The Cage

The Cage

• Genre: Nonfiction; young adult autobiography
• Originally Published: 1986
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 500L; grades 7-9
• Structure/Length: 48 chapters; approx. 256 pages
• Central Concern: This Holocaust memoir describes how the author, at age 13, cared for her three younger brothers in Lodz, Poland, after their mother was taken by the Nazis. Lodz becomes a ghetto; her youngest brother dies before she and her other two brothers make the desperate decision to turn themselves over to the Nazis and go to a concentration camp.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Death of a sibling; horrors of life in a Polish ghetto and in concentration camps; wartime violence; anti-Semitism

Ruth Minsky Sender, Author

• Bio: Born in 1926 in Lodz, Poland; after her liberation by Russian forces from the Grafenort labor camp, she was reunited with her three older siblings; she moved to the United States and settled in Commack, New York, where she and her husband, Morris Sender, also a Holocaust survivor, raised their family
• Other Works: To Life (1988); The Holocaust Lady (1999)
• Awards: ILA Teachers’ Choices; CBC/NCSS Notable Children’s Book in Social Studies

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Humanity and Community Memory
• Motherhood
• Education, Writing, and Books
• Nature and Life Cycles



STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Gain an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts surrounding Poland’s role in World War II, Jewish holidays and traditions, and other background that shapes Sender’s memoir.
• Read paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Humanity and Community Memory; Motherhood; Education, Writing, and Books; and Nature and Life Cycles.
•  Research, analyze, and present to the class a comparison between a poem in The Cage and another Holocaust poem, to draw out the shared themes among Holocaust poetry as a larger body of literature.
•  Examine and appraise the author’s purpose and techniques to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding the author’s use of imagery of darkness/light, Riva and Yulek’s mutual adoration for “beauty,” and other topics.