up to you. As well, the community leader needs to serve, protect, and help their people. During the Holocaust, Rumkowski was the Ghetto’s Leader which means he had to follow every command from anyone higher than himself. Rumkowski served his people but he never got enough credit from the ghetto from where he was from. Jews thought he never protected his people as he promised. Dawid calls him a “sadist-moron,” (Sierakowiak 11). Many people from the ghetto perceived Rumkowski as a “bad person” to them because he would use his police force to take children away from the parents and the elderly were taken away too. Dawid heard one of Rumkowski’s speeches one day in which Rumkowski stated, “The sacrifice of the children and the elderly is necessary,” that “nothing could be done to prevent it,” (Sierakowiak 217). Just by hearing him say that, to me, I would not like to see my community or town run by that kind of man. Rumkowski was showing the Jews, that he is trying to do his job as a leader. But in the eyes of the Jews, he showed that he was a bad person, and he wanted the children and elderly to go into the force camps to sacrifice their lives.
By reading about Rumkowski, it seem that he did have hopes and dreams as any other community leader in the ghetto would, but never really showed it in his character. As well, it did seem that Rumkowski wanted this dreadful Holocaust to end, but he couldn’t say anything about it. Also, he seems helpless by not helping his community, he had to go against them and do what he was told by the German soldiers. Rumkowski could have been killed if he would ever save them or hide them from those soldiers. His personality was really hard to describe because he felt like a cold hearted man. If he really didn’t have to send all those young children and elderly out to work camps, death camps, etc. Rumkowski could have been a better person and the Jews probably would have trusted him. Trust was also a main key that community leaders need to do for their people. Rumkowski’s role in the community was just being there for the people; help them get the food that they needed and guide them to safety when needed.
By reading The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak showed me that Rumkowski was a helpful man, but when it comes in need where he was controlled by German soldiers, he had to change his reaction and be against the Jews. Rumkowski wanted to help them as much as possible, but he knew what they would do to make him suffer the consequences. The officers and soldiers could have killed Rumkowski if they have seen him disobeying their rules and disobeying the laws that they laid down. I think that Dawid did see Rumkowski as a bad guy but then later found a good person inside of him. Even though Dawid didn’t like the way he treated the Jews like they were different and they all deserve to die. If Rumkowski would have stood up for what he believed in and stood up to he officers or even Hitler, there would have been a few more survivors from the Holocaust and they could live an easier life. As seeing Rumkowski as a community leader, I don’t believe that he succeeds on many things, but he did fail the people who were willing to trust him. By reading of Rumkowski, I thought he would be like a hero to all the people from the ghetto but it does turn out the he was the complete opposite. I compare him to Benedict Arnold, because he seemed like a good guy, but he turned his back on many of his people and the Jews lost respect for him. Since many of his people lost respect of Rumkowski, the question still remains.
If he could have helped those children and the elderly, could he have been recognized as a hero to the Jews? Rumkowski did many mistakes sending the children and elderly to concentration camps, but it seems like it hurt Rumkowski physically and mentally. If he would have stood up for what he believed in, then there would probably be Jews living till this day. But if Rumkowski did stand up to the German soldiers, there would have been a possibility that he could have died with the other Jews and got someone else to do the job. The question remains unknown because no one would ever know what that man went through in his life, and as his life goes on, he probably remains in guilt and less powerful for all that he has done.

Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. Ed. Adelson, Alan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Lyndsay Krall
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121 Humanities Literature
9 March 2007
What Would You Do?
For reading response number two, the topic I have chosen to focus on from the story The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak is Topic # 6. I felt that of all the choices, this was the topic that I could relate to the most because it asks for the writer’s thoughts and opinions on how I feel that I would respond should I find myself in someone like Dawid’s situation. I will be discussing how the transition from a time of peace to a time of war affects an entire community. Along with my friends, I might respond in a similar way to Dawid, should this be our country invaded and occupied by foreign soldiers.
The narrative of The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak moves from a time of peace to war. I would characterize the different reactions in the community to the invasion by the portrayal presented by the notebooks, in which one of the first and main reactions could be described as disbelief. The community found themselves in a state of shock to find out that something like this could actually happen to them. It was stated, “God, what’s going on! Panic, mass exodus, defeatism” (34). Another reaction that the community felt was the emotion of fear. It was stated that people ran from one place to another, finding no comfort; they move their worn bits of furniture around in terror and confusion, without any real purpose (34). This was highly likely to be considered the scariest thing that any of these people have ever experienced in their lives. One of the biggest reactions that the community also felt towards the invasion was the feeling of disparity and helplessness. To feel that everything that they have ever worked hard for was just taken away right in front of them. These people were stripped of everything that meant anything to them, and the worst part was that nothing could be done about it.
For the children of the community, this situation was viewed as a very upsetting, frightening, and very confusing stage in their lives. This made the young children of the community feel hopeless, as if there were nothing good to look forward to in their lives anymore. For example, the children are told that they can no longer attend school because of who they are and of their current situation. School begins to deteriorate for the young Jewish children of the community. There are no teachers or classes and everything is vanishing right before their eyes (69). On Wednesday, December 13 Dawid was officially no longer allowed out to school that day (70). This made the children feel as though things would never get better, and that nothing but devastating news would come their way. If I were to find my country invaded by soldiers, I would have the same reaction that Dawid’s community had. I would be in such a state of disbelief that I would feel as though I was just in a bad dream that I could not wake up from. I would never have thought that anything this like could ever happen to me. I would be completely overwhelmed with emotions and I honestly would not know how to react. I would be terrified, and not only of what was going to happen to me, but I would be scared for my family’s sake as well. Although I would be terrified, I believe that on top of it all, I would feel angry. I would feel angry towards the horrible men that were doing this to my community, that all of the hard work that was ever done was for nothing and that this situation could ever actually present itself.
In conclusion, the story The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak has truly opened my eyes to the harsh world that surrounds us. This book has made me realize that not all people are as fortunate as others, and that life is not always so beautiful. I consider myself lucky to live in the country that I do, a country that symbolizes freedom and equality for all.

Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. Ed. Alan Adelson. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.

Tatiana S. Mack
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
21 March 2007
When All Hope Is Gone
Whenever people choose to have children, they should consider the fact that things are not about them anymore. They now have to sacrifice things that they once enjoyed for the sake of their children. Children are dependents, which means a person relies on another for support. Support does not just mean cheering a child on in a football game, it means to feed them when their hungry, to bathe them when their dirty, and to buy them essentials that they need. Being a good supporter builds confidence, as well as trust in a child. Many children were fortunate enough to have strong supporters in their lives, which in turn, made them strong supporters as well. Unfortunately, Dawid's father, Majlech, was not as strong as he needed to be for his family, and clearly, all hope was gone.
Dawid and his family were a traditional family. The working father, the stay at home mother, the eldest son, and the young daughter. The family depended a lot on Majlech because he was the only source of income. However, his income was only enough to buy what the family needed most, food (52). He would bring food home for the family (28), and give money to Dawid's mother to buy bread (29). When Majlech's job was not paying him, he did what he could do for money. He attempted to sell their furniture just so rent could get paid (66).
Before the Germany took over Poland, Majlech was already showing signs of weakness. When there was just talk about Germany taking over Lodz, his father was “losing his head; he didn't know what to do.”(34). Should he stay in the Lodz, or leave the Lodz. However, Majlech did what was a comfort for him, and what he thought was the best for his family: he registered for the military “serving in it will reduce his anxiety and restore his sense of stability” (36). Nevertheless, he still had uncertainty not knowing what he should do. “Several times father wanted to go with them at first, but then got hold of himself and stayed” (66).
Approximately three years after Lodz was taken over, Majlech showed signs that he had given up, and was only thinking about himself (230). After Majlech was incarcerated, he had no job which means no income. Maljech even decided to lay in his “lice” for days, not motivated enough to wash, or recover (231). Dawid seemed very annoyed and irritated with his father (230). The man that he once depended on, is not doing anything to help his family. Since Dawid was the only one with a steady income, it can be said that he felt there was a role reversal. With the help of his sister Nadzia, or Natalie, and absolutely no help from his father, Dawid was able to provide for his family. Obviously, Dawid lost a lot of respect for his father. This lead to many arguments between the two. “I had a fierce argument over rations with father... I told him everything I think of him and why I hate him” (230). This affected day-to-day life a great deal. Dawid was forced to go to work everyday to get his rations so his father and sister can eat. It affected Dawid so much, that he rarely wanted to be home. “The office has become a paradise for me; each time I come home from work, I am filled with fear and disgust” (231).
We are put in situations for a reason. These situations are tests that we either pass or fail. Maljech was clearly not able to handle the situations that he had to undergo. Also, he was not willing to make ultimate sacrifices for his wife and kids. For example, when his wife was in a healthy state, and the German officers still chose to take her away, “he didn't run out anywhere in the city; he didn't go to any friends' connections to ask for protection. In a word, he was glad to be rid of a wife with whom life had been becoming harder and harder, thus pushing Mom into her grave” (219). Many times, people forget what is important to them and only look out for themselves. All in all, this is what happens when all hope is gone.

Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. 1939-43. Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil Turowski. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Jennifer L. Naugle
Instructor Lee Hobbs
English 121.003 Humanities Lit
5 March 2007
A Laugh Amid All the Unhappiness
Authors of fiction often create characters through a combination of actions, speeches, behaviors, and descriptions. There are various ways to depict a fictive character’s personality. In non-fiction stories, such as The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, by Dawid Sierakowiak and edited by Alan Adelson, Dawid’s character traits are expressed through his own thoughts and experiences. To learn about Dawid Sierakowiak’s personality, it is important to interpret what he writes in his journals and to decipher his ideals on life. Dawid is an extraordinary individual because even though he spent four very difficult years in the Lodz ghetto, he still fully expressed his optimistic and loving character in his journals.
“Long live humor; down with hysteria” (Sierakowiak 32)! Dawid’s most prominent character trait was his sense of humor. In the beginning journal entries, Dawid almost always found something positive to write about the day, even if it was just the weather. On certain days, especially in the later journals, David’s optimism was challenged greatly. On Saturday, August 2nd 1942, Dawid wrote, “August is beginning with nice warm days, but it won’t be for long. It would be too good if the sun were shining for us” (Sierakowiak 201). Dawid’s mood was mostly affected by the day’s rations and political affairs. “The situation in the ghetto has improved recently in certain respects. The food allocations are substantial, and if you just have a job and money to buy your rations, you can eat more than during the winter”, wrote Dawid on May 1st, 1941 (Sierakowiak 85). It is astonishing that Dawid was able to be positive at all, because often times, starvation alone can cause a person to feel irritable and negative. It is still surprising that Dawid was able to find humor or happiness in anything, considering all the negativity surrounding him in the ghetto.
In Writing About Literature by Edgar V. Roberts, a round character is described as “…three-dimensional, rounded, authentic, memorable, original, and true to life” (68). Dawid represented all of these qualities. Dawid was a very mature teenager. He was intelligent and always eager to learn. It is also evident that Dawid was responsible and self disciplined because he tutored others and found many other jobs completely on his own. Many teenagers depend on their parents for money and stability. Dawid’s family life became less and less stable as life in the ghetto progressed. Dawid’s father was selfish with his food rations, and even went as low as stealing from his own children. On Sunday, June 21st 1942, Dawid discussed how his mother did not receive food rations because she did have any food coupons yet. Dawid wrote, “Father insisted on weighing out his portion of sugar and butter, but Nadzia and I shared ours with Mom” (Sierakowiak 188). Dawid was an excellent observer, he realized that he had a much more stable mindset than his father, and Dawid became the dominant man in the household. While Dawid’s father worked to provide food for himself, Dawid worked and tutored so that he could provide the money for rations for the whole family.
Dawid’s optimism provided him with hope for the war to end, for food rations to be better, and for his family to survive. The Lodz ghetto was full of starvation, death, and poverty. Without hope, Dawid probably would have given up like many others. His witty and intelligent personality, strong will to survive, and compassion towards others made Dawid an original and inspirational character.

