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458 COMMEMORATIVE SPEECHES FOR ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
THE SURVIVORS 459
460 COMMEMORATIVE SPEECHES FOR ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The Survivors
Commentary
An excellent commemorative speech, “The Survivors” functions at several levels. At one level, it pays
tribute to the speaker’s grandparents, who lived through Hitler’s concentration camps in World War II. At
another level, it honors those Jews who lost their lives in the camps. At yet another level, it is a celebra-
tion of human pride, freedom, and dignity in the face of tyranny and oppression. The speech also illus-
trates the differences between a commemorative speech and an informative speech. Although the
speaker provides information about the Holocaust and her grandparents, she does not go into historical
detail about either. Rather, she deals with her grandparents’ experiences at a very general level and re-
lates those experiences to larger issues of freedom and tolerance. Here is a synopsis of the speech.
Introduction: As in many commemorative speeches, there is no visible break between the introduction
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