458 COMMEMORATIVE SPEECHES FOR ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The Survivors
1 “Work! Harder. Faster. Shovel! Don’t just stand there. Shovel!”
2 And so he shoveled with all of his energy and all of his might. Hour after hour, he shov-
eled until his body could not shovel any more. Finally, he stopped working, leaned over on his
shovel, and let his body limply rest, as his eyes stared at the ground.
4 One more Jew was removed from this world. He was one of 6 million who was brought
to his death by the Nazi policy to annihilate the Jewish race. The Nazis collected the Jews in the
ghettos; they transported the Jews to the death camps; they worked the Jews until they could not
work any more. Then they killed them—by gun and by gas, by starvation and sickness, by torture
and terror.
5 Millions of Jews died in the death camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and
Treblinka. It seems unfathomable that people could have survived the Nazis’ wartime atrocities.
Yet, by the grace of God, there were survivors. The survivors were the young and the strong, not
the old and the meek. The survivors were the lucky and the few.
6 My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. They are each the only survivors in their fami-
lies. They witnessed the deaths of their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and
neighbors. They witnessed the destruction of their lives and homes, towns and country, shops and
THE SURVIVORS 459
to the struggles which so many people grapple with today. They will tell their story, and they will
not rest until all people can live without fear and without denial—until all people can live with
pride and with dignity.
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
and the body of “The Survivors.” The best way to parse the introduction of this speech is to see
it as running through paragraph 5. This is an unusually long introduction, but it works well to get
the audience involved in the speech. After opening with a story about a Jewish prisoner who is
Body: The body of the speech (paragraphs 6–10) focuses on the speaker’s grandparents. In paragraph
6, she discusses her grandparents’ experiences during the war. In paragraphs 7–8, she relates
her grandparents’ story to “the struggles which so many people grapple with today.” In paragraph
9, she notes that she will continue to tell her grandparents’ story so people will not forget the hor-
rors of the Holocaust or the heroism of its victims. In paragraph 10, she ends the body with the oft-
quoted statement of Elie Wiesel that “Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.”
Conclusion: The conclusion is made up of the last three paragraphs, the first two of which continue the
speaker’s use of repetition and parallelism and restate her tribute to the victims of the
Holocaust. The final sentence gives a sense of unity to the entire speech by reiterating the
dying words of the man in the opening story. It also ends the speech on a powerful note by
reinforcing the speaker’s opposition to tyranny wherever it might occur around the globe.
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