Dry Tears Presentation Loren Caldwell

Hi, my name is Lauren quite well and I'm going

to do my presentation on the book dry tears, a

story of a lost childhood by Mohammed tech.

Okay, so first I'd like to start with an overview

of the book in Hunan comma is and was So

first the author's name is Nick Ametek, that's her hebrew

name. Her polish name was Hella Elka off Nick.

And during the war, when she passed as a christian

polish girl, her two names were Pelagia Pavlovsky to and

Christina back Her birthday in place for May 15 1931

in Lublin Poland.

The date of publication for this book was 1982.

As far as education, she was educated in jewish private

school and she was initially, because she came from a

wealthy jewish family and then when the war started, she

was home schooled and then eventually she attended Columbia University

and studied sociology.

Um as far as occupations, she is an author, a

professor at Columbia University for Sociology and she's a holocaust

scholar. The subject of this book covers the young like

of Nakayama tech during the war and Nazi occupation of

Poland. It follows the many places no comma and her

family hid throughout the word and the interesting people they

met along the way.

Eventually no commas family was taken in by a catholic

polish family, the home ours and help them to write

the word, who helped them to write the word.

Um this book covers your life from 8 to 13

years old.

Okay, so now, oops, sorry, now through the themes first

faith, of course, I think one might expect talk about

faith in a book surrounding the holocaust.

But what surprised me with this book is that faith

for no comment her family and for those surrounding her

was more cultural than it was religious.

One of the reasons I chose this book is because

I am a religious person, I'm a christian and I'm

really interested in faith in general.

Um, so I thought that's what this book would be

about. But it's actually not about religion at all and

well, it's about religion, it's not about people practicing their

religion necessarily.

Um, I also have here assimilation versus exceptions, because during

the book, no Hamas family had to act as if

they were a catholic until they had to essentially memorize

the prayers, memorize steps regarding the bible and Catholicism.

And her father basically said that, you know, you have

to accept that this is our reality and try to

assimilate as much as you can.

The next thing was survival.

Of course this is a very horrific time for everyone

really. And the goal for her family was to survive.

So every place they went, every like strategic step they

made was about survival.

And her dad luckily for them was super intelligent, super

strategic and his goal was for his family to survive.

And now of course he was very lucky and there

are other people who are also very strategic and wanted

to survive as well who didn't.

But a lot of their survival was because of him

and him thinking for it next was the next thing

was trust because they both make family which is her

maiden name um because they had to live with so

many different families throughout the holocaust and go to different

places to live.

They essentially had to put their lives in the hands

of others and trust that their friends wouldn't betray them.

And when they were passing that to trust that other

jews wouldn't denounce them.

Which is why they moved so far away from Loveland

when during the war so that they could pass.

Initially they went to Warsaw and lived there for a

while with the cousin.

But then after that they went to a city outside

of Warsaw so that nobody would recognize them.

So basically you just have to trust that everyone was

being honest.

I wanted to help you because there were people who

got portrayed even in the book, a friend of theirs

was betrayed and a polish man turned him well turned

his girlfriend in and because he was with him, he

also got turned in and killed.

The next theme is time.

So for now comma, she speaks often in the book

of how time moves so slowly throughout the war.

And she just wanted time to hurry up when she

wasn't living with her family For a period of time,

she wanted time to hurry up because she missed them.

And there were times where she just wanted to speed

through. And she also mentioned how time cease to exist

at all, specifically during raids or when she had to

run away and hide out in a field one time

because Nazis were looking for her for selling the black

market. She said that there was no sense of time,

which I found to be really interesting.

And lastly, the last thing that I thought was interesting

and important is guilt.

So in a comment mentions how she felt guilty a

lot of times for both passing because no comma and

her sister and her father were able to pass as

christian poles.

They had volunteer and blue eyes and nobody would have

really suspected that they were juiced.

Her mom, however, didn't have that luxury and there were

a lot of juice who didn't and we weren't able

to pass until there was guilt surrounding that and being

able to walk freely while your family members are confined

to a room and also a guilty of surviving.

There are so many people who didn't live after this

and there's some guilt that comes with that to know

that you made it when so many people didn't.

