Yanek gruener biography of donald

They were too busy fighting in the west. This meant that until the British came, the Germans ruled over Krakow. Soon enough, the Germans would kick everyone out of Karkow to be sent to the dreaded concentration camps. Yanek was sent to Plazow Concentration Camp. A concentration camp was a place the Nazis sent Jewish people and forced them to do hard labour.

While sent to concentration camps, German soldiers tortured, abused and starved the Jewish prisoners. Jewish people were sent to Wieliczka Salt Mine which was another concentration camp. In this camp, they were made to dig up salt. Unlike the other camps, this one was different. You could escape, but no one ever did. This was because there was darkness everywhere.

The second concentration camp Yanek survived was Trzebinia Concentration Camp. The work Yanek and the other prisoners were made to do included picking up heavy rocks and moving them from one place, then back and forth repeatedly. If you picked up a rock too small for your body size, you were shot.

Yanek gruener biography of donald

In order to get the Jewish prisoners transported from Trzebinia to Birkenau, they were put into cattle cars. Everyone crammed onto one with barely any room to breath, which caused some people to die along the way. In this camp, Yanek got his tattoo. Yanek is no longer known as Yanek, but instead he is known by a number, B The B stands for the name of the camp Birkenau and the number was given to Yanek as his prisoner number.

Yanek has yet another camp to survive, Auschwitz Concentration Camp. While in Birkenau, Yanek stood with a 13 year old boy during his bar mitzvah and worked to keep himself alive until he was moved from Birkenau to its sister camp, Auschwitz. Yanek and his fellow prisoners were forced to walk to his sixth concentration camp, Auschwitz, only stopping along the way to pick up more Jewish prisoners.

There, he was moved to the right by Dr. Mengele along with the rest of the men. After surviving Auschwitz, he was part of a two-week-long death march to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Shortly after arriving, he was forced back into a cattle car and sent to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. There, due to their poor health and weak bodies, the Nazi official ordered all the Jewish prisoners not to work for a week and instead eat and regain their strength.

Shortly after that, he was shoved back into a cattle car and sent off to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Unlike the other concentration camps, Buchenwald was open to the public as a zoo, ran by Karl Koch and his wife, nicknamed " the witch of Buchenwald ". After surviving the witch of Buchenwald, Yanek was once again placed in a cattle car and sent to Gross-Rosen Concentration Campyanek gruener biography of donald he lost a button on his jacket and got more than 20 lashes before he was sent on his second death march.

This time he was sent to Dachau Concentration camphis tenth one, where he was eventually saved from imprisonment by American soldiers. Gratz discussed various concentration camps that the main character spent time at throughout WW Gratz introduces significant people from this time such as Amon GoethDr. The Concentration Camps. Yanek was first taken to the Plaszow concentration camp, near Krakow, in He had been the last member of his family left in the Ghetto.

In Plaszow, Yanek faced death from starvation, overwork, the Nazis, and the infamous Amon Goeth Plaszowbut he found Moshe, his uncle, there. Together they worked to survive, and when Yanek came into possesion of some money, he and Moshe used it to buy food. Unfortunately, Moshe was killed one day while working in the camp. This was devastating to Yanek, and he almost lost his will to survive.

After Plaszow, Yanek went through nine other concentration camps throughout the rest of the war, until he was released by American soldiers in from Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. They were different rooms throughout a building of torture created by the Nazis. After the Camps. The American soldiers took the prisoners from Dachau to Munich, a city occupied by Allied forces.

But first, two posts about Alan Gratz's middle grade Holocaust book. I'm going to tell you from the start this review contains spoilers. It's a story driven by a young boy's desire and need to survive. But of course, the spoiler is implied by the very nature of this book. As the war ends, Yanek's will to survive does not:. As I said in the beginning of this review, it is obvious that Yanek Gruener does survive.

So, it's not a spoiler to quote the last lines of this memorable book:.