David @ Ōtaki College
I am a student at Ōtaki College in Ōtaki, NZ. My blog is a place where I will be able to share some of my learning. Please note....some work won't be edited - they are just my first drafts, so there may be some errors. I would love your feedback, comments, thoughts and ideas on my posts.
Monday, 13 May 2024
Thursday, 20 October 2022
My reflection
Reflection on the Night Unit
1. What did you learn about Judaism?
I learned it was a religion
2. What did you learn about the Holocaust?
It made me feel great full for my life
3. Do you think you increased your own empathy, integrity, and compassion, and how? I felt terrible for them for what they wanted though
4. Which activities did you enjoy the most? The quiz thing
5. What recommendations do you have for Mrs. Torley to change anything if she is teaching this again next year? Nothing
Wednesday, 14 September 2022
Night
Elie Wiesel's memoir Night is his record of his experiences during the Holocaust. In the preface he says that, “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." He tells his story to remember the dead and to show what it was like to be controlled by nasty people. He uses a range of techniques such as first person narration, strong negative verbs and a metaphor. His writing had a big emotional impact on me, making me feel scared and terrified, awful and sad.
"If a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it would have claimed hundreds of inmate's lives. But we no longer feared death, in any event, not this particular death." Elie uses first person narration, using the pronoun 'we' to show how he and the other prisoners weren't afraid of the bombs but of the conditions they were currently in. The bombs gave them hope and faith in being saved. However this quote, made me feel scared and terrified.
The part of the death march that affected me the most was when Elie's friend Zalman was killed because he stopped to go to the toilet, "He must have died, trampled under the feet of the thousands of men who followed us." Elie uses the strong negative verb 'trampled' to show how his friend's death was violent and horrible. This part made me feel awful because I would not want to be in that situation and I feel like it would be a really slow, painful death.
At the end of the war after the camp was liberated, Elie looks at himself in a mirror for the first time since the ghetto, "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." Elie uses a metaphor, describing himself as a 'corpse' to show the effect the war has had on him. He would have been very, very skinny and he did not feel emotions. It makes me feel sad because I feel that you would find it hard to look at yourself in the mirror and would wonder why you had to go though this, feeling scarred and numb with memories that you can't escape from.
Friday, 8 July 2022
My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family and was more involved with the welfare of others than with his own kin Cries during prayer
Elie is 12 he lives in Transylvania with his Mum and Dad I pray to the god within me for the strength to ask him the real questions
Moishes teachings prays Destroyed Temple.
By day I studied the Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple. Gets taught by moishe the beadle
He explained to me with great emphasis that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer. His dad is distant and doesn’t acknowledge him.
One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in sight a master to teach me the Zohar A teacher. he studied for hours
Deeper meaning of kabbalah.