Next are three quotes that I found to be particularly

important first.

Um This is a quote that Hamas said towards the

beginning of the book and she says only one thing

was certain we never saw them again and he or

she is referring to her grandparents who were sent to

a concentration camp and likely killed.

Um and I thought this was important because in so

many instances people never saw their family members and their

loved ones ever again.

And I think that's something that is particularly horrifying because

they went from seeing these people daily or at least

a couple times a year because no comma would go

stay with her grandparents during the summer um to not

ever seeing them again.

And I think that that was the experience of so

many people, and that's why it's an important quote to

highlight next.

She says, um she could hardly talk and yet she

kept repeating, don't worry, it's not so bad.

It does not hurt so much now.

This is a quote from the commas, mom, after she

had been beaten badly by Nazi for entering their own

factory, somebody was trapped inside and she needed to get

him out.

And so she did, and as she was hanging a

sign back up that said do not enter, Nazi came

and beat her.

And so when she got back home, it just really

stood out to me that her daughter, she would say

to her daughter, don't worry, it's not too bad, it

doesn't hurt even though she was beating being so horribly.

And I think that speaks to the strength of the

mom and so many people during this time who are

suffering themselves but then also offering emotional support or food

or any kind of support to other people, even though

they were also struggling.

So even though a lot of the christian poles, which

I'll speak to a little bit later were also struggling

during this time, they still took in jews who were

struggling or jews would help other jews.

Like there's this sense of camaraderie amongst people who are

struggling and I think that's really beautiful thing.

And lastly the real jew, he explained is not real

at all.

This is a quote from her father and at this

point no comma was saying how she was so confused

by the anti Semitism that she experienced from both those

people who are helping her and from friends who didn't

know that she was jewish and she was confused because

she didn't understand these negative stereotypes and why they would

say that especially if they knew the baffling family and

so the father was explaining they don't hate the people

themselves, but they hate the idea of a jewish person

that's been pushed at them.

And of course no comma was like that doesn't make

sense and rightfully so that's such an absurd thing.

But he was saying that all this hatred for an

idea that's been planted inside their heads not for them

personally, so not to take it personally when she heard

anti Semitic things.

Next important imagery first one that I found interesting at

the very beginning the book was the imagery of prisoners.

So prisoners came and worked at a factory that Akamas

father was working at the beginning of the book and

she later on in the book as well and a

common mentions how sadly looked and how malnourished and all

these horrible things.

But then it stood out to me because not only

were the people in concentration camps prisoners in my opinion,

I feel like in a comma and her family were

also prisoners, especially her mother and father because for a

good chunk of the book they were combined to one

room for years.

This is a couple of weeks, literally years at a

time. And so not only were the people in concentration

camps prisoners but so were people who were in hiding

and just people in general, they couldn't leave the country

was unlike they were free to do whatever they wanted.

These were published people as well.

Not christian polish people as well.

Not just christian jews, christian jews.

I'm sorry, not just polish jews that were combined or

being. I mean of course the treatment of christian poles

were substantially better than what the issues were experiencing, but

no one was truly free during that time.

Um, the next imagery was a garden and the first

time you really see that is in the Mazda into

starsky ghetto and it really stood out to me because

of course this is like a horrible situation to be

forced into a ghetto, but no comma speaks to how

beautiful the gardens were and how much the people took

care of them.

And I thought I was really beautiful that people, even

in horrible situations were able to take control of their

situation, the things that they could and make something beautiful

out of it.

And this imagery comes up over and over again.

Gardens being something lovely in a place where people had

an outlet, specifically in the ghettos.

Um, the next imagery that I found to be important

for the rules.

Um, so no commas family towards the end of the

war, they were losing, we're not losing money.

They were running out of their money and they had

to find new ways to make money.

And a lot of people made money on the black

market selling different things.

Her family decided on selling roles.

And so I think this is important because these roles

are really what save their family and provide income so

that they could stay in hiding with a home.

Our family had they not done that?

They have no money to pay them and they would

not be able to go anywhere.

And so this provided the money for assessments and also

to help pay for other things for the home.

Our family is just really important that they had this

um business and the comma was so involved in it.

