On December 28, 1943, a Polish family in Wegrow, Poland promised Edith Goldman and Bernard Louis to hide them from the German Nazis. Edith and her spouse returned back to their hometown Wegrow, Poland from Sobibor. However, before they met the Polish family, Edith and Bernard struggled for a year finding a home. Goldman and Louis visited each home in Wegrow to seek for shelter and not even once, families did not make the couple’s desire to come true. Until at their last chance, the Laughlins (Polish family) let the couple hide in their place. The Laughlins provided Edith and Bernard a good company with food, clothes and a room to share.
“I have to say, without the Laughlins I wouldn't have made it this far. I really thought Bernard and
In June of 1943 the Bilecki family members who lived near the ghetto heard a knock on their door, opened it and saw not only some of their Jewish friends and neighbors but also some strange faces - 23 in all. They had come to seek refuge from the Nazis.
Two Irish orphans, Molly and Kip, are looking for a job in England. They find work at an isolated manor, home of the Windsors. Molly prepares meals and cleans the house, while Kip, despite of his crippled leg, works outside on landscaping. Many people warned them of the manor and the surrounding
Since Edith was a teenager, she enjoyed knitting and learned the quilt-making trade. The Goldmans were a family that majored in industrial fabric, clothing, and feather making. Before Germany was in attack, Warsaw was a well flowing capital within a good economy. When the Nazis invaded Poland, Edith's feather factory shut down due to low production and the downturn economy. Although their factory shut down, they were forced to leave all their belongings and serve for the Germans in the ghetto. Edith's life changed into horror because of her reduced
Sima Gleichgewicht-Wasser, she was born and raised in Warsaw. She was raised in a traditional Jewish home. On the 15 November, 1940, the germans opened a ghetto called Legionowo, 16 miles northeast of Warsaw. She worked as a smuggler to get food to her family. The police stopped her many times and confiscated her food. One time a german guard stopped her and try to make her admit she was Jewish but she never did so he got a German Shepard to bite her and tear pieces of her skin off to make her admit but she never did. One day Sima snuck out and on her way back acquaintance stopped her and told her don't go back where her family was that the ghetto was liquidated. After that day October 4, 1942, she never saw her family again. She had to find a new place to
Having parents that tried so hard to set themselves apart from society, all while struggling to earn money, had an impact on their children's lives, and it wasn't for the better. These children lived to struggle. With a bad home life, and parents that didn't seem to care for them enough, Jeannette, Brian, Maureen, and Lori Walls all eventually moved away from their careless parents, to New York. Although it took time for Lori and Jeannette Walls to save up what little money they had, due to the fact that the father continually stole it, they were able to move to New York successfully. Later in the memoir, their parents also decide to move there, except they don't try to better their lives like their
No one has survived to tell her story firsthand, but over many years historians have been able to piece together the incredible truth. Karolina Juszczykowska was born in Budków, Poland, in 1898. There is little information on Juszczykowska’s childhood, but we do know that she had a very modest one. During her testimony in court she was quoted as saying, "I never went to school. Until I was 13 years old I lived with my parents, and then went to Germany where I worked for 5 years for a farmer in Mecklenburg [a region in Northern Germany]… then I returned to Budkow, where I stayed with my sister until 1934. I helped my sister with farm work. In 1934 I moved to Tomaschow. Until the outbreak of the war I made a living in road construction. Subsequently I had different jobs, as laundress, maid, etc., and until my arrest I worked in the kitchen of OT (Organization Todt) in Tomaszow.” (http://www.yadvashem.org) Karolina told her interrogators that six weeks prior to her arrest she had met two young men on the street. They asked her to hide them, and they promised to pay her 300 Zloty per week for both of them. She decided to accept their offer. Karolina stated she hid them out of a need for money, not necessarily to help. They slept on the floor at night, and when she would go to work, she locked them in her small apartment. Juszczykowska told her interrogators that one of her
They arrive at Buna and meet their new head of camp. They are showered and given new clothes. They meet their head of tent, who is a very fat and menacing German. A boy tries to trade Elie for his shoes, but he does not give them up. They were inspected by a doctor. He is inspected by a dentist for gold teeth, and Elie has one. Elie meets Juliek the Pole, Louis the violinist, Hans from Berlin, and the foreman Franek the Pole. Juliek tells him of Idek their Kapo who is ruthless and of their work which is not the least bit hard or dangerous. They go to work and meet Yossi and Tibi, two Czechs whose parents were exterminated in Birkenau. They become very good friends. After dinner, Elie is told to go the dentist. The dentist tries to extract his gold crown but Elie
In the detailed story of an impoverished family during the late 1900’s, Jeannette Walls describes her experience from the young age of 3, up until adulthood. The family of 6, with Rex Walls as the father, Rose Mary as the mother, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen, were constantly moving throughout the country with little to no food or cash. The memoir shows how dysfunctional the family was, but never seemed to force the reader to condemn the parents. In a life of poverty, the have to move for own to town, and often lived in various mining towns. Although they each found something they learned to love (like Jeannette’s rock collection) in the desert, they had to leave them behind once Rex’s alcoholism only worsened, and they ran
In March 1944, German soldiers came to Sighet and forced the Jews to wear yellow stars and put them on a train. The Wiesel family was the last one on the train. After four days, the train stopped at Auschwitz. Wiesel, then 15, followed the instructions of a prisoner and told the waiting SS
The van Pels and Franks started hiding in July 1942 when Margot Frank was told she was going to be taken away. Fritz Pfeffer joined them 4 months later. They had hoped to hide until the war ended.
