Sandstrom 1

Emily Sandstrom
Miss Figueroa
World Literature Block A
April 14, 2014
The Holocaust
Winter in the Morning
By Janina Bauman
The book Winter in the Morning by Janina Bauman is the story of Janina, a young girl
then, during the years of the Holocaust. The book starts off with a description of Janinas home
and family. They lived in Warsaw at 10 Senatorska Street then moved to a large apartment house
at 5 Sienna Street after her sister Sophie was born. The whole family was Polish and Jewish. At
the age of five, Janinas Grandma Viera taught her how to read. At age eleven, Janina finally
went to school in September 1937. A year later, Janina, Sophie, and their mother saw the first
Nazis in Gdask. When Janina was thirteen years old, her family left their home and drove to
Konstancin. They stopped in Rawa Ruska, a town near the Russian border, where they saw Jews
fleeing in a hurry. They didnt know why they were running away or from whom.
At 12.40 p.m. on August 31 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at
4.45 the next morning. Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3
(Bauman 17). On Monday, September 4, three men and a lady from the British Embassy stayed
with Janina and her family. Two days later, they left unexpectedly. The Lewinsons followed
leaving Konstancin and moving to Warsaw where they stayed at Border Street with Grannie.
They aided those who were out on the street. Many people came and took refuge in the house.
Grannie became very ill and died shortly after Stefan and Jadwiga, Janinas uncle and aunt, got
married. The Nazis started to make the Jews over the age of thirteen wear armbands with blue
stars of David on them. Soon the Nazis invaded homes and started taking the belongings of Jews.
Janinas family moved to a new flat closer to the center of Warsaw. On day, Sophie was crossing
the street when a German lorry hit her causing her to suffer from a concussion, swollen eye, and
a broken foot. She eventually healed from her accident.
People were dying every day out on the streets. Corpses became part of Janinas daily
routine. Life went on in the ghetto. Janina kept going to work, working in the gardens of the
ghetto. In the spring of 1942, Janina met Roman at the caf within the ghetto. They spent time
together during the summer. On July 22, 1942, mass deportations of people from the Warsaw
ghetto began (Bauman 64). During the Aktions Janina, Sophie, and their mother hid among other
people and they also hid within the rubble. They had very narrow escapes and if found they
would bribe the Germans or blackmailers to leave them alone. They often looked to Auntie
Maria and Uncle Julian for help. Julian got registration cards for Mrs. Lewinson and Grandma
Viera, Janina and Sophie were on their own.
Soon, rumors of the gas chambers entered the ghetto though few took heed in the
warnings. Aktions or deportations kept taking place. As time went on, Janina lost more of her
family. She became frustrated and started questioning life. She later took her moms place
because she had the flu, and went to work in houses, cleaning them in preparation for other
people. In one house, she saw a fine china set. She destroyed it as her first act of resistance. In
January of 1943 Janina, Sophie, and their mother escaped to the Aryan side where they spend
many days in hiding. They spend their time with many families while in hiding. On Palm
Sunday, there was an uprising within the ghetto. It went on for three works.

