Fatelessness: Book trailer!

Rationale

My written task, as some of you may notice, is a magazine article. The reason of why I chose to follow this structure is simple: it gave me freedom enogh to express myself, but also allowed me to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do with another format. It allowed me to decide by myself the order in which I wanted to state my ideas, I mean; I wasn’t obligated to follow a specific pattern in order (chronological order or something similar). At the same time, because it was an article, I needed to add concrete facts. This helped me, I believe, in the development of ideas, because at the moment I was writing about history, I was also comparing it with what we see on the novel “Fatelessness”. The language I used, of course, was formal. By using a formal language, what you say sounds more truthful, and so the reader gets more convinced with what you write. The use of historical facts, mixed with a sorrowful and melancholic tone are components of the work that I added, in order to create interest on the reader about the holocaust consequences. The end of this article is somehow open, so the reader can continue researching about these consequences, and state their own opinions. 

Holocaust: Terrifying truth

On today’s article, we are going to talk about something that shocked the world during the 40’s, and still does: the Second World War, but more specifically, the holocaust. This, taking as a point of reference, a novel by Imre Kertez, called “Fatelessness”. Even though this novel is an invented story, we can appreciate that certain things between this one and what historically speaking happened are amusingly related. Consequences of the Nazi ideology, within the suffering this way of thinking brought to Jewish people are few of themes presented in the novel. This is basically what the following text will be about.

Watching images of the “Auschwitz” concentration camp is something very sorrowful, and also hard to believe. The first thing that comes to your mind when you do this is: Who would be able to do something like this? What is even more impressing is that actually not a small amount of people survived to this extreme confinement. Such as our fiction character, Georg, who survived to this unfair imprisonment. Although this encouraging fact, the whole period of the holocaust is, unfortunately, one of the most remarkable cases of genocide. But, how did this happened? The answer to this question can be found in history, just a few years ago.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power, minorities, such as the Jewish community, thought the worst. Everybody knew Hitler’s ideology of racism and anti-Semitism because of his book, “Mein kampf” (my struggle). This book, with autobiographical content, was published in 1925, in order to express his thoughts and conclusions. After invading Poland years later, in 1939, the war was unleashed, and within, Hitler’s plan about minorities. He ruled that every Jewish was suppose to wear a yellow star. He also dictated that Jewish, and gypsies, between others, should live from now on, on some class of semi-detached houses, that were built on special places, away from what Nazi called ”normal society”.  These places were Jews were supposed to live without basics conditions and small spaces were called “ghettos”. We can appreciate in the book I already mentioned, that Georg actually lives in a ghetto. The lack of space is evidenced in some passages of the book, in which he meets and shares a lot with his neighbours. The Nazi regime continued acting under this ideology of racism, and this is appreciable on events such as the “night of the broken glass”, in which Nazi forces destroyed Jewish shops, because they didn’t wanted them to participate on the Nazi economy. But the most important event was the declaration of “the final solution”. This was, sending as much Jewish as possible to concentration camps with only one purpose: massive extermination of people. One of the most remembered camps that where created with this end was the Auschwitz concentration camp, already mentioned at the beginning. People who unfairly was designated to being killed at a concentration camp like this one, should suffer a painful dead, inside a gas chamber. “Fatelessness” actually shows us the obligated evict to this camps, over the Jewish community. First, we appreciate Georg’s father departure, and after a few chapters, Georg’s departure. We can take a brief description of what the concentration camp he arrived was like: “They led us into a maze of gray buildings, ever farther inward, before we suddenly debouched onto a huge open space strewn with white gravel- some sort of barracks parade ground, as I saw it”.

This is the beginning of the real story. The presence of death, but more important, the struggle for survival. The consequences of this way of thinking were horrible: six million people were killed by the Nazi regime. Jewish people were lead to the main yard of the camp, for the first selection, where they separated Jews on two groups: the “useful” ones, and the rest. This last group, formed by women, children and older people, were sent to the “showers”, the name that guards gave to the gas chambers. This people died, hoping to have some water after an exhausting journey. The other ten percent who were selected, was sent to heavy work, after being marked with a number. This people (after a few months) were at the point of starvation, because of the poor conditions they were exposed at. This lead a lot of prisoners to death during work, or to commit suicide. When war was about to finish, and the German empire was falling down, authorities from the third Reich in charge of concentration camps forced prisoners that left to walk to nowhere, with the only objective of killing everyone left. This, to erase as much as possible evidences of massive murder, or genocide. Even though all this horrible events, people survived, maybe because of their will, or because of their strength, but under my point of view, it is the will for living. 

