I remember being forced to leave my friends, my home, my life. There was no choice, nowhere to go, nowhere to run. And all just because I was a Jew. I remember getting on the train, and the never ending ride to Auschwitz. Stepping out, and seeing it for the first time: the Nazi death camp. But then I had to make a choice. How would I protect my daughter Bina? They divided us into two lines: one with all the small children and one with the adults. As we approached the two lines, I hid Bina in my coat, so that we might stay together, but she was young and couldn’t stay quiet. I prayed that they wouldn’t notice. We made it through and that was all that mattered. We were shuffled into cold, overcrowded buildings. Then we all got a number tattooed …show more content…
My job was awful, cleaning the toilets. Four other girls and I would be marched to the restroom. But these were not ordinary restrooms. They were like hundreds of outhouses: pushed next to each other. As soon as we entered, the stench became unbearable. But after four or so minutes our noses became dull and we no longer could smell the filth. We would then proceed to scrub down the seats of each toilet and unclog them, which most of them were. The seats had no barriers in between them, making them easier to scrub. I woke up one morning, got my ration, got my coffee, gave most to Bina. Just like every other morning. However, this morning when cleaning the toilets I had an epiphany brought on by the urge to relieve myself. I realize that because of my job, I could use the restroom whenever I liked and not only on the rare occasions the SS guards let us. After that day, my job became …show more content…
Finally one of them reached me. He looked me up and down thoroughly and noticed the bulge in my blanket. He asked me to take it off and it revealed Bina. He yelled something, but I don't hear him. I fall to my knees as I hear him pull out his revolver. Click. He pulled the hammer back. He pointed the gun toward my daughter's head. I did nothing. I watched her fall to the ground. Suddenly I was no longer in Auschwitz. Instead I was in my backyard, not more than a year ago. Bina had just tripped over a stick. She stood up crying, and I asked her why. She said,“It hurt. It hurt when I fell, but I'll stop crying. I don't want to bring you down.” “Don’t worry, Bina, crying doesn't make me sad. And besides, maybe now you won't run in the yard.” The hammer clicked again. I looked into the guard's eyes as he pointed his gun at me. He stared at me with hatred. This was the end. If only I had more food. But their was no other way to keep Bina alive. “Jewish scum,” he said, and with that, he pulled the
Life in Auschwitz was definitely not what many people think it was. Life was hard, housing was rough, the guards were mean and brutal and the different things that could happen to you were terrifying. One day in there would have killed most people and they lived like that for years. Every day was a constant battle for their lives and they never got a break. So many people died from getting sick or from the things the guards would do and no one could save them. The food was bad and they had to hurt each other to get more food so that they wouldn’t starve. They were forced to turn against each other to survive when they never should have had to. Life was never the same for those who went to Auschwitz and survived. As for those who didn’t survive; they never saw a better day.
The Holocaust was a terrible and tragic time for Jewish people. They were constantly treated bad, harassed, and killed. The Nazi’s maintained many concentration camps, the most infamous of which being Auschwitz, where Vladek Spiegelman was sent to during the war. In the graphic novel, Maus, Art Spiegelman tells the tale of his father, Vladek, and his life during the Holocaust. In order to improve his chances of staying alive, Vladek got involved in helping the guards with certain tasks and jobs. By doing so, Vladek was able to raise his reputation among the Nazi officers, which improved his living conditions and saved his life a few times, and he was able to help his fellow prisoners and his wife, Anja.
As philosopher George Santayana famously states: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If no person ever knew what went on in those concentration camps, then the same situation will occur again in the future. Having lived in Europe for six years, I have had my share of visiting numerous World War II landmarks including those trecherous concentration camps. I have seen firsthand the sites where millions have been tortured relentlessly. I have seen huge rooms filled with real human hair, shoes, and briefcases.
I didn’t answer. I could hear his deep concern in his voice. I felt bad however, I didn't want to deal with all of them right now. I turned over to face the wall so that they hopefully got the message.
“Get of the train!”. Hounds barking loud and the sound of scared people, thousands of people. “Now!”. All sorts of officers yelling form every angle. “Stop!” an officer was yelling at a kid who was frantic and scared. He wasn't listening and took one step more, and then he was shot. You ask yourself where you are. “Hell” Another officer shouts who overheard your soft breath. Auschwitz was a very brutal camp as soon as someone would step off of the train. Most people would not last anymore than an hour at this horrific camp.