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Months later, Janina was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In one hiding place on Nowy
wiat, Janina met a man named Mr. Lusternik. He told her to record what had happened and
leave a written testimony behind in case we did not survive (Bauman 123). Here is where
Janinas writing started. On the last night of June, the Nazis had discovered their hiding place.
Janina stood up to them and managed to produce enough money for them to leave the Jews
hiding in this house alone.
In order to get healthier Janina was sent to hide with a family in a wooden cottage right
outside the city. Here she found a newspaper with both her father and Uncle Jzefs names along
with many others. She didnt know if they were dead. She soon returned back to the heart of
Warsaw where she spent time with a lady named Vala. Vala had a boyfriend name Edward who
took a liking to Janina though she was almost thirty years younger. Soon Vala became ill from
cancer. One night, while standing on the balcony, Janina contemplated suicide. At the beginning
of June, Vala died. Edward then asked Mrs. Lewinson if he could marry Janina but she simply
refused. Soon after, Edward was killed by the Nazis on the second day of the Warsaw uprising.
The Warsaw uprising caused the city to be razed to the ground. Shortly after the start of the
uprising, the Nazis deported people out of Warsaw and into the countryside. While waiting for
the next train some Germans took Janina and Sophie and gave them some food. The next
morning, they left toward Craow. From here they traveled to Zielonki, a town two hours away
from Craow. While in Zielonki, Janina and her mother stayed with a woman by the name of
Mrs. Pietrzyk. Mrs. Pietrzyk cared for Janina and helped her recover from her tuberculosis.
Sophie and Aunt Maria stayed with a rather rude and unfriendly family.
One Sunday morning, Sophie and Janina went to Church for the first time. They made the
mistake of kneeling on the porch which was only know for nuns and monks kneeling there.
The second time they went into the Church, they went inside and nobody questioned them. They
lived there until the end of the war. On January 19, 1945 the first Russian soldiers appeared in
Zielonki. One morning Janina found a soldier in the shed. She ran back to the house where Mrs.
Pietrzyk gave her food to take to the soldier. He devoured it. He was still trembling from hunger
and fear. For a long while I watched him blankly I felt no pity, no hatred, no joy. The war ended
(Bauman 190).

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Review
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was different from other books I have read about the
Holocaust because the main character did not go to a concentration camp. The book kept me on
the edge of my seat not knowing if the characters would be caught by the Germans and sent to a
labor camp. The story was sad not only because it was a story about the Holocaust, but because
the author used vivid imagery to tell her story. While reading this book I could picture what it
was like to be in the Warsaw ghetto and beyond. The book came to life, creating pictures in my
head. When the sisters were at a dance, it was almost as if I was in the same room because I
could hear the laughter and the music.
This book described life in the ghettos instead of life in the labor and death camps. It
described the survival of a family and those they lost along the way. It explained how the
underground Jewish society functioned and what the Jews were planning to do against the
Germans. The book depicted what life was like in the Warsaw ghetto and what life was like on
the Aryan side of the ghetto. The author writes how the Germans were not all cruel. Some of
them spared the lives of Jews while others killed Jews on the spot.
Though this was an interesting read it did not answer any of the questions. It was just a
story, not a book of facts. However, I did like how the author wrote her diary entries she kept
during the war in the book. It added a deeper meaning to the book because you were able to read
her personal thoughts throughout the years. One can relate to Janinas story because she lost her
loved ones. This book also helped me understand what my friends grandparents went through
while living through the Holocaust, constantly running and hiding from the overbearing Nazis
and Gestapo. I could only imagine what it would have been like to be on the run constantly;
always hiding, always on the watch for the enemy, always scared.

