If you have not brought in your bag of candy for Gingerbread Houses, please do so by Monday. All the frosting and graham crackers were donated by an awesome Ape Parent, so you only need to bring in a small bag of candy!
We are Step 1 in the process of the destruction of the Jews in Milkweed. Step One for the Nazi destruction of the Jews was Dehumanization. Misha Pilsudki, as he is now called, learns first hand how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews. He sees an elderly man having his beard cut off. He sees another man being forced to scrub the street with his beard. (even though the book is fiction, these things really happened in Warsaw, as you can see by the picture)
(These are real pictures taken by German photographers) Step 2 is Isolation (ghettos)
Step 3 is Annihilation (the camps)
Misha infers that in 1939 Poland being a Jew is not a good thing. He still wants to be a Jackboot, he adores the uniform, and the parades. He latches on to Uri as if he was family. He find the last tomato in Warsaw. Many of the students in Rooms 71 and 73 inferred that Misha's life story was probably, in part, Uri's life story. Jerry Spinelli did an awesome job of detailing the steps the Nazis took to remove the Jews from the face of Europe. (Here is a picture of what Misha saw on the boulevard in 1939)
Notice the high shiny boots. This is how they got the nickname "Jackboot"
Poles and Jews were forced to salute the Nazi parades.
This is an exact copy of the streetcar Misha and Uri drove into the restaurant. Misha and Uri were in about the same spot as the men on the back.
This is what the barbershop looked like after the bombing of Warsaw. Most of Warsaw rubble.Mr. Gibbons and Mrs. Peck have read this novel many times, and still get excited and emotional reading this book. It's great to see the students motivated to read, and engaged in REAL literature.
These are actual Jewish orphans in Europe during the Holocaust. This may help you make a picture in your head of the Unlaughter, One Arm, the SmokeBlower and the Grey One or Misha.
