BOOK FLYER
Smoke and Ashes, By: Barbara Rogasky
Book Summary
The book “Smoke and Ashes” is all about the Holocaust. It greatly in tales you on what happened during the Holocaust and what were the effects of the Holocaust as well as what were some of the things happening inside of Germany. Before the Holocaust happened Germany had just lost world war 1. Because of the lose Germany's government went into turmoil and lost its stability. People were paid little and there was high inflation. At the time there were cults or groups of people that wanted to run the government differently. One group was called the Nazi. And as time went on with little to no help for Germany, the smaller groups grow in numbers and size. The leader of the Nazi party was Adolf Hitler. He was the leader and cause of the Holocaust and he came into power by overthrowing the current government. Hitler tried for the first time to overthrow the government and failed.
As he failed to overtake the government he was sent to jail for 9 months. While he was in jail he wrote a bible of the Nazi’s. It held all of his plans to exterminate the Jews in Europe and all around the world. Over a span of years the Nazi party got enough votes to become the new head government. Hitler took action as soon as he was in power. He changed laws so the Jews were allowed to be persecuted. And that was only the beginning. As time went along more and more laws were passed to persecute the Jews even farther than the one before it. Once the laws were in full swing Hitler took his leap at exterminating the Jews from Europe. The first step was the building of the ghettos for the Jews to live in. Then the Jews would build a wall around it so that there was only one entrance. More time went on and more Jews where getting filled into the ghettos. More ghettos started to come to life in Germany. Right off the bat Hitler started to starve the Jews with little to no food. The the first concentration camp went up and Hitler ordered the killing of Jews to begin. At first it was slow going when Hitler wanted to starve the Jews and not shoot them. Then it lead to the point to where Jews were being dragged out of the ghettos and shot by special force teams.
But it was slow and costly in ammunition so Hitler ordered the construction of gas chambers. One thing Hitler was trying to hide was the fact that he was killing Jews. He took extra precautions to make sure that the Jews didn't know they were going to die. To make sure Hitler killed all the Jews in Europe he took over almost all of Europe. Once he did this he was able to set up more and more concentration camps and gas chambers. First they gathered all the Jews and put them in concentration camps. Then they shipped the Jews in freight cars to gas chambers. Then they made the Jews strip and go into the chamber thinking that they are going to take a shower. Then the Nazi soldiers lock the Jews in and release the poisonous gas killing the Jews inside. Then they would go through and throw the Jews bodies into a giant furnace burning the remains. At one point near the end of the war the Nazi’s would just burn the Jews to death then move on to the next group. After about 6 year the Holocaust was finally over.
Three Facts
1.If the allies were to take action right away they could have saved millions of lives.
2.Jew didn't seem like they fought back but at one point there was a riot where 500 Jew were against 5000 trained German soldiers and lost with killing about 3-4000 German soldiers.
3.One part in the book said that Jews had to build a wall out of Jewish gravestones.
Who would enjoy this book
I would give this book a 5/5 on ho good of a book it is to learn about the Holocaust.
The book is a non-fictional book.