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1. What is it?
The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews. It was a systematic, bureaucratic,
stats-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews in Europe by the Nazi
regime and its collaborators that took place between 1933 and 1945. A total of twelve million
people were killed, six million being Jews and of the six million, 1.5 million were children. The
Nazis forced Jews to live in specific zones called ghettos. Jews were deported from the ghettos to
labor and death camps. Other minority groups were also targeted such as political dissidents, the
disabled, those with genetic diseases, Gypsies, Poles, Soviet POWs, male homosexuals and
Jehovahs Witnesses. The American troops liberated the camps in 1945 and ended the Nazi
regime. Survivors were forced to go to Displaced Persons camps because they had nothing to go
back to in their cities and towns. The Nazi war criminals were put on trial at the Nuremburg
Trials but many did not carry heavy sentences (What is the Holocaust par 1-2).
2. What is it known for?
The Holocaust is mainly known for the persecution of millions of Jews during World War
II though it is also known for the persecution of Gypsies and homosexuals. Holocaust comes
from Greek origin; Holos meaning whole and kaustos meaning burned. The word
holocaust was used to describe any sacrificial offering burned on an altar but now it means
something horrible (The Holocaust par 1). The Holocaust is also known for labor and death
camps also known as concentration camps. These camps were where the twelve million
Europeans were tortured and then killed. They were mainly executed by gas chambers where
many people were squished into a room that usually only had two doors and one opening in the
ceiling. The opening in the ceiling was where the Nazis poured the Zyklon B gas pellets through.
When they hit the surface, they would burst open emitting poisonous gas causing everyone
inside the chamber to suffocate and die. Once everyone was dead, the Nazis would drag the
bodies into the adjoining crematorium and burned. Other ways the prisoners died were being
shot, being burned alive, being buried alive and being tortured through medical experiments
(Jacobs 16-17).
3. What is its history?
Before the Holocaust there was hostility toward Jews that dates back to the ancient world.
Here the Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave
Palestine. Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, 1889 and served in the German army during World
War I (The Holocaust par 2). Germany was humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler
was focused to undo it. He blamed the Jews for the countrys defeat in 1918 and he later joined
the National Socialist German Workers Party or the Nazis and was the leader of the party. He
wrote a memoir and propaganda tract Mein Kampf (My Struggle) which predicted a general
European war that would result in the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany (The
Holocaust par 3). Hitler wanted a pure German race which he called Aryan. On January 20,
1933, he was named chancellor of Germany and in 1934 anointed himself Fuhrer (The
Holocaust par 2-3). In the 1930s, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and
rebuilt the German military. He occupied the German Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in
1938 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 (Nazi Party par 9). Great Britain and France

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declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, shortly after Hitler ordered hostilities against
Poland.
During the war, the Germans forced Jews to live in ghettos where they lived under
miserable conditions. The ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from nonJewish populations such as the Ayran people. There were at least 1,000 ghettos in Poland and
the Soviet Union alone. The first ghetto was established in Poland in Piotrkw Trybunalski in
October 1939. Residents within the ghettos were either shot dead by Germans or deported to
killing centers or better known as extermination camps. There were three types of ghettos:
closed, open, and destruction ghettos. The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto where
more than 400,000 Jews were forced to live in an area of 1.3 square miles. Jews within the
ghettos were identified by wearing badges or armbands with the Star of David on them. They
also were forced to do labor for the German Reich. Daily life in the ghettos was administered by
Jewish councils which were appointed by Nazis. There was a variety of resistance efforts by the
Jews held in the ghettos. They would smuggle food, medicine, weapons or information. The
Germans forbade and form of schooling or education yet the Jews would have underground
schooling and underground groups (Ghettos par 2-6). Germans eventually set curfews for the
Jews living in the ghettos. Jews would have to be inside building during curfew hours. If they
were found, they would most likely be shot on the spot. After curfew was over, the Jews were
able to walk throughout the streets of the ghettos.
There were three different types of camps: Forced-labor camps, transit camps, and
extermination camps. Concentration camps were called this because those imprisoned there
were physically concentrated in one location (Nazi Camps par 1). After 1939, forced-labor
camps opened. Here, thousands of prisoners died from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure.
There were also prisoner-of-war camps. Killing centers were designed for efficient mass
murder. Chelmno was the first killing center which opened in December 1941. Gas chambers
are often associated with these killing centers. Major killing centers were Belzec, Sobibor,
Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Birkenau (Nazi Camps par 3-6). After the war, some of the camps
were turned into museums where you can visit them today.
4. What culture is associated with it?
Before the War, European Jews were living mostly in eastern Europe, in Poland, the
Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania. They lived in predominantly Jewish towns or villages
called shtetls. They spoke Yiddish which is a combination of German and Hebrew. They read
Yiddish books and attended Yiddish theater and movies. They usually wore traditional dress:
men wore hats or caps and women were modest and covered their hair with wigs or kerchiefs.
The eastern European Jews made up more the Jewish population than the western European Jews
who lived in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. They dressed and talked like
the people around them and traditional culture was of less importance. They lived in towns or
cities and tended to have a more formal education than eastern European Jews. There were more
poor Jewish families than there were wealthy. Many children ended their schooling early to work
in craft or trade while others continued their education until university. Despite these differences,
they were the same because they were all targeted by the Nazis (Jewish Life par 2-4).

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5. What group is associated with it?
From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience
for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of
youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful. This was emphasized in the classroom
and in other activities kids participated. At the beginning of 1933, Hitler Youth only had 50,000
members but later grew to two million at the end of 1933 and 5.4 million by 1936. It soon
became mandatory in 1939 outlawing all other youth organizations (Indoctrinating Youth par
2). The Germans goal was to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who
would be willing to die for Fuhrer and Fatherland. Hitlers birthday was considered a national
holiday. Those who were a part of Hitler Youth planned to be the future soldiers of Germany.
Textbooks were put in the classrooms and emphasized a growing love for Hitler, obedience to
state authority, militarism, racism, and Anti-Semitism (Indoctrinating Youth par 4-5). There
was the League of German Girls which was a primary tool the Nazis used to brainwash young
girls beliefs, thinking and actions.
6. What are the practices and traditions of the group associated with it?
Anti-Semitism is one of the beliefs held by the Nazi Germany. It means prejudice against
or hatred of Jews. German journalist, Wilhelm Marr originated the term anti-Semitism as
denoting the hatred of Jews and hatred of various liberal, cosmopolitan, and international
political trends of the 1700s and 1800s which was often associated with Jews (Antisemitism
par 1). Nazi Germany believed in a pure race. They treated the Jews cruelly and with great
disrespect. They also practiced propaganda to brainwash children known as Hitler Youth. They
did this through board games and toys for children that spread racial and political propaganda to
German youth. They would also have staged propaganda events such as mass rallies full of
ritual and spectacle to create the illusion of one national community The original purpose of
Hitler Youth was to train boys to enter the Storm Troopers, a Nazi Party paramilitary formation.
In 1936, being a part of Nazi youth groups became mandatory for children between the ages of
ten and seventeen. The Hitler Youth incorporated ideology with sports and outdoor activities.
They did the same with the League of German Girls. This caused the children to abandon their
individuality in favor of the goals of the Aryan collective (Indoctrinating Youth par 7-11).
The first use of propaganda was to spread the ideals of Nazism. The Reich Ministry of
Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was formed in 1933 and was headed by Joseph Goebbels.
They aimed to ensure the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art forms,
media, and educational materials (Nazi Propaganda par 2). The subject of Nazi propaganda
was the real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations that
had gained territory at Germanys expense. Propaganda was used to extract political loyalty and
race consciousness among the ethnic German populations (Nazi Propaganda par 4). Nazi
films portrayed Jews to be subhuman creatures infiltrating Aryan society (Nazi Propaganda
par 6). Jews of higher educated professions or business were often depicted as being dishonest,
greedy, and lascivious. They were considered to be responsible for communism and capitalism.
They were ridiculed for their clothing and customs. Jews were portrayed as being fat, ugly, and
dangerous. This went against the Aryan type, who was always portrayed as being muscular,
blond, and blue-eyed (Nazi Antisemitic Propaganda par 3). Jews were also considered vermin
and rats and therefore were depicted as rats in propaganda pamphlets, posters, and other forms.

