A Survivor's Tale Holocaust Story

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“Friends? Your Friends? If you look them together in a room with no food for week, then you can see what it is, friends!”(Book 1, Pg.5)
At the start of the story Artie, Vladek’s son, was playing with his friends, but Artie fell and his friends left him there. Artie explains what happened to Vladek, but Vladek replied by telling Artie there is no such thing as a true friend. What happened to Artie was a parallel to the entire story, representing what happened to Vladek during the Holocaust. The answer Vladek replied with shows how the Holocaust changed himself.
“Anja and I saw her father at the window. He was tearing his hair and crying. He was a millionaire, but even this didn’t save him his life.”(Book 1, pg. 122)
The Nazis were forcing all of the Jews to move away from their homes, and Anja came from a rich family. Vladek was describing how powerful the Nazis were, being able to take everything away from the Jew. Anja’s family was millionaires, but their money didn’t matter since the Nazis were so powerful. Anja’s father was crying and going crazy since he used to be a powerful man, but his power turned to nothing because of the Nazis.
“You know, my father tried to keep all his children out from the army. Because when he was young, he had to go into the Russian army. And there they took you for 25 years. My father pulled out 14 of his teeth to escape. If you missed 12 teeth they let you go.” (Book 1, pg. 57)
Vladek was explaining to Artie what extent their family would have to go through in order to not join the army. Vladek’s explanation shows how gruesome war can be and what it can lead to. His explanation is paralleled with the war that is currently happening in ...

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...rrific that people would die from suffocation. The Jews did nothing wrong but they were blamed and tortured. The Jews were deported like animals and discriminated by the Nazis.

“They marched us through the city of Bielsko. We passed by the factory what once I owned …We passed the market where always we bought to eat, and passed even the street where we used to live, and we came ‘til the prison, and there they put us.” (Book1, pg. 77)
The Jews used to live normal lives but when the Nazis took power, the Jew lost everything. The Nazis took away every part of the Jews’ lives. The Nazis put the Jews on a march, were Vladek pasted by a factory he once owned, but got took over Nazis. Vladek also passed by a market where he used to shop, but also got taken over by Nazis. This is a representation on how the Nazis took away from the Jews, and then treated them like slaves.

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