The narrator and Henri are inmates Auschwitz who have the task of unloading rail cars filled with people and all of their belongings. As we relive the experiences, we will compare and contrast each of their perceptions as these events unfold.
This story begins to drive the sense of emotion with the very surroundings in which it takes place. The author starts the story by setting the scene with describing an apartment as poor, urban, and gloomy. With that description alone, readers can begin to feel pity for the family’s misfortune. After the apartments sad portrayal is displayed, the author intrigues the reader even further by explaining the family’s living arrangements. For example, the author states “It was their third apartment since the start of the war; they had
I was born on january/31/1919 in Vietnam and immigrated to France. In 1942 I was studying at the university in Nice, where I met a fellow student, Jadwiga Alfabet, a Jewish refugee from Poland. In the summer of 1942 the French police began arresting Jews with foreign nationality. In September 1943 the Germans occupied Nice and all the Italian controlled zones and we were in danger of deportation. I decided to hide not only my wife, but also her relatives. In November 1943 I took a train with a few of my wife's relatives to get them in touch with a smuggler who could take them to Switzerland, I made this trip several
The idioms of everyday American speech in a middle-class domestic situation are used in showing the events and relationships of the Berlin family. In contrast to the conversations of Becca and Stan, usually presented as straight dialogue, the discussions among the three sisters are conventionally presented, often with “she said” and other interpolations to give explicitly the emotional level of the sister’s disagreements. Madga, the Polish student who acts as Becca’s guide to the death camp site speaks fluent English but at times awkward English “Oh, they are much in appreciation” she says when given a pair of jeans. Contrast between the formal, traditional language of the fairy tale and childish, informal chatter is shown when the children comment or question as Gemma proceeds with her Briar Rose fairy tale story telling. Her contrast revisiting of just this one fairy tale shows the reader that while her conscious memory has buries the details of her past horrors, she cannot help returning to the fairy tale allegory. Contrast is also shown between the warm, happy imagery of life in the Berlin house and the bleak, harsh details of the holocaust.
Hans is a passionate, caring man who earns his living as a house painter by day and an accordion player by night. Liesel believes his eyes show kindness, and is closer to him from the beginning than to her foster mother. He is one of a few in their village who is not a registered member of the Nazi party, which comes to have serious repercussions on the family as the book progresses. Rosa Hubermann is a stern, strong woman who looks like a “wardrobe with a coat thrown over it” and would be “cute,” but appears perpetually annoyed. She peppers her language with epithets like “Saumensch” and “Saukerl” and “Arschloch”. “Sau” refers to “pig” and mensch is girl and kerl is man, arschloch sounds pretty close to its English equivalent. From the beginning Liesel is “saumensch,” which at first refers to Rosa’s annoyance at taking this girl in, even though it does mean more money for the family. But by the end, it has become a term of true endearment. Liesel’s best friend in the village is a little boy named Rudy, “the boy next door who was obsessed with the black American athlete Jesse Owens.” Rudy is in love with Liesel and always pesters her for a kiss, which he does finally receive, after some pretty serious turns in the story. He is a simple, almost naïve boy, and would do almost anything for her, including jumping into a nearly