This reminds me of a book I read called "The Upstairs Room". That book was about a non-Jewish family, who took in two Jewish sisters. They were in hiding from the Nazis that were going around looking for all of the Jewish people to take to the concentration camps. Everyday the two sisters would fear that, that would be the day they were taken away by the Nazis. They were constantly waiting to find out their fate, which was in someone else's hands. Very similar to they way Eliezer felt.
** I can't find exactly where it says this in the book... but I will keep looking.
Having your life depended on someone else's hands must have been a scary and nerv-wracking feeling. Eliezer had no clue what was going to happen to him each day at the concentration camps since it was really up to the Germans who were running the camp. Everyday, many prisoners would die or get shot by the SS officers or being evacuated, so you never really knew what was in store for you there.
ReplyDeleteWait so what happened to them? The girls in that book, I mean. And, of course, it must have been terrifying! Never knowing when they will kill you! A lot of the time people didn't know what the gas chambers were until it was too late! I heard somewhere that Nazis actually gave children lollipops before they were put into the gas chambers, sort of like a last-meal type of thing, but a whole lot worse. :(
ReplyDeleteWell, Gabby, the girls in the book were never found and they both survived. They were actually hidden away in a room they made in a closet. I don't know how to exaplain it, but I will try. In the back wall of the closet, they cut a giant hole, and they made it deep enough so that it was like a small room, and I remember they younger sister, who was probably about 12 or 13 years old, developed something wrong with her leg, because of the lack of walking and movement. They were in there for years.
ReplyDeleteAnd that lollipop thing is terrible.
You know what else I was thinking...? While they were still living in the Ghettos, the Germans told the head of the Jews where they would be going. They threatened them with death, so they never told. But I was just thinking... What if they did tell everybody? Then they would have time to leave and spread the word and the camps might have been stopped sooner. If only that one guy sacrificed his life.. That is a lot to ask though, but it would be in exchange for thousands, or millions of other lives.
Yeah that is scary not knowing what will happen to you next and it was in the hands of men who didn't really care because they had to do their jobs to keep the concentration camps running.
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