The Cage

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. Riva refers to what as “the new link in an old chain”?

2. Who is Nancy, in relation to Riva?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In the opening poem of Chapter 1, the narrator writes that “yesterdays” can come “back again,” and that “they become today” each night (3). What does the narrator mean by this?

Paired Resource

“Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica”

• Camp Mittelsteine was the all-female subcamp of Gross-Rosen, where Riva was transferred after a brief stint in Auschwitz. Gross-Rosen was a network of roughly 100 concentration camps built and operated by Nazis in World War II.
• The grounds of Gross-Rosen, located in Poland, have been transformed into a Holocaust museum and memorial site. You can explore their collection and general offerings at the link above.
• As mentioned on the homepage of their website, one of Gross-Rosen’s main goals is to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and ensure that it is seared into the “collective memory.” Memory is of the utmost importance in both Chapter 1 of The Cage and on the Gross-Rosen Museum’s homepage.