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Comparing Texts

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Freedom

What does freedom mean to you?

Write a list of all the words, images and ideas that come to

mind when you hear the word freedom.

Do you agree with these?


Two writers who suffered a lack of freedom were Primo

Levi and Anne Frank. They are both important literary

figures, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during

World War Two.

Both were imprisoned because they were Jewish.

Do you know what the collective term for the murder

of the Jews during WW2 is? The Holocaust

Do you know anything about the lives of Primo Levi or

Anne Frank?

Writers


Anne Frank is famous for her diary which she started

writing in 1942 on her thirteenth birthday. Just weeks

later the Nazis intensified their persecution of the Jews.

Anne went into hiding with her parents and sister in the

sealed-off back rooms of an Amsterdam office building

Anne’s diary was published in 1947, three years after her

death in a concentration camp at Belsen in 1944.

Anne’s diary is a true and constantly changing text which

chronicles her difficult life on a daily basis.

Anne Frank


Primo Levi

Primo Levi was a young Jewish chemist from Turin, Italy.

He fought against the Nazis until his capture in 1943,

when he was sent to a detention camp at Fossoli.

On February 22 1944, at the age of twenty five, Levi was

transported to Auschwitz. Of the 650 people sent there

that day, only three returned to Italy alive. One of them

was Primo Levi.

Soon after his liberation, Primo Levi wrote two books

about his ordeal; If This is a Man and The Truce. Later

Levi wrote more novels, stories and essays.

Levi died in Turin in 1987.


Here is an extract from Anne Frank’s diary.

Jews must wear a yellow star, Jews must hand in their

bicycles, Jews are banned from trams and forbidden to

drive. Jews are only allowed to do their shopping between

three and five o’clock and then only in shops which bear

the placard ‘Jewish shop’. Jews must be indoors by eight

o’clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that

hour. Jews are forbidden to visit theatres, cinemas, and

other places of entertainment. Jews may not take part in

public sports. Swimming baths, tennis courts, hockey

fields, and other sports grounds are all prohibited to them.

Jews may not visit Christians. Jews must go to Jewish

schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.

Anne Frank’s diary


Memory test!


Here is an extract from the memoir of Primo Levi, If This

is a Man.

My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will

carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die… We are

slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult,

condemned to certain death, but we still possess one

power and we must defend it with all our strength for it is

the last – the power to refuse our consent. Se we must

certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and

dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes,

not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and

propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet,

not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive,

not to begin to die…

Primo Levi’s memoir


How can you tell that Primo Levi is not free?

In what ways does Levi suggest that the people can

continue to express their freedom?

…precisely because the Lager was a great machine to

reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; even in

this place one can survive, and therefore one must want

to survive, to tell their story, to bear witness; and to

survive we must force ourselves to save at least the

skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization.



Here is another extract from Anne Frank’s diary:

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or

unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be

quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because

only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that

God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple

beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly

always will, I know that then there will always be comfort

for every sorrow… I long for freedom and fresh air, but I

believe now that we have ample compensation for our

privations. Riches can all be lost, but that happiness in

your heart can only be veiled, and it will still bring you

happiness again, as long as you live…



What does Anne Frank feel about her situation?

What does she look to for happiness?

Has she any solution to her problems?

…I want to go on living even after my death! And

therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this

possibility of developing myself and of writing, of

expressing all that is in me.

I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows

disappear, my courage is reborn.



Compare the previous extract with this one, again from

Primo Levi’s memoir.

Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen.

Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the

Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years

old and is going to the gas chamber the day after

tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at

the light without saying anything and without even

thinking anymore? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time

it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what

has happened today is an abomination, which nothing at

all in the power of man can ever clean again?

If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer.



What is Kuhn thanking God he has not been

chosen for?

Why is Levi angry with Kuhn?

What does Levi mean when he says that, ‘If I was

God, I would spit at Kuhn’s prayer’?



What is the difference in tone between Anne

Frank’s diary and Primo Levi’s memoir?

Why do you think this may be the case?

What solutions, if any, do the writers propose to

their problems?

Comparing texts


Which writer do you find the most engaging?

Justify your choice with reasons:

Comparing texts

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