(Lyrics found at http://www.ncte.org/lists/ncte-talk/may2000/msg00849.html)
Students listened to a song by the Indigo Girls called "This
Train Revised." The song described the loss of identity and potential
represented by the deaths of the many types of people arrested, departed, and
killed by the Nazis. Students were asked to reflect on the themes and images
contained in the song.
I think that this song meant that no one was
treated as individuals but
as one big group or race and that is wrong because Judaism is not a race it
is a religion. I also think that the song was trying to get a point across
that point being I very common idea "THIS NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED."
Lauren K.
To Top
May 1, 2001
I think the writer meant by this song was that these people, Jews,
Gypsies, and others had no idea where they were going once they got on
the trains. One of the lines said: "Doctor, Doctor, are you
unkind?"
This meant that they had no idea if the doctor's experiments on them
would kill them, or make them scarred for life. Another line is:
"There
are questions stacked like wood." That means that they stacked
their
dead bodies on tip of each other like wood. Plus, there were no
bathrooms on the train, so there were wastes, and blood where people
would sit, stand, and even sleep in, and that was one of the lines too.
Kerstin B.
May 1, 2001
I think this song is saying the Nazi’s didn’t care, they had so much power and glory that they wanted to wipe out the Gypsies, Jew’s, "queers," and anything that wasn’t the master race, to the extent that their races were completely extinct.
COMPARISON
Doctor, Doctor - Joseph Mengele and his disgusting medical experiments.
Blue skies - Freedom might someday come.
Here is a _____with no_______- Nazi’s took everything away from the people.
Potential gone for good - all children and young people with potential died for no reason.
Emily R.
There is a song called This Train Revised by the Indigo Girls. The song was written about the holocaust. “Here is a dancer who has no legs,” is a line from the song and it that the person’s freedom and individuality was taken away by the Nazis. “Count the teeth,” mean to see how many people died.
The person who wrote This Train Revised was thinking about Jews, Gypsies, disabled people, and homosexuals on a train to a concentration camp or death.
Michael S.
“Measure
the bones and count the teeth, Do you belong to the human race?” To me, this
is like the Nazis judging people to see if you belonged to the “master race." Blonde
hair and blue eyes were good, Jewish or black was bad. “Doctor Doctor are
you unkind?” This is talking about the “research” done on innocent people, just
so the Nazis could get joy out of seeing people suffer. “Cover your eyes with
clear blue skies,” to me, could mean one of two things: one, the Jewish people
were looking to the skies for freedom, and covering their eyes and blocking
out the world to what was happening, and two,
in some of the Nazis evil experiments, they would put dye into people’s
eyes, covering them with "clear blue skies."
“Here is a dancer who has no legs…” This is talking about the freedom
that the Nazis had taken away from the Jews when they killed them. The Nazis
robbed the Jews of their identity, taking away any
freedom they had. The Jews could no longer express themselves in the things
they were good at. “These are the answers: Here is potential gone for
good.”
The Jews that the Nazis
killed had potential to be anything they wanted to be, but since they were killed
out of pure reasonless hatred, the Jews no longer have that potential, and
cannot continue on living a normal life.
May
1, 2001
I
think the song is talking about how Germans thought that they were superior to
us; for example, they say, "do you shock the monkey?" and "are
you of the human race?" means, "Are you German?"
In addition, it talked about people who had talents, but never got the
chance to show them because they were just "another Jew".
People lost their identity when the arrived at the concentration camps.
Angela
L.
To Top
This song that we just listened to was quite mind boggling. I mean in this song they express death and blood and the horrible experiences that the "gypsies, queers, and David's Star" experienced on these train rides. People died in these boxcars and there was lives lost and when they mentioned the dancers with no leg it shows talent being lost and destroyed by the tragic experiences.
Heather V.
Doctor Doctor- the torturing
David’s Star- the Jewish people there
Stacked like wood- dead bodies piled up
Here is potential gone for good- all the children who had potential are now
dead
Lump in your throat- how nervous they must have been arriving at camp for
their life
100 people: Gypsies, queers, and David’s Star- a few of the types of people
who were killed
Do you belong to the human race- how they were classified and categorized
according to their eyes, skin, hair, religion, and other things to see if they
were perfect and if they weren’t they would be killed
Measure the bones, count the teeth- all of the dead people's body parts laying
around
Count the teeth- the torturing done like pulling out teeth
Piss and blood in the railroad car- all if it was the gas vans or
from suffocation in the rail road car
Caroline
W.