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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 is the name of the book Herr Wessel made Viktor translate from English into German?

2. What were the golden serving dishes shaped like?

3. What does the staircase in the medical insurance office curl up like?

4. Why was Freud once called a dirty Jew on a train?

5. What was the only place in the world that had a bigger population of Jews than Vienna?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Edmund's relative Ignace von Ephrussi.

2. What evidence does de Waal to prove Charles was friends with all the great Paris artists of the late 19th century?

3. Why was Odessa an important city for the Jews?

4. How did Charles live his life differently from his brothers?

5. What does Edmund learn about Charles at the end of Chapter 3?

6. What was expected of Viktor and his friends?

7. Why did Westerners view Japanese art as so different?

8. How did Charles spend his time in Paris?

9. How does the author describe Proust?

10. What was Sichel's view of Japan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the journey of the netsuke. Why is the journey the netsuke took so important to de Waal and his family?

Essay Topic 2

Examine the book's chronological setting.

1. What were the main concerns during the early part of the 20th century? How does the author express these concerns?

2. How would the author change the book if it was set in today's society?

Essay Topic 3

Why were there so many Jews in eastern and central Europe? Why were there so few Jewish people in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century/ How did countries such as USA and Britain help the Jews during the Second World War?

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This section contains 878 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample