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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. When does Jakob feel safe above ground for the first time?

2. What is significant of Salonika?

3. What does making love with Petra do for Ben?

4. Of what does the house remind Ben?

5. When does Ben first meet Jakob and Michaela?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who visits Ben before he is five and what is the result?

2. How does Ben's father escape a Nazi camp?

3. How does Ben's relationship with Petra evolve?

4. What does Jakob think about concerning a child?

5. What does Michaela say about her parents and the pioneer museum?

6. Describe Jakob's first meeting with Michaela.

7. How does Jakob relate a theory by Einstein to the Holocaust?

8. What are some facets to Naomi?

9. What does Ben recall about his father and mother when Ben is growing up?

10. What is the parable of the rabbi traveling incognito and what is the moral of the parable?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

1. What is foreshadowing? How many incidences of foreshadowing are in "Fugitive Pieces"? How does foreshadowing contribute to a book's suspense?

2. Discuss an example of foreshadow in "Fugitive Pieces" including why you believe it is foreshadow. Include examples from the book and your own life to illustrate your answer.

3. How do you think most people react to uncertainty in their lives? Use examples from "Fugitive Pieces" and your own live to support your opinion.

Essay Topic 2

History and memory share time and space and every moment is really two moments. Examples are how the Nazis and the Lublin scholars view the destruction of holy books, how Nazis and mothers in Lódz react to the soldiers "catching" infants on their bayonets, and how a woman in Birkenau carries a photograph of her husband and daughter under her tongue in order not to be separated from them. Jakob cannot resist reading the horrors of history because he needs to know where Bella actually dies.

1. Explain your ideas as to why history and memory might be two different moments. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Explain the type of internal change must occur in a soldier in order for a decent or ordinary person to become the type of individual who would toss an infant on his bayonet. Include what people in society today might learn from such a transformation. Use examples from your own life and the text to support your answer.

3. Explain, in depth, how Jakob reading of the Holocaust horrors is related to Jakob not knowing what happened to his sister. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Jakob offers the parable of a famed rabbi who travels incognito in shabby clothing and is ridiculed by passengers. When they find out who he is, they beg forgiveness, but he refuses, even on the Day of Awe, because they have wronged the man on the train, not himself. The moral: nothing erases an immoral act. When the victim is dead, only silence remains. Recorded history can be resurrected. Destruction turns presence into absence.

1. With research, explain what a parable is and why they might be used. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Do you think it is true that nothing erases an immoral act? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and the book to support your answer.

3. Discuss, in depth, what you think the following means: When the victim is dead, only silence remains. Recorded history can be resurrected. Destruction turns presence into absence. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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