Monday, August 22, 2011

Holocaust Poetry #2


Homeland
Lois E. Olena

It was Christmas eve and there was no room in the inn, the Oswiecim inn, so the Arrow Cross took the children, barefooted and in their nighties, out to the Danube and filled their little bellies not with bread but bullets flipping them like tiddlywinks into the congealing, icy river below. It was the Red Danube that night, choking on the blood of orphan Jews whose little Blue faces floated downstream touring even all of Europe until they washed up on the shores of Eretz Yisrael (Jewish homeland) and came back to life, their little blue and white bodies raised high, flapping in the wind.

  1. How is imagery used in this poem?
  2. Imagery is used by describing there death, without actually saying it. The author uses descriptive words to tell us they're dead, e.g.

    and filled their little bellies not with bread but bullets.

  3. Discuss the effect of the simile in this poem.
  4. The simile " flipping them like tiddlywinks" shows that the Nazi's "played" around with the Jews and just killed them like it was nothing.
  5. How is alliteration used in the poem? What is the effect?
  6. Alliteration is used with " bellies not with bread but bullets" and the effect is that it makes it more noticeable and stronger.
  7. How does the author juxtapose the innocence of the children to the cruelty they experienced?
  8. not sure..
  9. What is meant by 'touring all of Europe'? It means that they floated in the rivers and not one picked them up or bothered and they went all around Germany, in a greater meaning i assume it means this happened everywhere in Germany and other places.

No comments:

Post a Comment