The Difference Between Life And Death In Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed

Improved Essays
World War II was a tragic time in history when millions of people lost their lives in a war that caused so much destruction. During the war the Jewish population of Warsaw, Poland were persecuted and killed for their identity as Jews. In Jerry Spinelli’s Milkweed, we are shown a glimpse of the past during the horrors of World War II through the lives of three fictional characters Misha, Janina and Uncle Shepsel. During the war the Jewish people living in Warsaw, Poland were stripped of their identity and were treated as less than human beings for what they believe in. In a time when your identity could be the only difference between life and death, Misha struggles to find his true identity. All Misha has ever known is the names others have given him: stupid, Gypsy, Misha, Jew, Stopthief etc... When we are first introduced to Misha all he can remember is running. Misha has no idea who he is, or what is to come. He is completely unaware. When Misha first encounters Uri, Uri gives him a history of who he is, a Gypsy and fully embraces it as his lifeline. Misha does not know the danger of what it means to be a Jew or in his case a Gypsy. Misha is a stupid, reckless and naive thief who is proud of who he is and openly shares it. This puts him in danger when two Jackboots ask him if he is a Jew and in response, he says, “No. I’m a Gypsy. Are you a Jew?” (27). Misha has no idea how dangerous the identity of being a Gypsy is at this point. Later in the book when he moves into the ghetto with his little friend Janina and her family, he slowly starts realizing what it means to be a Jew. Soon he identifies himself as Misha Milgrom a Jew and is apart of their family. Now, with his new …show more content…
Janina Milgrom was a Jewish girl living with her family Warsaw, Poland. Janina was just a girl who wanted pickled eggs and easily got frustrated and upset. When she first met Misha she was an innocent little girl and knew what she wanted. When Misha asked if she was a Jew and then replied “ Yes, but I’m not supposed to tell anyone”(33). She revealed her secret, even though her father told her not to. When her family is forced to move into the ghetto she wanted to sneak out with Misha to steal food but was reckless not caring if she put her and Misha’s lives at risk. “ She swept a large coffee can from a shelf. It crashed to the floor. I balled my fist in front of her face. “ Stop it. They’re going to hear””(125). Later on in the book her mother dies from the harsh conditions and this takes a significant toll on Janina. She soon loses all hope and transforms to this sad little girl who is “...sitting potato faced on the floor. She hadn’t smiled since the burning cow. “ Janina has lost her happy””(158). In the end when the Jackboots are clearing out the ghettos and transporting them to the death camps, Janina becomes captured because of her recklessness, which led to her assumed death. The war destroyed this little girls life and took away her

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    During world war two more than 5 million jews died. In ‘’Milkweed’’, “Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things In Books”, and “The Guard” there is something known as the holocaust which killed 5 to 6 million jews. After reading these stories you could see the many similarities and differences between these three stories. The narrators have an similar but different view of the nazies. One of the similarities between these three stories is that the two narrators of the first and third story is that they were scared of the jackboots and did not want to be seen.…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unlikely Companions Did you know that Nazi Germans killed millions of people in World War II? Many were children, represented as a German boy, Bruno, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy, two fictional characters in the fable Boy in Striped Pajamas. The book takes place primarily in Auschwitz, Poland. This is an unlikely friendship for the two at the time.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto, Chil Rajchman’s The Last Jew of Treblinka, and Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz are the accounts of three Jewish people who experienced the German’s answer to the Jewish problem from their particular time and place of the “Final Solution”. Sierakowiak’s diary was written while he was living in the Lodz Labor Ghetto with his family and died before he was deported. Rajchman’s and Lengyel’s books are a survivor’s account of their experience at the Treblinka death camp and Auschwitz-Birkenau labor/death camp, respectively. This paper is to compare the experiences between these three people as they suffered much of the same deprivations, yet their experiences ended in different outcomes.…

