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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 happened to the Sonderkommando who told a woman in the crowd they were all to be exterminated?

2. What did some of the Family Camp prisoners shout as they awaited death in the crematorium?

3. What did the girl, Yana, tell Filip to give to her boyfriend after she was dead?

4. Who did the inmates of Birkenau think the Family Camp was under the protection of?

5. Why were the prisoners of the Sonderkommando at first kept away from the last group of prisoners to be killed in Chapter 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. What were the male prisoners' main motives for wanting to visit the women's camp?

2. Why did the members of the Sonderkommando feel the time had come to convince the other prisoners in the camp to attempt a mass escape in February, 1944?

3. A few radicals in the camp, wanting to strike off on their on in an escape plan, renewed their violent criticism towards the leaders of the Resistance. Why?

4. What problems did the SS men who accepted bribes organized by prisoners have?

5. How did Filip and others come to realize that members of Birkenau's Sonderkommando who were taken to Lublin had been murdered?

6. When Filip was sent to Birkenau to deliver chlorinated lime, he spoke with two grammar school friends who were burning decomposing corpses. Why did the SS men come and separate them?

7. How is it that Quackernack came to be attacked by the woman with her high heel?

8. Why did the ghetto in Theresienstadt really exist?

9. Filip considered Dr. Pach to have exemplary qualities of humanity. Why?

10. What compeled Filip to enter the gas chamber with the others?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the ways in which Fischl is the leader of the group Filip is in. Determine whether or not he is a fair leader. What characteristics make him fair or unfair?

Essay Topic 2

Consider the people who survived those years in the concentration camps as explained in the book.

Part 1 - Why did some survive while others perished?

Part 2 - What did the survivors have that some did not?

Part 3 - Did luck play a role in surviving Auschwitz?

Essay Topic 3

Part 1 - What are the reactions to the lawyer from Sered complaining to Schlage?

Part 2 - Explain the reactions and possible feelings amongst the prisoners.

Part 3 - Delve into how Schlage reacts to the man.

Part 4 - Express Vacek's feelings when Schlage orders him to kill the man.

(see the answer keys)

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