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

2. After a while, how did Filip and other Sonderkommandos regard anybody arriving at the crematorium?

3. When the Nazis invaded Bohemia and Moravia in 1939, where were the Jews first removed from?

4. What were SS men most likely to be bribed with?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Voss decide to deal with the need to have the crematorium ready by 8 am the following morning for the Family Camp?

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

3. What did Filip watch a captured young mother with her child do when the SS men ordered them to undress in Chapter 3?

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

5. Why did the ghetto in Theresienstadt really exist?

6. 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?

7. What compeled Filip to enter the gas chamber with the others?

8. A few radicals in the camp, wanting to strike off on their on in an escape plan, renewed their violent criticism towards the leaders of the Resistance. Why?

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

10. What is ironic and sad about the scene during which there was a party for Gorges in the crematorium?

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

Describe the ways in which Fischl is the leader of the group Filip is in. Determine whether or not he is a fair leader. What characteristics make him fair or unfair?

Essay Topic 3

In the book, Muller states that Vacek is a "professional criminal". Considering the way in which he treats the prisoners (the truncheon beatings, "sport" and throwing the morning tea into a gulley), is Vacek more than just a "professional criminal"? How else can he be described, considering that he, too, is a prisoner at Auschwitz?

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