The lunch bell rung at full volume as the main doors flung open. I predicted that a herd of people will rush in like the water from a spill gate. But instead every person was a line; in fact it was a neat single filed line. Another thing I was astonished to see was to the fact that every single person I served to was superbly well mannered. It was the magical word of thank-you which left great remarks in my life and made my volunteering experience an enjoyable one. After the shift, I have come to realize that everything my family and friends have said about impoverished people was nothing but just a stereotype. In addition, I have self-discovered that volunteering is what I want to do on my spare time. The joy from making new friends, appreciated and making a difference in society was too meaningful to put in words. From then on, volunteering had become one of my most highly valued priorities. Whenever I have time to spare, I will go
I lunged at him, my sharp claws going straight to his chest, but the chain armor he wore held strong and I left only white scratches. I pried
The Holocaust was a terrible time for people who were a different race, or if you were Jewish. It started in Germany in 1933 by a man named Adolf Hitler when he came into rule, but ended in 1945 when the Nazis were defeated by allied powers of the Britain and America. The term holocaust can be translated into Hebrew and it means devastation or ruin. The Holocaust was a mass murder of about six million Jews during World War II, a systematic state sponsored murder for Adolf Hitler and the rest of the Nazis and they invaded German-occupied territories. Out of all nine million of the Jews who chose to live in Europe, about two-thirds were killed in the Holocaust. One million children, two million women and three million men were killed that were Jewish. There was a network of over 40,000 facilities in Germany and Germany-occupied territories were used to hold and kill Jews and other victims. Some scholars today argue that the murder of disabled people and the Romani should be included, and some use the common noun ‘holocaust’ to describe other Nazi murders including Soviet prisoner of war. The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages, like making laws. Various laws, like the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, were to exclude Jews from the civil society and enacted in Germany before the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Concentration camps were established in which inmates would work in slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Whenever Germany conquered new territory in Eastern Europe, the Nazis murdered more than a million political opponents and Jews in mass shootings. Most of the Jews or Romanis that were found in overcrowded ghettoes were transported by freight trains to extermination camps and if they survived the j...
One cold, snowy night in the Ghetto I was woke by a screeching cry. I got up and looked out the window and saw Nazis taking a Jewish family out from their home and onto a transport. I felt an overwhelming amount of fear for my family that we will most likely be taken next. I could not go back to bed because of a horrid feeling that I could not sleep with.
In the Holocaust, the Jews resisted the Nazi party by using both active and passive resistance. Some victim of persecution used violence to combat the Nazis in order to avoid a helpless death in a concentration camp. On the other hand, many opposed the tyranny using passive methods to defy the cruel tyranny. In “The Diary of Anne Frank”, “Violins of Hope”, and “Resistance during the Holocaust”, the Jewish people used many ways of resistance in response to the Nazi tyranny; some of whom’s goal was to save their own skin, others to make a change in the world. People can best respond to conflict, like the Holocaust, through non-combative methods since it preserves evidence of victims’ sufferings, victims’ human dignity, and the victims’ culture.
My name is Eva Berlinski. I’m only 13 years old and I was brought up
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic and trying times for the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities that the Nazis considered undesirable were detained in concentration camps, death camps, or labor camps. There, they were forced to work and live in the harshest of conditions, starved, and brutally murdered. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek during the Holocaust that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” –Fidel Castro
A couple months later, I’m wearing the same clothes as a came in and I feels like I have no sense of smell. Another day at my job, but instead of fixing pipes that allows gas to pass through and into concentration camps, but instead I am stuck fixing cell doors. Some people I know, but some others are starting to give horrible dreams. What I have noticed is I’m not fixing cell doors in my area, I am fixing some cell doors on the other side of the camp where the children sleep. As I pass the gate that separates the adults from kids, I have noticed that these children aren’t doing the same work we are, they are all busy digging holes and these guards are turning them into hard working people. It was somewhat nice to see that they were doing some
The corrections program was similar to law enforcement, so I switched to the correction alternative because I still wanted to be associated with law enforcement. I was hired on at a juvenile detention center as a juvenile correction officer. I thought that this was my opportunity to do something to help these kids, don't get me wrong I did not think I could help or save the world, I just thought I would or could make a difference in one life that it was all worth the hassle. Well I was wrong, my first day of on the job training we had to restrain a kid who was out of control, it only got worse from there on. It seemed like an everyday occurrence in this place; the kids were ok most of the time, but it only took one kid in a bad mood to set the other 40 kids off then it turns into a big problem.
The guards treated us like filth, something they'd stepped on and couldn't get rid of. I could see their point though, we killed their friends, and so they decided to kill us. But I had to escape, I was the only sane one in there, my mind was at ease. You see, everyone else was going crazy wondering about their loved ones, but I had no one. I was an orphan as a child, I never knew my Dad and my Mum died at birth.