She was going through sold on the black market because

they assume that when she was the only one who

could really leave and get a job at the time

and they assume that the punishment for a child would

be significantly less than someone who's an adult, which is

true. Next identification papers.

Um It was important that people who are passing as

christian poles what you know their name and know their

history and not slip up and not mess up on

some part of their identification.

So it's so important that they learn these names these

identities to a T.

Otherwise it could be fatal for them.

And that's really stressed throughout the book as well, or

for the parts of the book that it's mentioned.

And lastly, the imagery that I thought was the most

significant, which makes sense considering the name of the book

were tears.

And I have so many different pages listed because there

were so many different occasions where people were crying.

Of course, it's a very sad time, but then there

was different types of tears.

So of course there was tears of despair because it

was a bad situation.

But there was tears because she missed her family or

because someone died or because someone came back when no

commas, mom's brother came back, which they thought he was

dead. But he appeared again.

Her mom cried tears of joy.

Like there's so many different types of tears that were

there. And I think it speaks to the variety and

vastness of human emotion, but how that could present itself

like all these emotions were expressed with tears.

Thanks, keep doing that.

Okay, so the key passage in my opinion that really

speaks to what's going on in the book and just

what was going on at that time in general is

impossible. My sister family told me we go straight to

the station.

I burst out crying, but I was not sure why

cry quietly.

She ordered.

I followed her blindly, still crying, but it was a

resigned weeping full of happiness and relief.

I cried like that all the way to the station.

Where was tech was waiting for us as we boarded

the train.

I did not even look back.

Okay. So I'm going to break this down.

Just different parts to explain why.

I think it's so important.

First. Um, when she says, I burst out and this

is no comma talking.

By the way she says I burst out crying, but

I was not sure why.

And I thought this was important because again, people were

feeling such a variety of emotions and crying is a

way for people to express that whatever the emotion is,

you can cry and that can be a way to

let it out.

And at this point she had been feeling so many

things. This part of the book, she's being reunited with

her family after being away from them for maybe a

few months at that point.

And so she's feeling so many things.

She's excited to go see her family, but then she's

going to miss some of her friends there and that

she wanted to um go say goodbye to her friends

where her sister is telling her that's not an option.

So she's feeling a lot of things at once, but

she's crying and I think it was not able to

really process fully what's going on.

And I think that would have been something that a

lot of people would experience.

Like there's so many things going on that are shocking,

but crying is a way to release all the things

that you feel next.

The next part that stood out to me was cry

quietly, she ordered.

So even though they were experiencing a lot of things

jews at this time, it wasn't like they were able

to fully processed things, they weren't able to just go

about being sad and go get therapy like this, They

were still in the midst horrible times.

And so while they were able to obviously you're able

to feel emotion, you kind of have to deal with

it and keep moving.

Like I always keep moving.

The next part that stood out to me was but

it was a resigned weeping full of happiness and relief.

And this set out to me because even though it

was a horrific period, people were still able to find

happiness in some things.

And I think it's yeah, Incredible that humans are able

to do that because this is a situation that I

could not fathom being persecuted.

And then at this point she's like 10 or 11

and she hasn't been with her family for months like

that. A really rough thing for a child to go

through. She's still able to be happy because she is

going to be reunited with her family.

There are still moments of joy even within all of

this, separating.

And lastly, the thing that stood out last was as

we boarded the train.

I did not even look back and this sent chills

up my spine because it's abd is so true.

Even though they were horrible things happening to people around

them, to their family members, to their loved ones, to

their friends, they still have to keep going.

Of course, I'm sure there are people who just gave

up and say, I just can't do this and I'm

not going to fight anymore.

And I think that's a really justify response to everything

that's going on.

But she and others had to just keep going.

They didn't have really time to look back and think,

oh, well, I want to help that a lot of

them couldn't help others.

And so they just had to keep going and it's

sad, but it's the way that a lot of people

survived. Okay, so lastly my reaction and final thoughts.

So first throughout this book, I'm already an anxious person.

But I felt anxiety and fear the entire time as

she felt anxiety when Nazi soldiers would come in their

house. I also felt anxiety when she was on the

train hoping not to be caught by soldiers.

