Lauren Jacoby

Pages 208-211, 227-229

The horrible actions committed by the Nazi soldiers are described in the

sections of pages that we had to review. Daniel Mendelsohn talks about this, in my

opinion, because he wants to show again that everything didn’t happen at the one

symbol called “Auschwitz.” He seemed so offended by the symbolism and the whole

book basically centers on his journey towards finding out about the other people,

those of his family, who were not sent through Auschwitz.

On page 227, Matylda Gelernter, recalling the start of it on September 3rd

through the 3rd 4th and 5th of September 1942, describes the second Aktion. After

rereading these few pages, I was struck again with disgust. The disgust is from what

had actually happened, bur also from how detailed it was described. Imagine being

there in person and seeing and hearing the awfulness of children screaming and

dying… it is truly a horror to even think about. But, we will never know “what it was

like,” because there is simply no way ever to experience that. The Germans and

Ukrainians killed 600 children and laughed while doing so. They were dragged out of

their houses and they were thrown out of windows and smacked against sidewalks.

“The sidewalks and pavements were literally splashed in blood.”

The other part that I want to discuss is when Ms. Grynberg is giving birth.

They take her out of her home, and then throw her onto a dumpster while

Ukrainians joked while she painfully gave birth. On a dumpster in the yard of town

hall. They took the child from her and they threw it into a crowd where it was
trampled. She then had to get up, still bleeding, to board a train to Belzec. I can’t

even respond to this because of how gruesome it is. The loss that she must have felt

is devastating. Then, she would be transferred somewhere where she feared her

own life after giving life to something that had only lived for such a short period of

time. The Germans and Ukrainians who had done so much bad to so many people

didn’t care about life. They cared about fear and power, and even though they were

all humans and at one point living together in Bolechow together as people with

differences they didn’t do anything to stop it.