Critical Thinking/Discussion Questions - Fred Jarvis

1. Describe how Fred Jarvis coped with hunger in the camp after reading his description of the prisoners’ food at Rivesaltes Concentration Camp:

“We had probably, I would estimate about two ounces of bread twice a week—I mean, no, twice a day. And then, in the middle of the day they brought you dishwater soup, which was nothing more than dishwater with one or two carrots sliced into the soup. My mother would fish out the carrots that she got and feed them to me because that was the only nourishment that was available.”

Jewish children in Riversaltes eat a meal in a soup kitchen run by the Secours Suisse aux enfants organization (Swiss Aid to Children) in 1941. http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1109825&search=&index=5

 

2. In 1983 Fred Jarvis learned that his mother and father were sent to the gas chambers upon their arrival in Auschwitz in 1942. He said, “And the fact of not knowing what happened to them was the most excruciating pain of all, which I endured for over forty years.”  Communication during World War II was very different than it is today.  What process did Fred Jarvis have to go through to determine the fate of his parents?

“The Holocaust Tracing Lost Family Members.” Jewish Virtual Library

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/tracing.html