Chapter three: quotes

1-"he turned toward the gendarmes, ordering them, in a bellow that filled the entire square, to take the whole Jewish rabble off..." This, once again, shows us that the threat given by the ones who believed were better that Jewish, was awful. They, practically, were treated like trash.

2-"It said that we were to make our way to the higher authority". Under my point of view, this shows the belief of superiority from part of the Nazi regime. This event happened when they were moving Jews to concentration camps.

3-"we went on for a while longer, after which everything happened very quickly, unexpectedly..." As I apreciate, this quote  talks about how fast everything happened: They didn't even realised that they were being opressed by the Nazi forces.

7 pillars of Jewish life

Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of theHoly Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. Mezuzah is a piece of parchment (often contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael", beginning with the phrase: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One"

A mezuzah is affixed to the doorframe in Jewish homes to fulfill the mitzvah (Biblical commandment) to inscribe the words of the Shema "on the doorposts of your house"

Tefillin, also called phylacteries are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers. Although "tefillin" is technically the plural form (the singular being "tefillah"), it is loosely used as a singular as well. The hand-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm, hand and fingers; while the head-tefillin, or shel rosh, is placed above the forehead. 

A shofar is an instrument made from the horn of a ram or other kosher animal. It was used in ancient Israel to announce the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh) and call people together. It was also blown on Rosh Hashanah, marking the beginning of the New Year, signifying both need to wake up to the call to repentance, and in connection with the portion read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Binding of Isaac (Genesis, chapter 22) in which Abraham sacrifices a ram in place of his son, Isaac.

Kosher foods are those that conform to the regulations of kashrut (Jewish dietary law). Food that may be consumed according to halakha (Jewish law) is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér , meaning "fit" (in this context, fit for consumption). Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is called treif.

In Judaism, tzedakah refers to the religious obligation to do what is right and just, which Judaism emphasises are important parts of living a spiritual life. Maimonides says that, while the second highest form of tzedakah is to anonymously give donations to unknown recipients, the highest form is to give a gift, loan, or partnership that will result in the recipient supporting himself instead of living upon others. Unlike philanthropy or charity, which are completely voluntary, tzedakah is seen as a religious obligation, which must be performed regardless of financial standing, and must even be performed by poor people. Tzedakah is considered to be one of the three main acts that can annul a less than favorable heavenly decree.

Sabbath or a sabbath is generally a weekly day of rest or time of worship observed in Abrahamic religions and other practices. Many viewpoints and definitions have arisen over the millennia. The term has been used to describe a similar weekly observance in any of several other traditions; the new moon; any of seven annual festivals in Judaism and some Christian traditions; any of eight annual pagan festivals (usually "sabbat"); an annual secular holiday; and a year of rest in religious or secular usage, originally every seventh year.

Fatelessness: Chapter 2

• Author: Imre Kertesz
• Genre: Historical novel
• Setting: Budapest
• Historical context: Nazi regime, the holocaust.
• I believe the author wrote this piece to show us how was the moment Gerog was living without his father, and also to show Gerog's change from being a boy to a grown up.
• What the author wants to show us is that there is nothing bad in being different.

• Protagonist(s): Georg Koves
• Antagonist(s): Nazi Regime 
• Static Characters: Mr Sütó
• Dynamic Characters: Georg

• The author use specific literary devices on this chapter: an allusion, with the story of "the prince and the pauper"; a flashback, when he tells us how was his experience when he kissed Annemarie.
• The tone of the author is something like matter-of-fact, or straight-forward.
• This piece is told in first erson, because it is Georg the one who is telling the story. As I said before, we just need to read the first line to notice this: "I didn't go to school today".
• Some internal conflicts could be that he is changing from being a kid to an adult; confusing feelings about Annemarie.
• Some external conflicts could be his continuous struggle against his mother, or the fact that he is now being obligated to work.

Few literary terms

Alliteration: repetition of the same sound in a sequence of words.
Allusion: a brief reference to something specific.
climax: the point in the plot that creates the greatest intensity.
dennotation: dictionary definition of a word.
gothic: use of mysterious or old elements in literature.
hero: a character whose actions are inspiring.
hyperbole: boldy exaggerated statement.
setting: time and place of the story.
tone: the writer's attitude toward the story.
similie: direct comparison between two objects
personification: human attributes are given yo a non-human object.
Mood:general atmosphere created by the author's words

.....between others!

If you want to know more: http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm