Dialectical Journal
Passage from the text
“Uri!” I cried.
“Tanks.” he said.
Colossal grey long-snouted
beetles.
In my mind I saw the man in
black scrubbing the sidewalk
with his beard. And the other
man and the laughing soldiers
with the scissors-snip snip- and
the hair falling to the sidewalk,
black hair falling…
My eyes popped open though in
the blackness there was nothing
to see. “They’re Jews!” I
blurted.
Sometimes Uri went out alone.
Scouting, he called it. He told
me to stay put. One time I did
not stay put. It was not long
after the jackboots came…
“Let’s hope not,” he said, and
they walked away.
I wandered the city for the rest
of the day. I did not head for
home until after dark. Along the
way I heard voices. I turned a
corner. Fires burned in the
night… I thought: ​Im glad Im
glad im not a Jew.
She threw her hands in the air. 40
She called out to the people on
the sidewalk… The brown snout
Page # Response
19 Reflect: Stopthief has made many connections as
to how violent items look. For example, he said
that machine guns looked like prainmantises. I
think this is made to represent the way Stopthief
looks at the world with such innocence that he
looks at something terrible, and find something
good about it. He does not know how to not make
such a connection yet.
23-24 Reflect: This is the beginning of Stopthief starting
to understand the true meaning and purpose
behind the jackboots and the men in black and the
tanks. Lowly, he is starting to understand and see
what is right in front of him.
26-27 Reflect: I feel like Stopthief would understand
what the jackboots are all about. Earlier in the
book he has an epiphany about the men in black
and the jackboots, but somehow he still doesn't
understand why everything going on around him
is absolutely and utterly devastating.
36-37 Question: Did people around the world think
poorly of Jews before the war, or did it just come
about when Hitler came into power?
Reflect: This bread lady was earlier described and
Uri said that bread ladys will never chase after
you. Last time they stole from that one, she didn’t.
of her fox fur bounced up and
down on her shoulder.
In a moment Doctor Korczak 53
appeared… “You”-he pointed at
me- “are the black pearl… He
laughed again. “Not for long.”
When I returned to the ghetto,
there was a wall in the way.
Men were building it with
bricks… Someone yelled. I ran.
They marched us to the ghetto.
SInce they had finished the
brick wall- topped with broken
glass and coils of barbed wire- I
haven’t been able to visit
Jenene.
People stared. ​We’re a parade!​ I
thought… “Filthy Jews!”
The same Bodies were never 89
there two days in a row, but
there were always new bodies in
new places… I thought: ​Angles
I was starting to explain that I 95
had had a chunk before i arrived
when the sound of a machine
gun peppered the night… “This
is it, this is it.”
Someone gave us more than
that. A flop. Flops were all over
the place. The Jackboots hired
them to guard the jews in the
ghetto… and of course, being
To me, this shows that as the war goes on, the
people get more violent and desperate. Especially
toward the Jew stereotype.
When the doctor said this, it was to say that
people like Stopthief were rare. Such as a black
pearl. It was not only to say that he was as black
as coal himself. He said this because not a lot of
people donate to the orphanage and the orphanage
cherishes Stopthief’s help.
75 Predict: I predict that he is going to get trapped in
the ghetto.
79 Clarify: Stopthief did get trapped in the ghetto,
but not in the way that I thought he would. I
thought by the time he was done talking to Janene
that he would get trapped inside when the wall got
higher. Instead, him and his group of misfits
where escorted in by the jackboots.
80 Reflect: It is absolutely absurd to think that all of
the separation and violence was just because of
religious differences. I don’t understand why Jews
are so offensive. There were other religions
existing back then but people didn’t seem to have
a problem with it.
Reflect: If you think about it, it is actually quite
the opposite. I think that the JAckboots come at
night and take the bodies away and cover their
faces with newspaper.
Reflect: I don’t understand why, when people all
around the world knew this was happening, did
nothing to stop it. Also, how come the Jackboots
have so much authority to just shoot up the place?
102 Reflect/Question: I don’t get it, if they are jews
and they aren't actually hurting the other jews
severely, just blowing a whistle for the jackboots,
then why do they do it? They don't have to turn
the “Misbehaving” jews in if they don't want to.
jews, they wore armbands.

I kept something else too- the
yellow stone around my neck.
The yellow stone my father had
given to me. I know, as
something in me had always
known, that that was the one
true part of Uri’s story.
104-10 Reflect: I always had a hunch that the yellow
5 stone had symbolized his life before he was a
homeless boy because he has always had it. Now I
know that even he thinks it was given to him by
his father.

As she put her shoe back on, she 142-14 Reflect: Milkweed is a sign of hpe in the desolate
was staring at me. “What’s 3 ghetto. It is the one living thing other than the
that?” She said. She was Jews on that side of the wall. Also, it is the only
pointing at something. I looked. colorful thing in the grey world that they live in.
It was a brown seed with a
spray of white fluff coming out
of it. It was clinging to my shirt
and suddenly the word for it
was on my tongue, A word I
didn’t even know I knew.
“Milkweed.” I said… I cracked
a pod from the stem and blew
into the silk-lined hollow,
sending the remaining puffs
sailing, a snowy shower rising,
vanishing into the clouds.

The flies were always singing. 165-16 Reflect: This short passage really made me think
The days were warm and the 6 of just how bad it was in the ghetto and how many
bodies were cold… Every day a people died for so many different reasons.
parade of body wagons backed
up at the Gesia Street gate of the
cemetery.

My nose tickled. My cheek. I 187-19 Reflect: The way this is written really shows how
brushed away the tickles. THey 1 much he fades in and out of consciousness and
came back. Snips of buzzing. I sanity. The way he is hallucinating and collapsing
opened my eyes. White clouds really shows how much blood he is losing and
sailed across a blue sky. Darting how close to death he is.
spots. Flies… I kept glancing
around to see myself repeated,
but there was only me. One day
when I opened my eyes, a mad
was standing over me.
When caroling children came at 202 Reflect: This passage truly shows just how
Christmastime, I slammed the traumatized the was by the experience of the
door in their faces. When I saw ghetto. Even though he couldn't function like a
a copy of Hansel and Gretel in normal person of society before, now he is to
the bookstore window, I and emotionally and mentally disturbed to function
grabbed it and ripped it to without crying or acting out.
shreds, and Vivian had to pay
for it… I cried for no reason. In
the night the colossal black
flame-throwing Jackboots
tramped through my dreams.