April 26

Hidden Reflections: The Zookeeper’s Wife

 

We recently finished reading The Zookeeper’s Wife in English class. So it was time to choose another project. My classmate and I decided that we would do another Hidden Reflections poster. A Hidden Reflections poster is a poster where if a person has read the book, they will understand what the pictures represent. But if you haven’t read the book, then it won’t give away any key details.

Check out my classmate’s blog to see what he has written about The Zookeeper’s Wife.  https://pedroglca.edublogs.org

 

April 3

The Zookeeper’s Wife: Making the Change

World War II. What a tragic time for many people. Especially for the Jews. A lot of people know about World War II. But some things remain unknown by many people. For this blog post, I decided that I would dig deeper into something from The Zookeeper’s Wife that I wasn’t really aware of. Something that isn’t mentioned in a lot of documents, history books, etc. Something that saved lives. Making the Change.

Background:

A lot of people don’t know this but during World War II, some Jews underwent “beauty” changes. They changed who they were. People in the Polish underground set up beauty stations and hundreds of people came to them to Be “change.” This change that they made saved their lives.

 

Women:

Jewish women went through big changes in appearance, dress, and almost everything possible. The Underground workers taught the women how to disguise themselves to avoid the Nazis. They taught them how to dress and look like a typical Polish woman. They would bleach or dye their hair to cover up the dark color and make them appear to be “perfect” according Hitler’s standards. A lot of women underwent surgery to change their noses. Their noses were sometimes what gave them away to the Nazis. It was a feature that was very recognizable. I found it amazing that even as far back as World War II, plastic surgery was in existence. It probably wasn’t as advanced as it is today. But still. Plastic surgery in the 1940s!

 

Men:

Jewish men didn’t undergo as much change as the women. But it was still big enough to save their lives. Jewish men are normally circumcised when they are born. And the Germans knew that. So it was easy to tell if the men were Jewish or not. All the Nazis had to do was check for circumcision. And BINGO! They found another Jew. This was a problem for them. So the Underground got involved. The men received “operations” to help disguise that they were of Jewish descent.

 

Culture:

A big change that took place was in their culture. They had to learn to not be Jews. Women had to make the biggest change. They had to learn to dress and look like a Polish woman. They had to learn to cook typical Polish meals and could no longer make the food from their culture. Both the men and the women had to learn to eat pork. The women were taught the Lord’s Prayer so that if they were stopped and asked to say it, they could. The men were also taught that they had to take their hats off when they entered a church and could not keep them on.

 

I thought that all of this was incredible. It shows how desperate these people were to survive. It is also sad that they had to almost forget who they were because they were being persecuted. No one should have to do that. Most History books don’t mention this “change.” I personally think that they should. This piece of History is too important to be forgotten. It saved lives.