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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What food item do the Nazis provide to each prisoner that they say must last for the entirety of the journey from Auschwitz to Sachsenhausen?
(a) One biscuit.
(b) Half a loaf of bread.
(c) One loaf of bread.
(d) A packet of gruel.

2. At the start of Chapter 18, Yanek vows to take which action every single morning from that point forward?
(a) Say a prayer.
(b) Write a poem.
(c) Scrub his body.
(d) Drink a cup of water.

3. When Yanek reaches the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, he must sleep in a single bunk with how many other men?
(a) 4.
(b) 2.
(c) 5.
(d) 3.

4. What method of transportation do Yanek and the other prisoners use to reach the Sachsenhausen concentration camp?
(a) They take a bus.
(b) They take a train.
(c) They walk.
(d) They ride bicycles.

5. The young Polish boy in Chapter 15 shouts at the passing train passengers that they will soon be turned into what substance?
(a) Paste.
(b) Glue.
(c) Vapor.
(d) Soap.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what season of the year are Yanek and the other prisoners at Auschwitz moved to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp?

2. Of what type of material is the floor of Yanek's barrack at Birkenau made?

3. When Yanek has the urge to strike the prisoner he has just helped, what does he do instead?

4. When Yanek is placed into a queue at the beginning of Chapter 17 and he hears screams up ahead, what happens when it is his turn?

5. For what length of time is Yanek imprisoned at the Birkenau concentration camp before being moved to Auschwitz?

Short Essay Questions

1. On which two occasions does Yanek vow to take every step he can "never to forget" (161) the atrocities committed during the Holocaust?

2. For what reason does Fred become unable to work?

3. What is the significance of the novel's title?

4. What scent does Yanek detect in the air when he is brought to the Birkenau death camp?

5. What ominous warning does an SS guard give to Yanek as he enters Auschwitz?

6. Discuss an instance when Gratz uses a literary device to indicate the preciousness of food.

7. Whose advice must Yanek ignore in order to make friends with Fred?

8. What distinction does Yanek make between the Trzebinia concentration camp and the other camps in which he has been imprisoned?

9. What is the source of the strange sound Yanek hears during his first night at Auschwitz?

10. For what purpose do the Nazis use cattle cars and in what way is their use symbolic?

(see the answer keys)

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