Holocaust Poetry #2

Homeland
Lois E. Olena

It was Christmas eve
and there was no room in the inn,
the Oswiecim inn,
so the Arrow Cross
took the children,
barefooted
and in their nighties,
out to the Danube
and filled their little bellies
not with bread
but bullets
flipping them
like tiddlywinks
into the congealing, icy river below.

It was the Red Danube
that night,
choking on the blood
of orphan Jews
whose little Blue faces
floated downstream
touring even all of Europe
until they washed up
on the shores of Eretz Yisrael (Jewish homeland)
and came back to life,
their little blue and white
bodies
raised high,
flapping in the wind.
How is imagery used in this poem? Imagery is used in this poem by, in the opening paragraph, the author talking about  Christmas and giving lots of other nouns to create a basic scenery. No description is used to allow the reader to fill in    the blanks with his/her imagination, creating a clear, unique description to each individual reader. 
 
Discuss the effect of the simile in this poem. The simile uses immense irony and creates a horrifying image by the simile being used to describe death being 'tiddlywinks;' a game that cheerful children play. His huge play on irony makes the    children  in this instance all the more weak and their deaths all the more cruel.
 
How is alliteration used in the poem? What is the effect? 
Not bread but bullets and the affect is that that instead of this kids getting a meal for Christmas they were killed
 
How does the author juxtapose the innocence of the children to the cruelty they experienced? The author juxtaposes the innocence of the children to the cruelty they experience by using both extremes; the family, bliss and peace of Christmas and the death, pain and suffering of war. These two examples are exact opposite ends of the spectrum making the other seem a lot better/worse than it actually is
 
What is meant by 'touring all of Europe'? What is meant by 'touring all of Europe' is how the Nazis went all over Europe to find more Jews to torture and/or kills