Summary of My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

The night­mar­ish world which Rina Find­er describes with unflinch­ing detail in her mem­oir is a dif­fi­cult one for chil­dren to under­stand. The author, a sur­vivor of Auschwitz who found pro­tect­ed sta­tus on Oskar Schindler’s famous list, uses sim­ple and direct lan­guage to nar­rate her expe­ri­ence and raise ques­tions for young read­ers about the best and worst of human nature. My Sur­vival stands out among books in this genre through its acces­si­bil­i­ty as well as its story’s pow­er­ful con­sis­ten­cy. Find­er and Joshua M. Greene bal­ance each ele­ment of tragedy and hero­ism, avoid­ing neat para­bles about hope, but still find­ing it with­in a ter­ri­fy­ing account of Jew­ish suf­fer­ing and bystanders’ col­lu­sion with the per­pe­tra­tors. Their por­trait of Oskar Schindler, an imper­fect human being who finds a moral core with­in him­self, chal­lenges assump­tions about why the world stood by as Europe’s Jews were destroyed.

What You Will Love About My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

• Find­er entrusts read­ers to engage with her past and to look for ways in which they can stand up to hatred and seek pos­si­bil­i­ties to con­tin­ue Schindler’s lega­cy of oppo­si­tion to evil.

Potential Struggles With My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

• The authors use unadorned lan­guage and care­ful­ly inter­wo­ven back­ground mate­r­i­al to trans­late a lived expe­ri­ence which can only be approx­i­mat­ed in words. 
• It deals with a difficult time in history we still struggle to understand

Learning Objectives for My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

Students will be able to:

• identify the author’s purpose in a nonfiction text.
• identify how authors use text structures to communicate an idea.
• identify and analyze nonfiction passage structures.
• research and synthesize information on a nonfiction topic.

Elements in My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

• The main elements of creative nonfiction are setting, descriptive imagery, figurative language, plot, and character

Major Themes in My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

Survival: The Triumph of the Human Spirit. In the face of overwhelming evil, the Jews in Schindler's List exhibit an unbroken spirit and will to survive.

Perseverance: 

Tragedy

Hope