1. Night Quote Assignment
Use this handout to keep track of any quotes from the novel that you would like to use in your final assignment connecting David Olere’s art to Elie Wiesel’s Night.
As you follow along with the reading of the novel, put the page number of any quote that you encounter that illustrates one of the pieces of art on the handout.
You are required to link at least 5 pictures with quotes and complete the assignment at the end of this handout. Any additional pictures/quotes can be done for extra credit.

2. David Olère Drawings & Paintings
The documentary value of the sketches and paintings of David Olère is tremendous. No actual photographs were taken of what went on within the crematoriums; only the hands and eyes of David Olère reproduce the horrible reality.
David Olère did not sketch for pleasure. He sketched in testimony to all those who never came back. The lone witness (Olère himself) is often present. The ghostly face observes with pain the inhuman scenes that cannot be erased from his photographic memory.

3. More on Olere…
From March 2, 1943, to January 19, 1945, David Olère was interned at Auschwitz. There he worked as a Sonderkommando, part of a special labor unit responsible for emptying the remains from the ovens of the crematory and for removing the bodies from the gas chambers. He saw the victims of the gas chamber undress in the cloakroom, paralyzed with fear and the knowledge of certain death. He saw the incineration of countless bodies. He saw the so-called medical experiments performed on the weak and the sick and the old. He saw prisoners suffer terrible cruelties while living under the most deplorable of conditions. And on a regular basis, he saw disease, despair, and death. David Olère was one of the few laborers to penetrate the dark interiors of the crematoria and the gas chambers of Auschwitz and to emerge alive. He took part in the evacuation death march of Auschwitz in January of 1945 and was finally liberated by the Americans at Ebensee in May of that year.

4. Priest and Rabbi by David Olère
Priest and Rabbi by David Olère. In the background left, the SS Moll throws women into the burning pit close to crematorium V. On the right, four prisoners carry a barrel of soup past a crematorium (II or III)

5. Arrival of a Convoy by David Olère
Arrival of a Convoy by David Olère. A new convoy arrives in the background as inmates struggle with a cart carrying away cadavers from a previous convoy.

6. Leaving for Work by David Olère. 1946
Camp inmates are marched out to work past victims of Nazi camp discipline.

7. Destruction of the Jewish People by David Olère..1946
The fire consumes Torahs, phylacteries, and a tallis, as well as various Christian religious articles.

8. Their Last Steps by David Olère.1946
ThreeMuselmänner support each other as they falter toward the gas chamber.
Muselmann was the camp term for those whose physical and mental exhaustion made them candidates for "selection."

9. Their Last Steps by David Olère.

10. Selection for Gas Chambers
by David Olère. 1947

11. Unable to Work
by David Olère. Inability to work was often an immediate death sentence. In the background of this painting, smoke rises from the crematorium to form the SS insignia.

12. David Olère Burying the Remains of Children
by David Olère. Olère's first assignment at Auschwitz was as a grave digger of bunker 2. His prisoner number, , is seen both on his shirt and as a tattoo on his left arm.

13. Gassing by David Olère. 131x162 cm, A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, New York. The container in the lower right is labeled Zyklon B.
Gassing
by David Olère.
The container in the lower right is labeled Zyklon B.

14. My First Dialogue by David Olère
My First Dialogue by David Olère. Subtitled: "They also are responsible for the war?" "Yes, that's war."

15. David Olère Punished in the Bunker
by David Olère.
The cell was so narrow that Olère was unable to sit, stretch or lie down for the 48 hours of his punishment.

16. The Oven Room by David Olère
The Oven Room by David Olère. 1945, A freight elevator in the background brought bodies up from the basement gassing chamber of Crematorium III at Birkenau. The wet trough at the right helped drag the bodies to the ovens.

17. The Experimental Injection by David Olère. 1945, The infamous Dr
The Experimental Injection by David Olère. 1945, The infamous Dr. Mengele administers an injection as terrified prisoners look on.

18. For a Crust of Bread
by David Olère. 1946
David Olère depicts himself writing letters for the SS and decorating them with flowers in exchange for a crust of bread. Olère's talents as an artist and translator (he spoke Polish, Russian, Yiddish, French, English, and German) made him useful to the SS.

19. The Food of the Dead for the Living by David Olère
The Food of the Dead for the Living by David Olère. Olère collects food, abandoned near the undressing rooms of crematorium III at Birkenau, so he can throw it over the fence to the prisoners at the women's camp.

20. Admission in Mauthausen by David Olère
Admission in Mauthausen by David Olère In January of 1945, prisoners admitted to Mauthausen were forced to stand in the snow for three hours after a freezing shower. Olère was sent to Mauthausen after his evacuation from Auschwitz in a death march.

21. David Olère Working in a Tunnel at Melk by David Olère
David Olère Working in a Tunnel at Melk by David Olère From Mauthausen, Olère was sent to dig tunnels at the camp of Melk on the Danube.

22. Night/Olere Quote Assignment
Go to the following website
to view Olere's work. Choose 5 of the pictures and find a quote from Wiesel's Night that illustrates each of the pictures (the quotes need to cover the entire book).
You must copy the picture (double click on the thumbnail size to get the actual picture size) into a word processing document, type the quote and page number from Wiesel's book and explain why you think the quote matches the picture(4-5 sentence description on each quote).
(10 points each, 50 points total)