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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. How does Ernie respond when reprimanded by the doctor for telling the children their experience was just a dream?

2. What did the Nazi officer do with Golda's musical instrument?

3. What does Ernie dream as he is being repaired in the Jewish hospital?

4. Why does Judith tell their donors that they should thank her?

5. What actually awaited the Jews at Pichipoi?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Benjamin Levy say that to be a Jew is impossible?

2. What happens to Ernie in the infirmary where he is put to recover from his torture session?

3. What do the old men of The Association of Zemyock say it is useless to do with any Levy?

4. What does Ernie do to turn himself into a dog?

5. Why does Mordecai say it would be useless to leave Germany?

6. Why does Ernie decide he does not want to join the movements that are fighting back against the Nazis?

7. Why does Ernie compare himself to a cat?

8. What surprising request does Ernie make of the gendarmes at Drancy?

9. What details alert Ernie to the fact that the passengers will never leave this place?

10. Why do the SS men torture Ernie for his request to enter the camp at Drancy?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Schwarz-Bart includes a number of characters who represent wide segments of society in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. In your essay, select two or three characters such as the nurse in the infirmary, the farmer's wife, the young Galician, or Herr Geek and explain what purpose they serve in presenting the reader with a panoramic viewpoint of the culture at that time.

Essay Topic 2

The author often uses a sardonic tone describing, for instance, the "kind" treatment of the detainees by the German guards. In your essay, find examples of this tone and explain why you think the author used it. What effect did it have on you as a reader?

Essay Topic 3

There are moments in this story when Ernie is happy. In your essay, identify and explain the moments that cause him to briefly experience happiness. Do they make his life better or worse? Why do you think so?

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