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7. Is it associated with a religion, philosophy, belief system or other devotion?
The Nazis belief system was the superiority of the White, Germanic, Aryan or Nordic
races. They practiced that of anti-Semitism and anti-Slavism degrading both the Jews and Slavic
peoples. The Nazi ideal race was Herrenrasse or a master race (Nazi Ideology par 1). In
formulating their ideology of race, Hitler and the Nazis drew upon the ideas of the German social
Darwinists of the late 19th century. They believed that human beings could be classified by
races, each of which carried distinctive characteristics that were passed on genetically from the
beginning of time. Not only did they inherit body features, but also shaped internal mental life,
ways of thinking, creative and organizational abilities, intelligence, taste and appreciation of
culture, physical strength, and military prowess (Victims of the Nazi Era par 5). They also
adopted Darwinist survival of the fittest. The Nazi party found the value of a human being in
their membership in a racially defined collective group rather than ones one individuality
(Victims of the Nazi Era par 11). According to Hitler and others, mixing races would
eventually lead to bastardization and degeneration of a race to the point where it lost its
distinguishing characteristics and eventually become extinct (Victims of the Nazi Era par 12).
Inferior races according to the Aryan race are Jews, Roma, Africans, and Slavs (Victims of
the Nazi Era par 14).
8. What impact has it had on the world?
After the Holocaust, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention,
which requires the governments to undertake to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. At
the Nuremberg Trials, the top Nazis were prosecuted for crimes against humanity and for
implementation of policies that violated international law without relying on their government
status. After the Holocaust, the Declaration of Human Rights was established. The protection of
human rights continues to be a problem and is focused on by the government worldwide. The
Nuremberg Code was established and stated that the voluntary consent of the human subject
is absolutely essential. Though effective, it has failed to find a place in the United States or
German national law codes. There continues to be care for refugees of all kinds though it remains
a challenge. In 1965, Pope John Paul II expressed sorrow for the hatred, acts of persecution, and
displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews by Christians at any time and in any place. The
large role of anti-Semitism in the Holocaust caused a greater and long impact. There has been an
increase of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe and Islamic countries especially within the most
recent years. Palestine was divided after World War II creating separate states for Jews and
Palestinian Arabs. The State of Israel was founded in 1948 as a homeland where any Jew could
become a citizen no matter the situation. Since then, Jews have fled persecution and hardships
from other peoples for refuge in Israel (A Changed World 3-6).
9. How would you feel if you were involved? Why?
If I were involved, I would be scared out of my mind. If I were to be deported I would
hide as best I could and create a strategy that would help multiply people hide. I would work and
trade items for money so that I would be able to buy food for my family. If I were on the Aryan
side of the ghettos I would help any Jew. I would smuggle food to them and anything they
needed that I was able to get. I would hide some in my house, especially if it was a family. Either

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way I would be terrified. I would try to use all my connections with people to help others the best
I could.

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Work Cited
Antisemitism. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. June 10, 2013. Web. April 3, 2014.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005175
A Changed World. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. April 3, 2014.
https://ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/aftermath/pdf/brochure.pdf
Bauman, Janina. Winter in the Morning. The Free Press, 1986. Print.
Ghettos. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. June 10, 2013. Web. April 8, 2014.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005059
The Holocaust. History Channel. Web. April 2, 2014.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust
Indoctrinating Youth. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. June 10, 2013. Web. April
8, 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007820
Jacobs, Alan and Krysia. A Virtual Tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau. Web. February 14, 2014.
http://www.remember.org/auschwitz/index.html
Jewish Life in Europe Before the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Web. April 8, 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007689
Nazi Antisemitic Propaganda. The William Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum.
Web. April 8, 2014.
http://www.thebreman.org/exhibitions/online/1000kids/propaganda.html
Nazi Camps. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. June 10, 2013. Web. April 8, 2014.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144
Nazi Ideology. About Nazism. Web. April 3, 2014.
http://www.nazism.net/about/nazi_ideology/
Nazi Party. History Channel. Web. April2, 2014.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party
Nazi Propaganda. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. June 10, 2013. Web. April 3,
2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202
Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
June 10, 2013. Web. April 3, 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?
ModuleId=10007457
What is the Holocaust. Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Web. April 2, 2014.
http://holocaustcenterpgh.org/page.aspx?id=148354