“The Cage” Timeline

September 15 1935: Nuremberg Laws.

History: The Nuremberg race laws took away jews of Germany’s rights, citizenship. Which gave them the status of “subjects”. It became forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relationships with Aryans, and could only employ Aryan maids the were above 45 years of age. The Nuremberg Laws also specified that a person was and wasn’t considered “Jew”. For Example, if someone had four or three Jewish grandparents they were considered Jewish. If they had one or two Jewish grandparents they were a mixed race called Mischlinge.
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( this is an example of the Nuremberg laws ) http://www.keyword-suggestions.com/bnVyZW1iZXJnICBsYXdz/
Novel
“The Nuremberg Laws” make an appearance in “The Cage” when Riva’s neighbor Harry who spoke Yiddish and celebrated Jewish holidays suddenly hates Jews and everything to do with them and associates himself with his father land, which is Germany. Harry and the rest of his family go on to treat Riva’s family horribly and even go so far as to take any fur clothing that Riva’s family has and also take their oven.Harry’s family sides with Germany because it will give them protection from the Nazis. Harry is a dynamic character because he goes through such a drastic change after he joins the Hitler Youth which basically brain washes him into hating Jews.

In January 1937- Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.

History: Jewish adults are banned from being accountants and dentists along with many other professions as well as being banned from teaching german students. From 1933 to 1938 many Jewish-owned businesses were forced to close from SA-led boycotts which caused a decrease of customers. It became difficult for Jewish store owners to buy supplies of wholesale goods and raw materials. Eventually, Jews could not even work with Aryans. In 1933 there were around 100,00 Jewish-owned stores, in 1938 one-third of that was still operational.

( this shows an order to boycott Jewish stores) http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/boycott.htm
Novel
During “The Cage” many Jewish store owners end up in the ghettos of Lodz because of boycotts and being evicted from their own stores. This is created an external person v person conflict between the Jews and the Nazis because the store owners no longer have jobs and can’t support their family and eventually end up like riva and her brothers who end up without walls and/or almost no furniture in their house. Another conflict would be between the people who shopped at the stores and the Nazis as people they trusted at the stores were replaced by Aryans.

October 5, 1938 – Law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red “J.”

History: On October 5th the Reich Ministry of the interior invalidates any passports held by german jews. In order to make passport valid once more all jews had to get their passport stamped with a large red J. German Government required jews to identify in a way that would separate themselves from the german population.

http://www.passport-collector.com/sale-rare-j-stamped-passports/
Novel
Early on in “The Cage” Riva is forced to wear a yellow star of david to show that she is jewish, Riva has an internal conflict about wearing the star because she sees it as shameful to wear the star of david in disgrace. Her cousin Saba does not share this internal conflict as she sees the star of davd a a Jewish symbol which it is and is proud to a Jew. moments after she is thrown into the street and made to run around the town with hundreds of other Jews who were identified for wearing the jewish star of david. This relates to the red j being stamped on a Jewish passport as both the star of david and the red j were used by the nazis to discriminate against the jews

November 15, 1938 – Jewish pupils are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.

History: while jewish teachers were fired a year earlier, it was not until November 1938 that jewish children were expelled from all non-jewish schools. Many jewish children had to stand in front of their class and would often be called names such as “Judenschwein” which means Jewish Pig. After the children were expelled they would go to a jewish school that was usually near the german school even just across the street, this would often lead to the jewish children being bullied from across the street.

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( jewish children standing at the front of a classroom) http://spartacus-educational.com/Jewish_Children.htm
Novel
During the rising action for “The Cage” all the Jewish children are expelled from all schools in the ghetto and now have nothing to do the during the days so the children steal textbooks meet in secret to teach themselves and give themselves and education that had been taken away from them by the Nazis.

April 30, 1939 – Jews lose rights as tenants and are relocated into Jewish houses.

History: In January and March 1941, Jews from small towns west of Warsaw the capital of Poland, were deported to the Warsaw Ghetto. In April and July 1942, Jews from towns east of Warsaw, germany, and german occupied areas were shipped into ghetto’s. Gypsies were also deported to the warsaw ghetto by order of germany. While this happened in Poland after 1939 a similar process happened in Germany before World War Two.

http://ww2today.com/27th-july-1941-the-last-pictures-of-the-jews-of-mogilev
Novel
During “The Cage” when Riva and her brothers are on their own they are kicked out of their apartment because the building will be used for wood to make fire to keep people warm. Riva and her brothers are forced to watch as their home is destroyed. The emotional setting of the novel becomes much sadder as they watch the building become rubble.

January 25, 1940 – Nazis choose the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland near Krakow as the site of a new concentration camp.

History: Auschwitz was built in 1940 was built to hold Polish prisoners. Prisoners arrived in May 1940 and the first extermination was in September 1941. Auschwitz became a major part of the Nazi’s Final Solution. Jews were shipped in from all over german-controlled europe from early 1942 until late 1944. The Nazi would gas the jews using Zyklon B in large chambers. More than 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz and around 90 percent of the people exterminated were jews.

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust/pictures/holocaust-concentration-camps/buildings-and-chimneys-at-auschwitz-birkenau-2
Novel

During part two of “The Cage” Riva and her friends and brothers are sent to auschwitz. Once more the emotional setting become very sad and full of despair as neither the reader or Riva knows if she will survive the concentration camps. Her and her brother become separated from one another and the reader is shown the horrors of Auschwitz and life inside a concentration camp.