Works Cited

Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. 1939-43. Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil Turowski. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Roberts, Edgar V. Writing About Literature. 2006. Brief 11th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.

Professor Hobbs,

Dawid Sierakowiak’s Place in History

“Only two months after their invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the Nazis began drawing up specific plans for the forced concentration in an urban slave camp of the vast Jewish population that had grown up in the city of Lodz” (Sierakowiak 3). So begins the text of The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak and from this point on it is assumed that the reader knows about the events leading up to and almost to the end of the Second World War and Nazi Germany’s dishonorable subjugation of the Jewish nation. As Dawid’s journals progress, only glimpses of what is going on outside of the Lodz ghetto trickle into the lower classes, of which Dawid has membership. He hears much of the German propaganda, but very little of what the Russians, English, or French are doing and it makes for a less fulfilling, but maybe more personal journey when the reader knows only what Dawid knows. By taking a few major themes from the book, I hope to illustrate the importance the text has in the chronicles of history and also the positive impact a healthy knowledge of history has when reading a text like The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak.

Without the knowledge of modern history it would be difficult to put the horrifying hunger, consternation, and trepidation that Dawid experienced into perspective; it might even be tough to believe that it is, in fact, non-fiction. A normal person growing up in an affluent state without a basic knowledge of modern history might be at a major loss after reading the text; they probably wouldn’t understand what it is like to live in an impoverished part of the world, or how physically and mentally debilitating starvation is. Also, without ever hearing of the Nazi party’s rise to power in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s and what sort of positions they took, including the way that they suppressed and ultimately destroyed all political opposition (including communists, trade unions, etc.) using various “storm trooper” type groups, the fascist, single party political system that was modeled after Benito Mussolini’s Italy, and the clear disregard for all non-Aryan states, they might not be able to fully grasp what was happening to Dawid, his family, and the rest of the European Jews.

A main theme in the text is hunger. In order to keep their captives weak and unable to properly resist but also strong enough to work, the Nazis issued irregular rations of vegetables, meats, fuel, etc. With a firm background in basic history the reader should be able to pick up on this, finding similarities in how the ancient Egyptians treated the Jews prior to the Exodus, or how the Romans typically treated large groups of prisoners. Still, certain aspects of the text might be difficult to follow: though Poland was a poor country, why didn’t they have enough food? Why didn’t Jews in the Lodz ghetto follow the example of the Warsaw ghetto and develop a system to smuggle items in from the outside (Sierakowiak 123)? The idea to smuggle food was probably floated around Lodz, but was never acted upon most likely because of better organization on the part of the Lodz ghetto administration; also Dawid’s mother’s cousin, visiting from Warsaw, related the activities to them, so at that point in August of 1941 they had the idea. However, there is another issue and a major detail that helps answer the question of why they didn’t have a larger black market, but it can’t be gleaned from the journals: the city of Warsaw had an extensive underground sewer system, and many house to house tunnels that could have been and were used for smuggling activities (Uprising).

At the same time, the Nazi propaganda machine lead by Joseph Goebbels was a prime apparatus that helped its party get into power and also to control those people it had power over. One of its prime duties was to distribute newspapers to conquered territories; these papers were not so much news as they were platforms for misinformation: in order to bolster pro-Nazi subjects and discourage anti-Nazi subjects. Not all German newspapers were like this however, some reported actual news, albeit with a pro-German spin. Also, some of the better off Jews and subversive elements had radios that would pick up BBC broadcasts (Sierakowiak 207-209, 211,229). This is also a tactic that has been used in the past by states to keep the possibility of revolt and rebellion in check; if the only type of communication between isolated groups comes through a regularly printed newspaper or weekly radio address and the conqueror is able to disrupt this, then the two groups can’t coordinate attacks or send other types of messages.

On the other hand, there are many things that a text like this adds to the canon of historical World War II materials. Titles like The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan and Stalingrad by Antony Beevor give an account of troop movements, strategy, and tactics used by infantry and tank squads. However, books like The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak and The Diary of Anne Frank detail the daily struggle of one of the millions of victims, especially in the case of Dawid’s journal. The reader is able to see how a very intelligent and astute mind deals with being a captive, being persecuted, and handles almost certain death. These titles illustrate a more “human” aspect of war: instead of divisions and army groups maneuvering and engaging in combat, a single person relates what happened to them, how they felt, and ultimately how they reacted to the situation they were placed in. The fact that Dawid was inside looking out gives the student of history an excellent opportunity to learn about what it was like on the receiving end of the various states’ actions.

The principal reason to study history is so that we as a species don’t continue to repeat past mistakes, to be able to analyze the events as they happened to determine where the vital mistake(s) were made and apply that knowledge to current or future conflict. Within the historical context of World War II, Dawid’s story serves to give the reader a picture of what the actions and inactions of states can bring about. A simple way of looking at it is that the experiences captured on the pages is incentive to build a strong knowledge of history so that other folks don’t have to experience what Dawid experienced. The story of Dawid Sierakowiak is one that needs to be told; without this text and others like it, we might lose sight of why we study history in the first place.

Works Cited

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad. Copyright: Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, 1998. United States of America: Viking Penguin/Penguin Putnam, 1998-99

Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. Alan Adelson, ed. Kamil Turowski, translator. Copyright: Jewish Heritage Project and Kamil Turowski, 1996. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Uprising. Dir. Jon Avnet. Writ. Paul Brickman and Jon Avnet. TV. Air Date: 4 November 2001. 177 minutes.

Best Regards,

Justin Bleggi

Lorin Gdula
Professor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
19 March 2007
The Neighbor That Never Cared
Love and treat your neighbor as you would love to be treated yourself; the familiar phrase common to most people but not acted upon. Neighbors can become someone’s greatest friend or worst enemy. Usually when the word neighbor is brought up, it is either that good friend that lives close, or it is the strange neighbor that you seldom ever see, or the competitive neighbor who is always trying to have the best lawn. But, no matter what type of person the neighbor is, a bond is usually formed between neighbors and you expect certain things from them.
In The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, this phrase did not seem to faze anyone. For living in the ghetto was not a simple, trouble-free life. It was viewed as more of a survival of the fittest, where the minuscule towns that Dawid once grew up in were demolished and turned into ghettos for the Jews. There was a time where the people did get along with each other, until the war started and things took a plunge for the worse and it seemed to be that everyone now was on their own. There used to be communication between the families and their neighbors and then every horrible thing that anyone could possibly imagine happened at once and just kept snowballing from there. No one can blame these people for the way they acted, it was common nature to operate their lives around what was going on in the world and how society was acting towards this situation; anyone, today, would have reacted the same way that these people did.
Even though Dawid was young, he was still so intelligent for his age. Always talking about politics, he kept up with what was taking place in his surroundings. There was never a lot of talk about their surrounding in the ghetto until their situation grew worse. Before Dawid’s neighbors are even introduced in his diary, he writes about how his neighbors have been called out to fight and how Dawid really does not yet understand what is exactly going on (Sierakowiak 27). At first, there is not much communication between Dawid and his neighbors; instead Dawid does a lot of listening to retain his information on his own. Even before gathering information from his neighbors, Dawid would listen to the radio bulletins to receive information about how England declared war on Germany and at that instant everyone rushed out to rejoice with each other to share the immense news. But, other than those little outbursts between each other, Dawid and his “neighbors” really never associated with each other.
Mr. Grabinski is introduced early in the story as one of Dawid’s neighbors. Dawid writes as if this was the first time to ever meet Mr. Grabinski, which is odd for Dawid, being about fifteen years old to not know about his neighbors at this point in his life, especially with what has been going on in the world. Mr. Grabinski tells about how anxiety and panic are taking hold of the people in downtown and how numerous families are picking up and leaving everything they ever had behind. Dawid and Mr. Grabinski have a short and subtle conversation, which is odd if it really was their fist time speaking to each other even if they are neighbors.
Dawid awoke one late, cold night to hear another neighbor, Grodzenski, in loud conversation with is wife. In this hysteria manner, he is yelling to leave and Dawid and his family are just looking at him, not knowing what to think. Terror probably fills the mind of Dawid and others as Grodzenski yells how everyone needs to flee and run away from the danger. Finally, Dawid’s mother goes over to comfort him and tries to get him to calm down while other neighbors gather around and discuss ways to stay away from the enemy so they would not be sent to work camps (Sierakowiak 34). Dawid has to be confused about this whole situation. He is a very smart boy, but to see Mr. Grodzenski act like that had to make him absorb what is really taking place in the world now and wonder if where his family was, was indeed a safe place to be. Obviously this isn’t common for Grodzenski to be doing this; this is not a common thing for your neighbor to be doing. It has to make Dawid feel left out because if he is confused on what is going on then he has to feel that he is being left out of the information about the war and such. As Dawid’s diaries go on, communication between neighbors decrease. There never really was a lot, but as the trauma unfolds and times get worse for the Jews, Dawid’s neighbors are not mentioned as much, for society turns into one immense battle for self survival.
Dawid’s neighbors were out of the ordinary. Dawid’s intelligence makes us forget how young he and his siblings truly are but his neighbors knew his condition and the condition his parents were in and for his neighbors to flee like little school children, to me is inhumane. The behavior of his neighbors is not what anyone would expect. These young kids really do not have a clue what is going on, their mother is dying, and their father is stealing their food; they have to be confused on what to do and it probably doesn’t make matters any better by Dawid seeing his neighbors going insane in the street and then fleeing the ghetto the next. If anything, these neighbors were sending Dawid signals that were not good. Signals that would make him think what he really needed to do was to save himself because they obviously were not going to help him. These diaries show how much it did not matter how close you were with your “neighbors” and “friends”. These people looked at life from a survival of the fittest perspective and that is all there was to it. They felt they needed to look out for themselves and trying to keep track of someone else was just another burden they could not deal with. So Dawid looked at these people not as “neighbors” but as just ordinary, regular people whom he did not expect anything more from.
Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Greg Crossland
Dr. Lee Hobbs
English 121.003 Humanities Literature
Friday, March 9, 2007
Star of David: A Symbol of Religion or Oppression?
While the Nazi regime occupied Poland, during World War II, Jews were forced to wear the symbol of their religion. The once beloved sacred symbol of their religion became a signifier of oppression. The Star of David, their symbol, was worn by all Jews during the Holocaust to identify them to their German oppressors. It was similarly used like an inmate tag on a prisoner. Jews from all over Poland were segregated into ghettos, where they were forced to produce goods for the Germans who were imprisoning them. The Nazi motives for keeping them alive is so that “every last bit of material worth would be progressively squeezed out of the living Jews, while their strength and energy would be siphoned into the production of goods to arm the German war effort and to improve the quality of life in the Fatherland” (Sierakowiak 1). Millions of Jews were gassed, starved, shot, hung and burned alive for that identifier. To the Jews, who were forced to wear the Star of David, it must have given them mixed feelings about their hallowed symbol.
The Jews, who were forced to wear their holy symbol, were under severe duress and persecution from the Third Reich. A once sanctified emblem probably now gave Jews in occupied Poland various thoughts and feelings of discouragement and hopelessness. Nazi Germany, lead by fuehrer Adolf Hitler, turned a symbol of Judaism into a representation of cruelty, hunger, torture, and death. Some Jews, who would have once been proud to be associated with the symbol of their religion, are now suffering great horrors at the hands of the Nazis, because of the required yellow star with the word Jude patched onto their clothing. After the horror, that many Jews were living, some probably wished they had never seen the holy star before. The Star of David, which was said to be a shield, no longer protected them.
This blessed symbol, which was an icon of worship and holiness, has now been used to single out the Jews from those with pure Aryan blood, as the Nazi Regime wanted. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, Adolf Hitler “Spread his beliefs in racial purity and in the superiority of the Germanic race. He pronounced that his race must remain pure in order to one day take over the world” (Gruber).
As a human being, I never want to be singled out from the rest of a group, because it gives me a feeling of loneliness and anxiety. Being labeled leads me to ask myself: What does it mean to be profiled? Will this lead to oppression or an inferior position amongst individuals that I have been associated with? Am I now a lesser person for being profiled? These are some of the questions that the confined Jews would have asked themselves.
As a child, I never wanted to be picked last in gym class, because that singled me out as an unskilled or untalented person in some form of athletics. I can’t even come close to realizing what it would be like to be singled out and persecuted, because of my religion. The Third Reich was on a mission to exterminate Jews from the face of the earth. The operation was released in a secret memorandum, “The final aim must be to burn out entirely this pestilent abcess” (Sierakowiak 1).
It is next to impossible to feel the emotions and thoughts of someone who is going through so much turmoil. An emblem that is so close to a Jew’s heart and mind is now being used against millions like them. An icon of their life and religion is now a symbol for persecution and death. Star of David was once sacred, but during the Holocaust, it became a symbol of hatred and destruction. After the millions of Jews were liberated in World War II, the Star of David had regained its religious symbolic meaning to those who were oppressed and forced to wear the mark of their religion. After declaring independence in 1948, the State of Israel, which is the homeland of Judaism, adopted the Star of David onto its flag. The Star of David has continued to be used as the main symbol of the Jewish religion, which shows the strength of Judaism.

Works Cited
Gruber, Samuel. “Nazi Racism.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum Website. 7 March 2007
.
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of David Sierakowiak. Ed. Alan Adelson. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.

Stephanie Vrabel
Professor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
5 March 2007
Branded
Though some people may not like to admit it, profiling has always been a common theme throughout human existence. The labeling of individuals affects human beings in very dramatic and simple everyday ways. Whether it is through segregating a whole group of people like how Hitler did during the Holocaust, or how an educational system may handle their daily interactions with students, labeling can harm each person’s self confidence and emotional well being.
In the journal, The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, the author, Dawid Sierakowiak, describes his life living in a ghetto during the Holocaust. During his story, he mentions that the Germans mandate a law for the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto to wear the Star of David on their jackets (Sierakowiak 70). This signifies to others that the people who wear this star are Jewish man and women. Though it may not seem like a horrible act to others in the ghetto, it was an act of segregation towards the Jewish people. This act of labeling may have made the Jewish men and women feel as if they are uncared for, and that the person enforcing this law is not interested in getting to know them, their beliefs, or the lives that they live.
During the Holocaust, one of Hitler’s many goals as dictator was to have a society filled with the Aryan race. This race was viewed as superior to all other races. The Aryan race, also called the master race, included humans who were non-Jewish with blonde hair and blue eyes (“Aryan”). In order for Hilter to distinguish between Jews and non-Jews, he decided to slap their religious symbol onto their jacket (Sierakowiak 70). The humans who did not fit the profile of the master race were treated with no respect and as if they were just property to the German soldiers. Segregating these people may cause them to feel depressed, not “normal”, and worthless.
This reminds me of how cows are branded by their owners. Just as Hitler “branded” the Jewish members of the ghetto, a farmer will brand his cows in order to keep track of them. The ironic part of this example is that the Jew’s were important to the Germans just as the cows are important to their farmers. Cows will provide nutrition and money to the farmer, while Jews were made to work themselves to death to provide the Germans financially. The Jewish people during the Holocaust were treated very unfairly, as if their soul purpose was to serve the German soldiers.
I think this can happen in the educational systems, like at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Anytime I take a test, pay a tuition bill, or want to log onto a university computer, I need to provide my school ID number. This sometimes makes me feel very insignificant, that the school has no interest in my name or the person that I am. I feel that all they are interested in is whether or not I have paid my tuition. This also makes me feel like I am “branded” by IUP. As long as I provide them monetarily, they are satisfied.
If I had lived in the Holocaust, maybe I would have tried to show the German soldiers that I was more than what Hitler made me seem. I would try to talk to the soldiers, and show them that I was a person too and I deserve to live a life just like they do. It is hard to say whether or not this would actually occur. Not only were they probably uninterested in communicating with the Jews, it was most likely a danger even to speak to a soldier.
Overall, labeling is and always will be a common theme that humans experience. This act not only devastates the persons being singled out emotionally, but also mentally. Not only is the human being’s confidence abated, their self worth is as well. Many people may feel that singling out an individual is a horrible act, and that what happened in the holocaust was a devastating event. This is true, yet how much does this stated compassion for human life actually drive our daily acts and thoughts in life? Segregation is present in our daily lives, whether it is through the educational system at a college or university, or the way one may act towards a different belief or race.