I also felt anxiety and so I think she wrote

it in a way that was so beautiful and really

evoked all the emotions she was feeling at the time,

which is impeccable.

Next thing that stood out to me is the knowledge

of regular polish citizens lives and lots of people who

were not jewish.

So when I think about the holocaust and in this

time period in general, I rarely think about just normal

civilians and according to know how much they were going

through it as well.

It wasn't good for anyone, the people who she was

with her poor, they're struggling to eat, they were struggling

to clothe themselves, which is why a lot of people

took in jews because they need extra money.

I'm like what?

Like they were still being impacted by the word, just

like jews were not in the same way of course,

but they were also impacted by a whole work that

was going on.

I often think of the holocaust is removed from the

war, but they were still very much impacted by nazis

being in the country.

Next. Something that I spoke about a little bit earlier

as religion is more cultural than I thought initially.

So in my head, probably because of the time and

growing up in the country, I'm growing it.

I don't really tie religion to my culture, have a

culture and then I have my religion.

I think of them as very separate.

But in this book, religion seems much more cultural than

anything else.

There's not really a focus on it as being something

about God, but more of something, it's about identity.

And I thought that was really interesting.

Mm Next I will never be fully be able to

fully wrap my head around Nazism and it's yours.

So I have a particular finest for Children and I

like kids a lot and babies.

And at one point when she was in the ghetto,

they were coming to do another raid and they were

killing Children and babies.

And at one point she saw a baby in a

carriage who had been shot because people left the baby's

outside because they couldn't hide with them because they might

cry. So they were left outside of the house is

just controllers and they had been shot.

And to me that is so unimaginable.

I cannot fathom someone hurting anyone really.

But a baby who is not capable of anything wrong

to shoot a baby as a human being because these

are humans who are doing this.

That's what really is perplexing to me.

And after reading during this class and doing more research

during this class, I understand some of the reasons why

people did this or why they follow the orders, like

I get it, but it's still so horrifying.

I cannot imagine a regular citizen turning into someone who's

a murderer like that.

Um, Next there was always deception and I put in

parentheses promises of a better life for jews in the

east. So at one point in the book, um, the

nazis were saying like, hey, if you all get on

these trains and go east, you'll have farmlands and you'll

be able to live peacefully and happily.

Which is so sinister to me.

And peculiar as well, because they already had the power

and already we're killing people without having to lie to

them a lot.

So I didn't really understand why deception was needed so

much, like even though we've read about it, I still

don't understand why that would have been their strategy when

they had the power to just do it.

Anyways. Now, luckily for in a comma and her family,

her dad was super suspicious of that and didn't trust

the nazis, even though he's one of his friends encouraged

it, he was like that doesn't even make sense, so

I'm not going to do that, which lucky for them,

they didn't go because they would have likely been killed.

And lastly, um I was really surprised by the anti

Semitism of those who helped hide the jews.

So I expected anti Semitism at large because it's the

holocaust, like I expected that I did not expect it

from people were hiding jews in my head, it would

be something like the underground railroad, how people were helping

or like white people were helping black people.

And it's like, oh it's because they thought slavery was

bad, so that's what kind of idea that I had

to frame the situation and I was like, oh they

think the holocaust is bad, they think jews are good

people and our people just like them, but it's really

like, oh no, we need some extra money and if

they stay with us help.

And so they still like would spew this anti Semitic

rhetoric at the Botnick family even though they were helping

them. And that was just a really strange dynamic to

me. And the comma was also confused by that, which

is why she asked her father why they were doing

that. And I thought it was really strange.

I don't know how you can justify helping someone if

you don't like their existence, if you hit their existence,

even if you were in dire any or need money

like and I would think that after experiencing or having

the perfect family with them, the home buyers will be

less anti Semitic or other people will be less anti

Semitic. But no, they still were, they just said that

they were different jews and it was just very interesting.

Um but yes, in general, I would definitely recommend this

book to anyone.

I thought it was really interesting.

I thought I was sad.

Of course I cheered up so many times and I

don't think these are meant to be easy reads, but

because of that it's so important and I'm definitely glad

that I took the time to read and studying.

So thank you for watching and I hope you enjoyed

it.

Dry Tears Presentation Loren Caldwell

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