Excerpt from "Night"

The memoir by Elie Wiesel is mostly about his experiences in two concentration camps. This list is based on scenes before the cruelties of the Nazis became real for him and his family.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 8 Unit 3's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Night, First They Came for the Communists, Terrible Things, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Diary of a Young Girl, Elie Wiesel Speech, Do Something!, Wangari Maathai, Freerice.com, Public Service Announcements, Famine as a Weapon
15 words 1076 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. expel
    force to leave or move out
    And then, one day all foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet.
  2. beadle
    a minor parish official who serves smaller church functions
    And Moishe the Beadle was a foreigner.
  3. deportee
    a person who is expelled from home or country by authority
    The deportees were quickly forgotten.
  4. content
    satisfied or showing satisfaction with things as they are
    A few days after they left, it was rumored that they were in Galicia, working, and even that they were content with their fate.
  5. reassure
    give or restore confidence in
    A calm, reassuring wind blew through our homes.
  6. companion
    a traveler who goes along with someone else
    He told me what had happened to him and his companions.
  7. Gestapo
    the secret state police in Nazi Germany
    The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo.
  8. trench
    any long ditch cut in the ground
    They were forced to dig huge trenches.
  9. haste
    overly eager speed and possible carelessness
    Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks.
  10. target
    a reference point to shoot at
    Infants were tossed in the air and used as targets for the machine guns.
  11. refuse
    show unwillingness towards
    But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen.
  12. insinuate
    suggest in an indirect or covert way; give to understand
    Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things.
  13. plead
    appeal or request earnestly
    As for Moishe, he wept and pleaded: "Jews, listen to me!
  14. pity
    a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for misfortunes of others
    That's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!
  15. grief
    intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one
    I often sat with him, after services, and listening to his tales, trying to understand his grief.
Created on Mon Dec 15 15:07:10 EST 2014 (updated Tue Sep 15 13:07:18 EDT 2015)

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