Resilience Cafe

Artist statement:
Stop Genocide!

My art represents past genocide and present genocide. On the top half, there are pictures of the genocide in Sudan. There are abandoned children, hungry, and dead people. On the bottom half there are pictures of the Holocaust. It shows pictures of the concentration camps and what people went through. They connect to each other because the same thing is happening in Sudan as what happened during the Holocaust. People are killing other people for no reason and discriminating against them.


Essay:

What instigates one group of people to hate or attack with violence another group of people? Do they really hate them, or are they not at peace with themselves? When they use violence against others, are they trying to destroy something inside themselves they dislike? Was Benjamin Ajak correct when he said, “The one that is killed gets to be free, but the one that kills has to face God in heaven and can never be free?”

Agathe Ehrenfried is a resilient person because she survived the death of her entire family in the Holocaust led by Adolph Hitler during World War II. This was the genocide of the Jews, or what the Nazis called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Agi’s family died along with nine to eleven million other victims. Agi is a Hungarian Jew born in Budapest in 1927. Agi’s story began in 1938 when the Third Reich conquered territory in Eastern Europe and murdered Jews in mass shootings. Along with other Jews, Agi and her family were pulled out of their homes and crammed into ghettos before being thrown onto freight trains. These trains traveled hundreds of miles to concentration and extermination camps. Agi was taken to Auschwitz, a concentration camp, where inmates were used as slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Agi’s entire family, her sister and parents, died. She does not know how they died. They may have died in a concentration camp or sent to the extermination camps where people were killed in gas chambers. The Jews were asked to line up before boarding the train. If you were sent to the right it meant slave labor, and if you were sent to the left it meant the gas chambers. Agi was in the concentration camp for so long that she felt like giving up. It was her faith that kept her strong. Her strength and resilience is reflected in her talks and warnings to younger generations to be aware of any injustice they see around them. She tells them to speak out against any wrongdoing they witness. Agi is a hero because she is here to remind us to not back down from violence or obvious injustice. Agathe Ehrenfried and Benjamin Ajak are similar because they both were victims of violence, and are determined to teach others now to stand up against it.

Benjamin Ajak is one of the child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. His journey took him more than one thousand miles across a country where he was surrounded by war, land mines, crocodile-infested waters, and extreme hunger, thirst, and disease. Benjamin Ajak was raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. He lived in a small community with grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. Then one night, the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking his villages. This was the night that Benjamin fled from there. After this, Benjamin lived in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. On the way to Ethiopia, Benjamin and the other boys were most afraid of the desert of Ajakageer. This was going to be the most dangerous part of his journey. Benjamin said, “I sweated, my eyes burned, and my skin was slippery and irritated.” “I was too thirsty to cry. I had no saliva in my mouth or tears in my eyes.” The boys faced



more brutality again when they finally arrived at the refugee camps. He was finally accepted as a refugee by the United States. However, his plane was suppose to fly into
John F. Kennedy International airport on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center buildings went down. He saw the buildings in flames from his airplane window. Therefore, he was sent to Canada for two weeks. He arrived into the United States by bus. Benjamin, just like Agi, almost lost all hope of surviving. He saw how violence ruins lives and how important it is to not accept any kind of violence. Today, Benjamin Ajak is one of the authors of the Lost Boys of Sudan Memoir, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky. He travels to schools to speak out against violence and the importance of education. Benjamin said, “The one that is killed gets to be free, but the one that kills has to face God in heaven and can never be free.”

I relate to Agi because I am also Jewish. As a Jew I am discriminated against by people because of my religion. Although I have never gone through anything as severe as the Holocaust, I know what it feels like not to be liked because of religious differences. I have never gone through Benjamin Ajak experienced. However, Agi did. I especially feel a certain connection to Agi because of our shared faith. I have been made fun of before, and people have not wanted to be my friend because of the fact that I am Jewish. More specifically, I have encountered discrimination sometimes because I participate in activities that my friends have never done, or don’t understand. These are not always religious activities. They are just different from the things they know or do themselves. Although I experience discrimination in different forms, and luckily, I have thus far not been a victim of violence, I feel I need to be strong in order to not let their comments affect me.

