1. When Hannah's head is shaved at camp, she begins to cry. Gitl makes Hannah promise: “…promise me you won’t cry in front of these monsters again. We will never cry again. “Never,” Hannah agreed… feeling stronger because of the promise… (p. 95). Why does this promise make her feel stronger? Support your answer with textual evidence. Gitl says: "Without laughter, there is no hope. Without hope, there is no life." Crying shows weakness, and if Jews show weakness, the Nazis will take advantage. The Naïs will see that they have no hope of living and will therefore be easily killed. If Jews laughed, they would show strength and hope, which is something the Nazis hate to see. Also, resisting not to cry in these terrible moments is very difficult. However, if they can hold back their tears, they will show strength and hope. These actions can show the Nazis that they are invincible. Death may come their way, but their hope will remain alive. In this case, Hannah and Gitl will fight back tears, because they don't want to cry. Crying can be difficult to combat, and accomplishing this action is very difficult to do. This action makes them feel and look stronger in front of everyone. In the end, it reminds me of an event that occurred to me. Recently my grandmother passed away and I had a hard time holding back tears. I loved him so much and never got the chance to say goodbye. However, I held back my tears and people called me strong, because I was still full of hope that my life would continue in the right direction. Hannah didn't cry because she wanted to be strong enough to handle any situation. The two cases (Hannah's and mine) both show how holding back tears can make a huge difference in life. This can give people a hard time...... In 1939, in Poland, the policy of forced emigration became untenable for the Nazi regime. It was simply unrealistic to emigrate more than 3 million Polish Jews. This led to ambitious Nazi plans for a solution to the “Jewish question.” The Nazis wanted to keep their place for themselves and did not like the Jews. They tried to move the Jews to another location, but it would take too long. That's why they thought of the final solution. They sent the Jews to concentration camps, where they killed many Jews. They believed that this solution would keep their place for themselves, and not share it with any other race. This reminds me of the Rwandan genocide, as both genocides aimed to eliminate a specific group or race. During the Holocaust, they wanted to expel all the Jews, and during the Rwandan genocide, the Hutus wanted to wipe out the entire Tutsi population..