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On 1 September 1939, Hitler's troops crossed the Polish frontier and the people of Warsaw, the Polish capital, started to dig trenches for protection against air-raids. The bombs began to fall almost immediately , but the citizens of Warsaw could hardly have anticipated that, within a week, the German armies would be at the gates of the city. By 20 September, Warsaw was completely surrounded and heavy artillery joined the bombers in pounding the city and demoralising its people. With stocks of food rapidly dwindling and water, gas and electricity supplies severely disrupted, the inhabitants could not hold out for very long, and on 28 September, an armistice was declared. Warsaw had fallen.
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1. In September 1939, Warsaw was attacked and captured by the Nazis. What were the two methods used by the Nazis to achieve this? [2m]
2. Give two reasons why the people of Warsaw surrendered. [2m]
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The capital waited silently for its conquerors to enter. None feared what might follow more than the large Jewish population of the city. They had already heard terrible reports about what happened to Jews in Germany, in Austria and in Hitler's most recent conquest, Czechoslovakia. Although some tried to dismiss these reports as exaggerated, or as mere rumours, nevertheless, there was dread in their hearts.
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3. Why were the Jews fearful of hte German's arrival? [1m]
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They had not long to wait before their fears were confirmed. The German army began to distribute bread and soup to the starving population - but a Jew, after queuing for hours, would often be roughly pushed aside when it came to his turn. Jewish apartments were commandeered without any warning. Bearded Jews were sometimes chased by Nazi soldiers or officials, who cut off their beards adn humiliated them in public. Young Jews were seized on the streets and taken off to do forced labour, without any explanation given. The signs were clear. While all the inhabitants of Warsaw were treated with contempt by the Germans, the Jews, in particular, were to be singled out for active persecution.
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4. Explain the phrase "their fears were confirmed". [2m]
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Another alarming development was the creation of a "ghetto", or enclosed Jewish quarter. The Germans compelled the Jews to move into a severely restricted area out of which all non-Jews were moved. By November 1940, about 500000 Jews were squeezed into a district whcih had held some 145000 before the war. High walls sealed off most of the streets and guards were posted. The feared ghetto had become a reality. Rations were cut to 850 calories a day (less than half the number needed to keep an adult in reasonable health). Starvation followed for many and epidemics like typhus and cholera would carry off many more.
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Not before too long, however, the Germans grew impatient. Too many Jews were still staying alive for too long. Rosenberg, a leading Nazi, had said, "The Jews are awaiting the end of the war, but they will not live to see it. They will pass from the earth before it comes." It was becoming clear to the occupying power that if these words were to apply to the Jews of Warsaw, a new strategy would have to be devised.
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5. "...a new strategy would have to be devised". What was the old strategy? [1m]
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The new new strategy began to take shape in the spring and summer of 1942. In part, it took the form of terror killing. Every night, men and women were removed from their homes and shot, without any kind of trial, or even a reason being given. There was no way of predicting, therefore, who the next victims might be. Even on the streets, in daylight, Jews were beaten, robbed and murdered by teh Nazi soldiers. At the beginning of July, 110 Jews, including ten Jewish policemen, were led to an old cemetery at Praga, made to dig their own graves, and then shot. THe charge against them? Jews had recently been showing opposition to orders, while the Jewish police had not acted forcefully against smugglers and had accepted bribes.
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The next phrase of the strategy was expulsion. Word filtered through the Jewish community (what was left of it) that they were going to the concentration camps. The first to be rounded up and taken away were the refugees from other cities, the prisoners, the hospital patients and the street beggars. Then began the process of supplying six thousand Jews a day for transportation. This task was first left to the Jewish police, who performed it with considerable energy and cruelty, often exceeding their target by as many as four thousand, perhaps in the mistaken belief that their zeal would earn them a reprieve from the Nazis.
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6. "...their zeal would earn them a reprieve from the Nazis". What do the underlined words in italics tell you about the Jewish police? [2m]
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The police would blockade a number of houses and make the rounds of every apartment. Those without the necessary documents or insufficient money for bribes would be told to make a bundle of possessions weighing no more than fifteen kilos, and be ordered on to the waiting lorries. Meantime, in the general confusion and panic, others would hide in the cellars or try to escape by jumping from rooftop to rooftop. But they were only delaying the evil day. Perhaps the saddest of cases of all were those who gave themselves up voluntarily because they felt that death was preferable.
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7. "But they were only delaying the evil day". What did the "evil day" refer to? [1m]
PASSAGE B
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To begin with, it was not the hapless victims of the Nazis who named their incomprehensible and totally unmasterable fate the "holocaust". It was the Americans who applied this artificial and highly technical term to the Nazi extermination of the European Jews. The event, if named as "mass murder" would evoke the most immediate, most powerful revulsion; yet, when it is designated a rare technical term, it has the effect of distancing the intellectual from the emotional. Thus, talking about the "holocaust" permits us to manage it intellectually where the raw facts, when given their ordinary names, would overwhelm us emotionally, because it was catastrophe beyond comprehension, beyond the limits of our imagination.
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8. In your own words, explain why the author said that using the term "holocaust" has the effect of distancing the intellectual from the emotional? [2m]
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Even the Nazis - usually given to grossness in language and action - shied away from facing openly what they were up to and called this vile mass murder "the final solution of the Jewish problem". After all, solving a problem is an honourable enterprise, as long as we are not forced to recognise that the solution we are about to embark on consists of the completely unprovoked, vicious murder of millions of helpless men, women and children.
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9. How did calling the murder of the Jews "the final solution" make the Nazis feel less guilty? Explain in your own words. [1m]
10. Which word suggests that the author feels that the Jews were not a problem and the Nazis were to blame fully for the killing of the Jews? [1m]
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Thus, artificially created technical terms fail to connect with our strongest feelings. The horror of murder is part of our most common heritage. From earliest infancy on, it arouses violent abhorrence in us. Therefore, in whatever form it appears, we should give such an act its true designation and not hide it behind polite terms created out of classical words.
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The correct definition of "holocaust" is "burnt offering". By using the term "holocaust", false associations are established between the most vicious of mass murders and ancient rituals of a deeply religious nature. Calling the most callous, most brutal, most horrid, most heinous mass murder a burnt offering is a sacrilege.
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11. What does the author mean when she says that "calling the most brutal, most horrid mass murder a burnt offering is a sacrilege"? [2m]
12. Give two reasons for the Nazis' slaughter of the Jews. [2m]
13. "...their humanity destroyed". What do you think the author means by this description? [1m]
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Millions of Jews were systematically slaughtered, as were untold ohter "undesirables", not for any conviction of theirs, but only because they stood in the way of the realisation of an illusion, in consequences of the Nazis' delusional belief about what was required to protect the purity of their assumed superior racial endowment, and what they thought necessary to guarantee them the living space they needed and were entitled to.
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Millions - men, women and children -were processed after they had been utterly brutalised, their humanity destroyed, their clothes torn from their bodies. Naked, tehy were sorted into those who were destined to be murdered immediately, and those others who had a short-term usefulness as slave labour. But after a brief interval, they, too, were to be herded into the same gas chambers into which the others were immediately piled, there to be asphyxiated so that, in their last moments, they could not prevent themselves from fighting each other in vain for a last breath of air.
From Passages A and B
14. For each of the following, give one word or short phrase (of not more then seven wrods) which has the same meaning that the wrod or phrase has in the passage. [5m]
From Passage A
[a] contempt
[b] filtered
From Passage B
[c] hapless
[d] herded
[e] asphyxiated
From Passage A
15. Using your won words as far as possible, summarise the treatment of the Nazi soldiers towards the Jews in Warsaw and the results of the treatment.
USE ONLY THE MATERIAL FROM PARAGRAPHS 3 TO 8.
Your summary, which must be in continuous writing (not note form), must not be more than 150 words (not counting the words given to help you begin).
Begin your summary as follows:
The Jews suffered greatly under the Nazi soldiers... [25m]
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