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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was a Volksdeutscher?

2. What was an SS-Oberaufseherin?

3. What did Johann Gorges' nickname, Moische Borak, mean?

4. What did some of the Family Camp prisoners shout as they awaited death in the crematorium?

5. What prisoner, experienced in organizing conspiracies, was transferred back to Auschwitz?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Filip manage to speak to prisoners awaiting execution?

2. Why were the prisoners of the Family Camp so confused as they stood in the crematorium facing certain death?

3. In what ways did the prisoners of the Family Camp change their emotional state once inside the changing room?

4. What were the male prisoners' main motives for wanting to visit the women's camp?

5. How did Filip and others come to realize that members of Birkenau's Sonderkommando who were taken to Lublin had been murdered?

6. What put Filip's mind to rest concerning Mietek being a Kapo at Birkenau?

7. Why did the members of the Sonderkommando feel the time had come to convince the other prisoners in the camp to attempt a mass escape in February, 1944?

8. How was the rumor that the Family Camp stood under the protection of the International Red Cross dispelled?

9. When Filip was sent to Birkenau to deliver chlorinated lime, he spoke with two grammar school friends who were burning decomposing corpses. Why did the SS men come and separate them?

10. During the execution of a mother and her child, why did Voss' underling take over for him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Germans do not want the prisoners to contract typhus, which is evident by their warnings and "delousing" sessions. Why, then, aren't prisoners given soap, towels or water on a regular basis for showering? Explain the discrepancy between the prisoners' living conditions and the German's need for them to avoid lice.

Essay Topic 2

Compare and contrast the characters of Mietek and Fischl.

Essay Topic 3

Consider the people who survived those years in the concentration camps as explained in the book.

Part 1 - Why did some survive while others perished?

Part 2 - What did the survivors have that some did not?

Part 3 - Did luck play a role in surviving Auschwitz?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,083 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample