In two pieces of intriguing Holocaust literature, the authors, with very similar purposes, attempt to make a point using different tones. Both of these authors use a variety of writing tools to make their point clear. In the novel The Devil’s Arithmetic, the author Jane Yolen, describes the brutal treatment in the labor camps through a fictional story using a respectful and compassionate tone. In contrast, Peter Fischl wrote his poem, “The Little Polish Boy Standing With His Arms Up”, about an individual boy being terrorized by the Nazi’s with a more intense and aggressive tone. Both authors drive their point, trying to get the reader to remember the atrocities of the demoralizing camps and teach the audience to not be bystanders. This essay …show more content…
She respectfully honors everyone who experienced the camps for their passive heroism because they knew that if they rebelled, more innocent people would be mercilessly killed. Yolen begins to use facts, listing the camps and the hundreds of thousands of people left dead after the Holocaust. Yolen states, “Treblinka, where 840,000 Jews were killed. Chelmno, with its total of 360,000 Jews. Sobibor, with its 250,000.” This displays that she is attempting to get the reader to understand how truly horrendous this event in history was. Yolen is doing this because she is pleading the audience to act by remembering this cruel time so that it will never happen again. Later on Yolen persists, “Even with the facts in front of us, the numbers, the indelible photographs, the autobiographies, the wrists still bearing the long numbers, there are people in the world who deny such things actually happened.” (Page 169) This indicates that she understands that it is human nature for people to simply ignore and forget about the brutality of the holocaust. This is why she repetitively urges the importance of remembering and passing down so that the Holocaust will never be