German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a brisk or active person, from Middle High German snell, German schnell ‘quick’. Similar surnames: Schnall, Schell, Schneller, Schneck, Schall, Schnee, Schnepf, Scholl.

“Mach schnell!” in English Buck up! Look lively!

hurry up!, make it quick!, do it fast!, speed up!

History and Etymology for schnell German, from Old High German snel, adjective, strong, bold, agile.

: a professional jester and topical minstrel especially at Jewish wedding celebrations.

This is the case with Polish, which has the word “popik” for navel. Yiddish adopted “popik” from the Polish, Hebrew in turn adopted it as “pupik” and this is the word used by most Israelis to describe their bellybutton today.

zugangi. A Yiddish term that was sometimes appropriated by Nazi officers when referring to the latest newcomers to arrive at a concentration camp.

The blokova is a Jewess who is put in charge of other Jews in the camp by the Germans. Her responsibility is to keep the Jews in line, and “if she loses control of her zugangi”, the inmates in her care, she is punished by having a finger chopped off.

In The Devil’s Arithmetic, “midden” means the garbage dump.

Schnell. “Attention!” Achtung. rags, or torn clothes, a piece of dirt, talking about a person that s/he is worse than dirt. Shmattes.

Shmuel’s physical appearance in The Devil’s Arithmetic is of a big, bearded man. Chaya’s uncle may smell of sweat, grass, and horses, but his joy is contagious, and Chaya gives him a hug.

________8) What is significant about Hannah’s new name, “Chaya”? [A] It means death and it is her friend’s name.

euphemism; its a nice way to death and you couldn’t say death there. in the concentration camps, certain prisoners were “chosen” for death.

FIne for ages 10+.

The central theme of The Devil’s Arithmetic is the importance and power of memory. At the opening of the novel, Hannah is bored and frustrated by her relatives’ constant need to remember the past; she cannot understand why her grandparent’s memories are so important to them.

Rivkah

Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification

Kirsten Dunst	…	Hannah Stern
Vilija Ramanauskaite	…	Lily
Robertas Urbonas	…	Recorder
Andrius Zebrauskas	…	Recorder
Algimantas Maceina	…	Guard

Therefore we can see that Gitl and Shmuel are Hannah’s or Chaya’s aunt and uncle, but Shmuel is going to marry another woman called Fayge.

Hannah

When Hannah is Chaya, she has come from Lublin, Poland, which is a big city compared to the shtetl. Her aunt and uncle are surprised by how she acts, and they think she knows too much for her age, blaming this on the fact that she came from a city.

The obvious major conflict of The Devil’s Arithmetic is the Holocaust. Through the story, the protagonist, Hannah, finds herself transported into a period when the Nazi government was systematically imprisoning, enslaving, and murdering Jews like herself.

At the end of the novel, Hannah realizes how important it is to embrace her family’s Jewish last name and ties to the Holocaust. The phrase “final solution” referred to Adolf Hitler’s plan to rid the earth of the Jewish population.

The climax of the story begins when Gitl wakes Chaya one night to suddenly alert her that they are to escape from the concentration camp immediately. She had, in fact, devised a plan for this procedure, but had not told Chaya for fear that the secret would not be safe with this young girl.

Therefore, the rising action contains everything from Hannah’s opening the door to Elijah, her time with her “aunt and uncle,” the wedding, the transportation to the concentration camps, up until Hannah’s entrance into the gas chamber. Hannah’s walk into the gas chamber signals the climax and immediate falling action.

The Devil’s Arithmetic is a novel by Jane Yolen about the legacy of the Holocaust. Twelve-year-old Hannah is transported back in time to a Jewish village in 1941. Twelve-year-old Hannah is transported back in time to Nazi Germany, where she meets younger versions of her family members.

Terms in this set (10) What does Shmuel admit to Hannah the next morning, the day of his wedding? He is afraid of getting married, but not being married to Fayge.

What frightened Shmuel? He was afraid of getting married.