I can relate to both Agi and Benjamin. They understand right and wrong. It is never right to make someone else feel like they are not as good and be picked on for it, or even hurt. Both Agi and Benjamin are very brave and continue to teach others to be aware of injustice and violence. They leave the message behind that the only thing wrong is to stand idly by. What Agi has gone through has inspired me to remember to never give up and always believe that I can get through things no matter how tough they are. I want to continue their legacy by always trying to do the right thing for myself, and to be a voice for others in the face of injustice.

Lord of the Flies; Trial

My strengths during the trial were being able to understand a lot of things going on, because my father is a lawyer and i have been to court before. My challenges were being prepared for the trial. During the trial, my partner and I had to keep getting tapes and I felt that made us unprepared. The work I did in preparation for the trial was during and after. My partner and I set up the video camera and took pictures. After the trial we edited the video. I thought that overall I was good partner, because i felt that I did the same amount of work as my partner and we work well together. I think I deserve at least a B on this project, because I met expectations on everything, but i could have done better.

My Querencia Clipboard

My querencia is music, because when I don't
have to listen to anything else. It makes me happy when I am sad,
and makes me understand my life. When I feel everything around
me is going wrong, I listen to my favorite songs and it all goes away.
When I am listening to music, I feel like nothing can hurt me. If I am
hurting inside, music makes all of those feelings feel so small. It helps
me realize that I don't need anything to make me happy. I can get
away from the world and just take a minute to chill.

I never have any worries when I listen to music, and if I do they
all disappear. Even though music is not an actual place, it takes me
somewhere nothing else can. It is a perfect place, without pain or
regret. I can see only smiles and hear only laughter. It keeps me
feeling optimistic during the worst times, and raises my spirits even
higher during the good times. I feel that without music I would not be
half the person I am today. Music makes me feel safe.

I like all types of music, but the kind of music that makes me
feel the best about myself are the "oldies". They give me an
indescribable feeling inside. I also like the "oldies because they are
not about hatred and sin, but instead they are about the real things in
life, the important things that nobody bothers to pay attention to
anymore. For example, real love, real happiness, real sadness, and
real emotions. The "oldies" are all about pouring your heart out to the
world, so everyone can hear what you really mean, instead of hiding it
behind a beat like rap.

When I listen to music I usually use headphones, because I can
go anywhere with them, or i can just sit where i am. I can even get up
and dance with them. Headphones feel more private, because no one
else can hear what I am listening to. I love the feeling of new
headphones resting in my ears with crystal clear music blasting in my ears.

Publication Plan

Title: Behind the Closet

Author: Arielle Blumen

Genre: Children's

Pages- 5

Mentor Texts: Uninvited Guests.

Audience: Elementary School

Writing Process: I am working on my third draft. Lila and Matt have read it so far. All I have to do for my third draft is work on the spelling and grammar, and add some More detail.

Publishing Process: Me and Carley binded our stories together and we are planning to give it to explorer.

FeatureCast from the Past! Reflection

Project Purpose:
To understand the difference between Cause/Effect Relationships and Correlations. To understand how and why major events in history are connected and intertwined (think yarn activity!). To research a major event from U.S. history in order to understand why it is significant and how it relates to other major events. To understand features of a feature article and podcast and to be able to create a feature article or podcast about your major event in history.

Project Requirements:
To present the 5Ws of your major event to the class. To write/peer edit/revise a feature article or podcast. To have at least three drafts in your Writing Portfolio. To present a polished version of your feature article or podcast on Media Night, as well as posting it online to our Team Featurecast from the Past web page.

Challenges:
One of my challenges during FeatureCast from the Past, was communicating well with my partner. My partner and I got along well, but we didn't talk very much about some of the things that needed to be sorted out. We talked a lot, but not about the issues in our project or what we could improve on. I fixed this by making more of an effort to talk to him about some things and work together more.

My second challenge was finding accurate information on Hitler. There were a lot of sites that gave you information to try to make you like Hitler, and some gave wrong dates. I overcame this challenge by backing up the information and looking at different sites to see if they were correct. I also tried to be very aware of the sites that gave information to make you like Hitler.

Real World Application:

The real world application was learning how everyone was affected, and not just jews. Also to be aware of all the prejudiced that is still going on today.