    • 1551 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Milkweed, written by Jerry Spinelli, Misha struggles to realize who he is, where he comes from, but does he really need to know his past? Misha spends lots of time obsessing over who he is, and he is overjoyed when Uri, his guardian angel, gives him a name. Misha. Finally, he has an identity, but soon Misha is just another face in the bustling ghetto. He is no longer a gypsy.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Janie, as she is reflecting realizes her hate she feels towards Haris Ahmed her grandmother she describes it as a “cloak of pity” which she wrapped around her grandma to hide her emotions. Janie also describes the image of her grandmother “choking” her and “twisting” her in the name of love. The reason Janie is finding these hateful thoughts in her mind is because she sees that she was repressed her whole…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the main themes of Milkweed is that human nature is weird and confusing. For example, one night Misha witnesses kristallnacht and reflects, “What I really feared was being strapped to a horse backward with my face bouncing in and out of the horse’s tail.” (Spinelli, 38) As Jewish stores, homes and establishments were being torn apart by German rioters, Misha watched Jews suffer public humiliation. One man was tied to a horse as his face hung over the back end of the animal. The next day, Misha begins to worry that he may wind up in that man’s same spot because he is confused as to why the rioters are attacking people.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although Harris is correct in that Janie is often outwardly passive, Harris’ focus on Janie’s public submission leads her to overlook Janie’s growing internal strength. That Janie chooses to remain in a submissive role in her relationship with Jody generally supports Harris’ assertions about her passivity. In order to stay obedient to her husband, Jody, Janie separates her internal feelings from her external submission. After years of marriage, Janie learns that staying quiet is more effective than fighting back…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milkweed And The Jackboot

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Have you ever heard of the Holocaust that took place in the 1930’s and 40’s? Have you ever heard of the Nazis that took control in Germany, and everything around it? Well, in the two excerpts, “Until Then I Had Only Read about These Things in Books,” and, the excerpt from Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, and the poem, “The Guard,” by Jennifer Roy, there are many circumstances in which children are attempting to survive this event. However, the narrators express their feelings, and either have similar feelings toward experiences with the “Jackboots”/Nazis, or different emotions.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    True Love

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages

    After her husband, Jody becomes the mayor, Janie’s life takes a turn for the worst because her relationship with Jody becomes dysfunctional. This is because Jody does not treat her a person, he forces her to work in the store he creates, but she can hardly speak her mind because he does not want her to; she does not have control of herself. This conflict persists through their years of marriage, and Janie still cannot choose what she says, “She had learned how to talk some and leave some … Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different than what it was… come and gone with the sun”(76).…

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Milkweed Vs. The Guard

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Milkweed, “Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things in Books,” and “The Guard” are all about children experiencing life during the holocaust. The text are simalar but,in diffrent ways. In the text ,the narrator responds to the nazis in“Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things In Books,”it shows afraid because according to text it states “it would scare me to death.…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One might say I’ve experienced my share of fright, heartache, and disappointment in life. Born in 1940 in Berlin, Germany to a very strict Jewish family, it seemed as though my life was destined to be like any other European Jew at that time: deathly persecution by the ever-present population of anti-semites in Europe. Shortly after the Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, my parents, older sister, and I fled to live with my great aunt in Barcelona, Spain. Looking back on that event, I consider myself greatly blessed to have fled from the evil and persecution of the Nazis, for many Jews didn’t have that privilege. Even at a young age while living in Spain, I often felt feelings of guilt, for many of my fellow Jews were being killed by the thousands each day.…

    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    On the 30 of January in 1933, the shocking Holocaust starts. The unimaginable vindictiveness was unleashed on the Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. German troopers rash the pure homes of Jews, compelling them to bow underneath. The Jews carrying on with an ordinary typical life were now presently a target for an inhuman evil man, Adolf Hitler. We read and learn about the terrifying demonstrations in the concentration camps by unique and individual stories from the surviving Jews.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Jews’ desire to live deteriorates through their loss of identity, inhumane treatment, and their loss of dignity. As strong as the Jews are, no one can tolerate the utterly painful dehumanization that was bestowed upon them by the Nazis. Individual identity is paramount to a person’s…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    MilkWeed, “Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things in Books,” and “The Guard” are entirely about children experiencing the sad and majorly horrible Holocaust lead by Adolf Hitler. In these two excerpts and a neatly written poem, the authors/narrators show their similar and different views towards the Nazis. First, a similarity between the excerpt from the passage, “Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things in Books” and the poem, “The guard,” the narrator/author don’t come into contact with the Nazi. My evidence from, “Until Then I Had Only Read About These Things in Books” is, “We couldn’t make a sound, and all we would hear was the sound of the people searching, their footsteps, their knocking on the walls.” My evidence from the poem, “The Guard” is, “Dora and I must pass by him on our walk to…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Losing the Most Valuable Possession Identity is important because it truly defines who the person is, but it is very easy to lose your identity. The Holocaust was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazis killed many Jewish people. The Nazis sent the Jews to concentration camps, tortured them and striped them out of their identities. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel describes the awful actions the Nazis did to him and his family; for example, they forced the Jews to wear a yellow star armband, which makes them feel less of a human, and slowly made the Jews forget who they were. By using details that describe pain and suffrage, Wiesel shows that when mankind is tormented and isolated from the rest of the world, people can lose their identity which leads to a desire to give up on life.…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays