Research Paragraphs

       Basically, I’m trying to figure out what life was like for people in concentration camps and in slavery and how they survived or escaped.  I want to know what their life was like after.  I want to know how their experiences in earlier life shaped their lives after the horrors that endured and how they were affected.   I have always really liked learning about the Holocaust and concentration camps, and also about the Underground Railroad, so I kind of just combined the two.  So far, I have found lots of newspaper articles about holocaust survivors and their role in the community.  A lot of them work with younger generations to educate them on their past.  Also, some people became really successful businessmen or doctors, etc.  As far as ex-slaves go, a lot of them almost made a whole new life for themselves, and recreated their identities.  They changed their names, and moved far away from where they were slaves.  This probably has to do with the fear of being found and put in slavery again.

       For this research project, I have decided to embark on a quest for the answer of these questions: What was life like for those in concentration camps during the Holocaust and in slavery in the United States?  How did they survive or escape, and how did their experiences shape the life that they lived after their hardships ceased?  After my first exposure to the abhorrence of the Holocaust and slavery, I have desired to seek more information, and this is a superlative opportunity to do so.  At the conclusion of my preliminary research, I have constituted a one sentence answer to each topic; the Holocaust and slavery: Surviving the Holocaust takes a resolute person, and survivors use the skills they have learned about perseverance to create a new life for themselves.  On the other hand, former slaves adopt a different method, choosing to forget about the past and focus on the future, often times changing their name and relocating to a new home, in fear of being recaptured.

Reading Times: Total- 2 1/2 hours

Find, Read, and Annotated 5 sources + Revise Annotated Bibliography- 2 Hours
The Memory Keeper's Daughter- 30 minutes, 17 pages