Holocaust quote

The quote I will be talking about today is  "All night we went to bed with all our clothes on, falling into a restless sleep, listening for the ring."(Garfield,87) in the book “Voices of Winnipeg Holocaust Survivors” edited by Belle Millo.


I chose this quote because it shows how bad life was in the ghetto.  The fact that the jews slept in their clothes means that it was very cold.  It shows that if they had a blanket it was not enough to keep warm during the winter.  In the summer or spring when you could survive without wearing clothes through the night the jews still had to wear their clothes or else another jew or a Nazi would steal their clothes.  Their clothes were needed during the holocaust to survive.  If you didn’t have them you would be cold get sick and die right away.  You would have nothing to protect you from the wind and the winter you wouldn’t have a chance in survival.  The other thing in this quote that shows how bad life was in the ghetto is it says “falling into a restless sleep”.  This shows that the Jews could not sleep in the concentration camps because they didn’t know what was going to happen or they were really scared.  The Jews would also be listening for air bombing alarms and their work shift bell.  It also says “listening for the ring”.  I think that means that they couldn’t sleep because if they missed the bell they would be killed, in public to make a statement saying, this will happen to you if you miss the bell.