Question

閱讀理解。

It’s the worst event in human being’s nautical（航海的）history , six times more deadly than the Titanic . When the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by torpedoes（魚雷）fired from a Russian submarine in the final winter of World War II , more than 10,000 people – mostly women , children and old people fleeing the final Red Army push into Nazi Germany – were packed aboard .

An ice storm had turned the decks into frozen sheets that sent hundreds of families sliding into the sea as the ship tilted and began to go down . Others desperately tried to put lifeboats down . Some who succeeded fought off those in the water who had the strength to try to claw their way aboard . Most people froze immediately . “ I’ll never forget the screams , ” says Christa Ntitzmann , 87 , one of the 1,200 survivors . She recalls watching the ship , brightly lit , slipping into its dark grave-and into seeming nothingness , rarely mentioned for more than half a century .

Now Germany’s Nobel Prize-winning author Gtinter Grass has revived the memory of the 9,000 dead , including more than 4,000 children-with his latest novel Crab Walk , published last month . The book ,which will be out in English next year , doesn’t dwell on the sinking : its heroine is a pregnant young woman who survives the catastrophe only to say later : “ Nobody wanted to hear about it , not here in the West ( of Germany ) and not at all in the East . ”

The reason was obvious . As Grass put in a recent interview with the weekly Die Woche : “ Because the crimes we Germans are responsible for were and are so dominant , we didn’t have the energy left to tell of our own sufferings . ” The long silence about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was probably unavoidable – and necessary .

By unreservedly owning up to their country’s monstrous crimes in the Second World War , Germans have managed to win acceptance abroad , marginalize the neo-Nazis at home and make peace with their neighbors .

Today’s unified Germany is more prosperous and stable than at any time in its long , troubled history . For that , a half century of willful forgetting about painful memories like the German Titanic was perhaps a reasonable price to pay . But even the most politically correct Germans believe that they’ve now earned the right to discuss the full historical record . Not to equate German suffering with that of its victims , but simply to acknowledge a terrible tragedy .

1.Why does the author say the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was the worst event in nautical history ?

A. It was attacked by Russian torpedoes .

B. Most of its passengers were frozen to death .

C. Its victims were mostly women and children .

D. It caused the largest number of casualties .

2.How does Gunter Grass revive the memory of the Wilhelm Gustloff tragedy ?

A. By presenting the horrible scene of the torpedo attack .

B. By describing the ship’s sinking in great detail .

C. By giving an interview to the weekly Die Woche .

D. By illustrating the survival of a young pregnant woman .

3.What’s the meaning of the underlined word “ marginalize ”

A. highlight B. weaken

C. strengthen D. fasten

Answer 1