Elli -coming of age in the holocaust (book essay)

A detailed Summary of Elli -coming of age in the holocaust (book essay)

ELLI- Coming of age in the Holocaust.

Elli, her mother and all of the prisoners they meet all have to undergo numerous physical and psychological hardships when they are forced into the concentration camps. They are treated like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse when they are taken from their houses to the ghetto, then to the synagogue, and eventually to Auschwitz, the death camp.

The majority of suffering that was inflicted on Elli and her associates was physically inflicted, this was in the various forms of: beatings, rapes, murders, hard labor, and also subjective forms such as being exposed to diseases. The Germans also toyed with different ploys to beat the Jews, such as sterilization. This is demonstrated in Chapter Twenty in the book, they hear the rumor circulating that the Germans are putting "Bromide" in the prisoner's food. The prisoners are provided no forms of personal hygiene such as showers, except the one they receive when they enter and leave the camp, other than that they are given no forms of washing or grooming. Their toilet facilities are non-existent, and instead they have to balance precariously over a pit that is never emptied of the stagnant waste that remains inside. They receive no protection

Likewise, in the winter they are given little protection from the elements, in the barracks they are only given two blankets per five people, one to lay on and the other to cover themselves with.

They shave the girl's heads so they all look the same, or look like men for example, and give them all the same dresses so no-one is individual, everyone is the same. They are like bodies without souls. They have all their books burnt in the ghetto and this is the start of the German's plan to totally nullify the Jewish existence. Another instance when the prisoners were psychologically abused was when they were taken to work in the factory and the worker's thought that they were men. This must have been tragic for the prisoners because they would feel like they have lost their identity and even their sexual status.

from the sun in summer and because of this they develop numerous blisters and scars all over their bodies. In one part of the story Elli gets a chance to see what she looks like and she is shocked at her appearance, because she hadn't for so long. She claims she looks like a clown because of the blisters on the sides of her face, also she says her hair looks like thorns protruding from her head instead of hair.

As the prisoners go through the whole ordeal they are continuously deprived of space and identity. First of all they are moved into

Some common words found in the essay are:
Idiotic Dogs, Chapter Twenty, Holocaust Elli, Twenty-seven Elli, Blockalteste German's, Idiotic Swine, Blode Lumpen, ELLI- Coming, Blode Schweine, Blode Hunde, ghetto synagogue, meaning idiotic,

Approximate Word count = 916
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English