Works Cited
“Aryan.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2001. Wikipedia Foundation. 25 Mar 2007
.

Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto.
1939-43. Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil Turowski. New York: Oxford UP, 1998.

Sheryll Daugherty
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121 003
7 March 2007
What Makes Literature
The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak was written in the twentieth century, by Dawid who was a young boy growing up during the Holocaust. The events in the story are his true and life experiences, and are told in the first person perspective. This makes the essence and impact of the reading stronger. I consider The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak to be a form of literature. In today’s society we have a presumption that literature has to be fiction, which must contain symbolic meaning in the story’s plot and theme. However, literature has many categories which help define great pieces of work. Literature has four genres which are: prose, fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction prose. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak would be considered a form of nonfiction literature, which follows all the guidelines for a stories existence.
The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak would fall under the category of creative nonfiction. This is defined as, “a type of literature that is technically nonfiction, such as essay, articles, diaries, and journal, but which nevertheless introduces carefully structured form, vivid examples, relevant quotation, and highly creative and imaginative insights”(Roberts 4).
The diary of Dawid includes a plot, setting and protagonist and antagonist characters. All of these elements are essential to a piece of literature. For example, the setting of the novel takes place in the ghetto Lodz, where Dawid encounters the hardships and struggles during World Word One. He encounters many antagonist characters that make his struggle through the war difficult.
In this piece of literature, Dawid would be considered the protagnist character. In Dawid’s diary entries readers are able to decipher the antagonist characters. For example, his father deprived his family of food and refused to work. This resulted in a rift in the relationship between Dawid and his father. Dawid was also denied public education and the opportunity to attend school. As a result he went to the principal to receive help, because his education was important to him. Dawid described his encounter with the principal as follows, “…I don’t know whether he always acts like this, but today he behaved really brutally” (Sierakowiak 51).
Pieces of literature always include a lesson gained from life experiences. For example, in Maupassant’s short story, The Necklace, the main character Mathidle learned how to deal with the truth and be happy with whom you are. Sierakowiak learns a lesson from experiences. Among the most important lessons learned through his experiences were surviving the mentality and physical needs of surviving during the harsh struggle of starvation.
The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak is considered a piece of literature. A collection of diary entries tells a story of someone’s life experience, which includes their thoughts and feelings. Dawid tells us his story in a form of journal entries. However, even though this is not a formal written story, plot, theme, characters and conflicts still arise. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak is
written in a different format than what most individuals call “literature”. Although, the diary is considered to be creative nonfiction, which according to Roberts is indeed a form of literature.

Works Cited
Roberts, Edgar V. Writing About Literature. 11th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 2006.

Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. Ed. Alan Adelson. Trans. Kamil
Turowski. New York: Oxford University Press, December 1998.

Kristin Dudra
ENGL 121.003
Mr. Hobbs
7 March 2007
Learning from the Life of Dawid Sierakowiak
Dawid grew up in Poland with his mother, father, and sister. He had a very relaxed, good life before the German Nazis came. At the beginning of the story, he is at a summer camp for Jews where he enjoys hiking through the mountains and putting on sketches for his fellow camp mates. Dawid had an enormous hunger for knowledge. He always wanted to learn different languages and learn more about the world and its politics. On the day the Nazis came everything was practically taken away from Dawid. He started to learn that he should not have taken things for granted.
Reading Dawid’s five notebooks gave many people a first-hand look at how Jewish people in the ghettos lived, survived, and even died. Even though Dawid’s story was not quite a happy one, it conveys many messages of intellectual morals. One of the morals in Dawid’s story was one the editor, Alan Adelson, really wanted to convey to the readers. This was that things should not be taken for granted. As I stated before, this was one moral Dawid learned quickly. I think everyone I know, myself included, takes everything for granted. We have all these privileges in life, like cell phones and TV. Sometimes we do not know what we have until we lose it. This was the main moral of the story to me.
Another moral has to do with the importance of family and other relationships. Throughout Dawid’s story he gets a lot of his information and money from other relationships. The key to surviving in the ghetto was one’s connections. Dawid had ways of getting money by helping his peers with school and by getting jobs with the help of a certain acquaintance. His whole family at the beginning did everything they could to help each other survive. Unfortunately the relationship with his father and outside acquaintances were not good or strong enough to keep him and his family alive. But still, they were important and helped him live a lot longer than many of the other Jews.
The message of this is the importance of relationships, group work, to keep one strong, steady, and alive. What is the thing we hear most when we are in a group or on a team? There is no “I” in team. Dawid’s father cheated them out of food among other things. This made the family weaker and sick with disease. Therefore, they did not survive. This also gives us a message of what selfishness can do, especially to ones family and friends. Dawid’s mother was caring and giving, for example, “Mom, she gives away 10 dkg of her bread to Father. He doesn’t know however, how to appreciate it, his attitude toward them [Dawid’s family] is bad and reveals unmitigated egotism, just as it does towards me” (Adelson 95). This example also shows Dawid’s father’s own selfishness towards his family.
Something Dawid’s story really made me think about was that no one ever knows when their last day alive will be. This brings the moral of living each day as if it were the last. I truly believe in this and try to live my life mostly by this one thing. One never knows when their lives can be totally changed by politics or war like Dawid’s life was.

Works Cited
Adelson, Alan. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Donnetta Allen
Professor Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 College Writing
21 March 2007
Connotation of Symbols
The wearing of a symbol that signifies the belonging to a group can be either positive or negative. The Anti – Defamation League (ADL) introduction on their website says, “Symbols are the most powerful tools that have ever existed … they have the ability to convey so much meaning, intent and significance is such a compact, immediately recognizable form.” Unfortunately, symbols convey negative connotations as well as positive.” Members of gangs such as the Crips and Bloods use symbols with a negative connotation through their use of colored bandanas. If you are a Crip you wear a blue bandana and if you are a Blood you wear a red one. These are negative because they draw negative attention to the belonging group. On the other hand, among the National Pan-Hallenic Council there are certain symbols that each Greek organization wears. Greek organizations are positive groups and among seeing these letters if knowledgeable of them a person will not feel fear. These people are not forced to wear these symbols. The Nazi’s transformed two positive symbols into negative ones, contingent upon the person wearing or seeing them.
The Star of David is on the flag of Israel as well as the symbol of the Jewish people. The Nazi’s forced the Jews during WWII to wear this symbol. During WWII the Nazi controlled Poland and a quick succession of laws compelled Jews to wear the Star of David; Either sown onto their clothing or as a part of a special armband. They had to wear this while appearing in public. The symbol that represented them now branded them as a Jew. Bernard Offen, a holocaust survivor, was forced to wear a yellow star. “As if I was an inferior human being”, was how he described having to wear the yellow star. So at this point in time this star was negative to both the Jews and the Nazi’s. The Nazi Identity group believed that white Europeans, not Jews were the real Biblical, “Chosen People”, that Jews are the people of Satan. The Nazi’s felt hatred when they seen this star and that is why over 6 million Jews were killed.
The Jews oppressor wore the Neo-Nazi symbol. The original symbol which was reversed by Adolf Hitler to spin clockwise is originally known as the Swastika. This symbol was an ancient symbol that represented a sign of good luck. So it is fair to say that Hitler’s version means bad luck. At least that is what it brought to the Jews. People labeled as Nazi’s during this time felt superior. At least in Poland they felt superior. The people ruling the country were under the same label. But to those who were looking at this sign and wearing the star may have felt anger and terror.
That is how the Nazi’s turned two positive symbols into two negative ones. By taking the Star of David and making it a sign that is demoralizing to those who carried it, ultimately makes it similar to the, Scarlet Letter. This is a book where the woman is labeled with an “A” that represents her being an adulterer. She refused to give up the father of the baby so the people of the town battered this woman upon appearance. Exactly how the people wearing the Neo-Nazi symbol treated those wearing the Star of David. As well as transforming a symbol and making it represent a negative supremacy. Forcing someone to deny who they are is so Satan like but people’s purpose in life is to survive. My reaction to being forced to wearing a badge is killing me. There is no way that I will be forced to be labeled. There is a good chance that I will end up dead because I will refuse to conform for survival.

Works Cited
My Hometown Concentration Camp: The Work. Dir. Bernard Offen. Perf. Bernard Offen. DVD. www.Bernardoffen.org, 1999. 23 minutes.
“Using Testimonies for Researching and Teaching about the Holocaust: Historical Background: Jews in Poland.”Dimensions Online, A journal of Holocaust Spring 2003. Vol 17, Number 1.
www.adl.org/ hatesymbols.2007 Anti-Defamation League. March 21, 2007

Amber Dunmire
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
7 March 2007
A World of Change
Changes occur every day. People change, friends change, feelings change, and most of all, the world changes in itself. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak shows the changes that happened in Dawid Sierakowiak’s life as he lived and died during the Holocaust. This diary is made up of five notebook diaries that Dawid kept. The notebooks were recovered and translated by Kamil Turowski. They were then edited by Alan Adelson.
We, as people understand that change is inevitable. With this in mind, I don’t think that we will ever possibly understand the type of change that Dawid and his family had to experience during this time period. I could not imagine going to summer camp in June, eating good healthy meals and coming home to much less food. On Friday, August 25th, Dawid states, “Mom went out shopping today, she couldn’t even get rolls; they had been sold out” (Sierakowiak 29). On Friday, September 1st, Germany declared war. War is a major change and adjustment to citizens of a country, especially to the Jewish citizens in this circumstance. I thought Dawid adjusted to the war better than many people. It obviously made him grow up very fast and he was not happy about it, but he knew he had to do it. He did it, and it did not seem like he complained very much about it.
On Thursday, November 30th, “the school has been taken away” (Sierakowiak 66). “The school got moved to 28 Poludniowa St” (Sierakowiak 67). Dawid was very upset by this. School was his chance to get away and do something he enjoyed doing. He was a very intelligent young boy. On December 13th, all of the Jewish families were taken from their normal lives and were placed in either captivity or a ghetto like the Lodz ghetto. The Lodz ghetto was located in central Poland. This was where Dawid and his family were kept. As the Holocaust continued, things proceeded to get worse and worse in the ghetto. Food is few and far between.
Another change that Dawid and his family had to experience was dealing with his father. His father was the bread winner of the family, but when the food got scarce, the little food that they did have would be eaten by the time the family sat down to eat. The whole family knew that the father was eating their food. And then on top of seeing his father eat their food, he saw his own mother die from starvation.
Change will always occur, but the change that these Jewish families had to experience, was one that no one should ever have to go through. Dawid was a strong, intelligent boy, but on August 8th, 1943, starvation and tuberculosis took his life.

Work Cited
Sierakowiak, Dawid. The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Tina Walter
Professor Hobbs
English 121.003
19 March 2007
A Diary’s Message
The Moral/Intellectual approach states that it “helps to determine whether a work conveys a lesson or a message and whether it can help readers lead better lives and improve their understanding of the world” (WAL 182). This approach can be applied to Dawid’s Diaries from The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. In the diaries, the reader goes through a day by day account of Dawid’s personal struggle in the Lodz ghetto in Poland, during the World War II Nazi occupation during which Jews were made to endure unspeakable suffering and then exterminated. Although the book only accounts for five journals Dawid had written through the years 1939-1942, the readers are still able to capture the many messages in the diaries that young Dawid wrote, not knowing that the world would soon read them.
One thing that becomes clear to all who read these personal stories of pain is that man is a complicated creature; one capable of rising to great heights, of creating great beauty and displaying great kindness to his fellow human beings. On the other hand, the amount of evil that can exist in a human being in the quest for power and control is staggering. Nothing exemplifies that evil like the stories from that war, and specifically, from the Holocaust. Although thousands of people from different races perished during that war, it was the Jewish people who had suffered the most.
Sierakowiak describes his own hell and that of his family in the polish ghetto. He is placed into this man made hell, where he describes his desperation when he, an intelligent young man looking to the future, must quit school. He sees his life as nothing but an attempt to “survive poverty”, while some of his school friends have not. “ A student from the same grade as ours died from hunger and exhaustion yesterday…he is the third victim in our class” (90). He writes of his emotional despair when his mother is taken ill because he knows she is headed for the concentration camp. “…nothing will fill up the eternal emptiness in the soul, brain, mind, and heart that is created by the loss of ones most loved person” (226). He slowly watches his family fall apart and that is his greatest pain.
It is interesting to note that the diaries were ready to be destroyed just like the many lives that were destroyed. However, as Dawid’s diaries prove, as long as there was life, there was always that hope of survival. Even when Dawid witnessed the walking “cadavers” in the ghetto, when he watched his fellow students die, when he watched the rations of food diminish and then taken by his father, he still hoped. It was only at the end, with his family and his body deteriorating that he finally saw no way out.
What strikes me in reading his diaries is that the human spirit is determined to survive in spite of all odds against it. Morally, we have no right to keep other human beings enslaved in an attempt to gain power and control. Man can attempt to control other human beings, but their minds and the intellects are still free. In his hatred, he can attempt to eradicate a whole race, but it will never happen because others will replace those who died and will remember those crimes. They will make sure that the evil will not rule again. People like Dawid Sierakowiak and Ann Frank may have died, but their works allow their spirit to live on.

Works Cited

Roberts, Edgar V. Writing About Literature-Brief Eleventh Edition. Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey Publisher, 2006.
Sierakowiak, Dawid, The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak. Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto.
Ed. Alan Adelson, Trans. Kamil Turowski. London: Bloomsbury 1996.

Katie Kovac
Instructor Lee Hobbs
ENGL 121.003 Humanities Literature
26 March 2007

The Influence of Neighbors
While reading The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, I recalled the memories
I have of my neighbors and thought of how they would have reacted had a tragedy such as Dawid's occurred during my lifetime. I had few neighbors and Dawid had many, but I believe that each neighbor's reaction would be very similar if a tragedy such as Dawid's had occurred. My neighbors would have ultimately influence my family, as Dawid's family was influenced by their neighbors.
I grew up in the country where the houses were so far apart your neighbors were an entire farm away. I really only had one set of neighbors, the Hulvers. They were an older couple who lived behind me and were the original owners of my home. They would get my brother and me off the school bus and watch us after school until our parents got home. I can remember sitting on their porch as a little girl with my parents hearing the latest gossip from Mrs. Hulver. Not that I knew what they were talking about, I was only seven or eight. I mostly tagged along to play with their small dog. No tragedy fell upon my family or community like Dawid, but had one happened, the Hulvers would have been there to help and support us. They would give my family the best wisdom they could considering they lived through both world wars and many natural disasters, like tornadoes.
Unlike me, Dawid lived in an apartment building in a small town where his neighbors were literally right next door. He had many neighbors who were always around providing the latest gossip and news. "At home I meet our neighbor Mr. Grabinski, who has come b