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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was a Volksdeutscher?
(a) A follower of Hitler.
(b) A believer in the German tradition.
(c) An ethnic German.
(d) A person born and bred in Germany.

2. Why were the people in the Family Camp asked to write letters to family and friends days before their extermination?
(a) So officials could read them all first.
(b) To keep the prisoners busy.
(c) To make it seem as though all was fine.
(d) So handwriting could be examined.

3. What did the term "selection" mean at Birkenau and other camps?
(a) Being sent to an isolation cell.
(b) Extermination.
(c) Chosen for a special job.
(d) Advance in rank.

4. Who told Filip "..it is vital that you should see everything, experience everything, go through everything and consciously record everything in your mind"?
(a) Sasha.
(b) Kaminski.
(c) Mengele.
(d) Yana.

5. While Filip waited in the gas chamber, who did he learn had committed suicide?
(a) Maurice.
(b) Fredi Hirsch.
(c) Daniel Ostbaum.
(d) Langer.

6. When the Sonderkommando members asked the Resistance in the camp to plan a mass escape, what were they told?
(a) There was too much fear.
(b) They would soon be freed by the Russians.
(c) Wait for warmer weather.
(d) They agreed to it.

7. What were Schwarzhuber and Dr. Mangele doing when Filip saw them through the open door of the gas chamber?
(a) Aiming their guns at people.
(b) Cursing at the prisoners.
(c) Looking sadly at the people.
(d) Looking curiously inside.

8. What happened to the Sonderkommando who told a woman in the crowd they were all to be exterminated?
(a) He was burned alive in front of the others.
(b) He was put into the general population.
(c) He was shot to death.
(d) He was gassed with the crowd.

9. Why was the technique thought up by the Kommandofuhrers and known as "express work" originally used?
(a) To cut down on the men needed for the work.
(b) It was done on the fastest train running.
(c) To save coke.
(d) To burn bodies more quickly.

10. What piece of evidence concerning the death camp did Filip obtain for the Resistance?
(a) Ashes from the ovens.
(b) The note about the Family Camp.
(c) Women's hair.
(d) Labels from Zyclon B gas tins.

11. Why did the Sonderkommandos have their own hospital?
(a) They tended to get sicker than the rest.
(b) To show the men some kindness.
(c) To treat the men in isolation.
(d) They were the elite prisoners.

12. What did members of the Family Camp think was happening when, after being warned, there was no violence towards them after a few days?
(a) There was still danger waiting for them.
(b) They were needed to prove the SS were good people.
(c) The other prisoners just wanted to involve them in a revolt.
(d) The SS had changed their minds.

13. What weaponry had Filip's group acquired as of the beginning of Chapter 4?
(a) Shotguns and pistols.
(b) Machine guns, hand grenades and revolvers.
(c) Knives and hand grenades.
(d) Hand grenades, revolvers and pistols.

14. What happened to the people who attempted to escape the Polish ghettos?
(a) They were murdered in their hiding places.
(b) Many of them made it to freedom.
(c) They were often forgetten and starved to death.
(d) They were caught by police dogs and executed.

15. When the SS men assembled about 2,000 people to the crematorium yard in Chapter 3, what did one man lead the people to do?
(a) Resist.
(b) Scream.
(c) Run.
(d) Pray.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why were the prisoners of the Sonderkommando at first kept away from the last group of prisoners to be killed in Chapter 3?

2. How did the Sonderkommando's doctor's wife try to follow him as he was being deported?

3. How did the SS treat the members of the Family Camp as they were entering the crematorium yard?

4. How was the crowd treated by the "representative of the Foreign Ministry"?

5. What plan did the Sonderkommandos devise to save themselves?

(see the answer keys)

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