The Story of A Girl: A Story of the Holocaust

    She had heard footsteps on the top floor.   They sounded like
heavy boots stamping all the time.  She had been in this situation
before.  Who would have known a 16 year old girl had escaped the ghetto
that she was put in.  The Germans have taken away her identity and
just have given her a number.  That's all she was to them.  Just,
a number.  She had lived in Poland.  When Germany invaded Poland,
her parents took her and fled,  but they were caught and taken to the ghetto.
 There Susinka had found a hole under the barbed wire.
She told her parents about it and they said not to go even near it.
She had asked them why and they said that if she was caught trying to escape,
she would be beaten.  Well, of course she did not listen.
She tried every day to fit her body under that tiny hole.
Once she was able to fit under it and get outside the ghetto, she would be
free and run away.  Her parents found her trying to escape and they were very mad that she was.  Who in the right mind would never want to see their daughter again?  Don't you understand?  She went back to the ghetto knowing and standing proud that the fact that she was able to escape because she managed to fit her body into that tiny hole.  She told her parents that she was able to escape and that if she were she could maybe get help, she had overheard the guards talking in Polish that the Red-Cross would soon come maybe even that night and thinking of evacuating the ghetto and moving to Germany by train where the new Concentration Camp would be held.  Susinka's parents decided and already knew what a concentration camp was and didn't want their daughter near one.  They gave their daughter the only bread
portion they had left and kissed her good-bye.  They feared that it would be the last time they would ever see their little Susinka.  Susinka checked and all the German soldiers were out in the main Hall having a dinner.  She threw her bag over and out she slipped and ran and ran until she couldn't run any more. That would be the last time that she would see her parents in stable health.
    Susinka popped out of the little dream about how she had
remembered how she had escaped.  She had to concentrate on NOT moving or she would give away her hiding space down in the basement.  The door opened to down stairs, the heavy boots fled down the stairs, and Susinka stayed very still.
"I told you nothing is down here except canned goods," cried the old lady. The guards paid no attention to her.  They beamed their flash light at every corner in the house.  The flash light was getting too close to Susinka.  She had moved her foot like, a centimeter and then the guard saw it.  Her old dirty white shoe.  He beamed the light over in Susinka's way.   It beamed her in the face.  That's all she remembers.
    She woke up on a crowded train, babies crying loudly, and women screaming the fact that their husbands had been taken away.  All the sudden the train cars stopped and the doors opened with screaming soldiers telling them to move out quickly. She saw that she was at a concentration camp.  The one place that her parents never wanted her to be.  She felt a jab in her arm that made her scream.  She looked helplessly looking around praying that her parents would be there and
run to her and cuddle her as if she were still a child.  She started looking
around and screaming "Momma," "Poppa." 
    A woman grabbed her and told her to hush.  She was a
nice lady, she took her into her barrack were her husband was staying. 
Susinka did not recognize the lady and her husband but, they looked a lot like her mother and father.  Except, the woman's hair had turned light brown with so many white strands of hair.  The husbands hair had turned completely white. 
"Susinka, we told you to try as hard as you could to not be caught," said the lady. Susinka looked at her.
"How do you know my name?"  she asked in Polish.
Susinka had understood her question because they old people she had lived with only spoke German. 
The woman stood in shock.
"You know German?" cried the woman.
"Yes, I do, the people who I had hid with only spoke German," she said.
"How do you know my name?"  she asked again in German.
"Because I am your mother," the woman answered.
Susinka looked in shock, her mother?  No, that cant be.  Her mother?
"Momma?!?"  Susinka asked.
"Yes,"  Her mother answered in Polish.
What a happy night that was.  Once again she overheard the guards saying that the Red-Cross was coming tomorrow and that they may just give up.  If Germany loses, they would be put on trial, and some to death. 
    So, it was on that very night, Red Cross took over the camp
and got all the people out of their so they would be safe!
Susinka lived and so did her parents.
Her parents caught the disease typhus and Susinka died of natural cause.

By: Katie W.,  Jill B., & Brittany J.
p.6

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Note: The girl pictured at the start of the story was Hetty Winkle, a Dutch Jewish girl who did not survive the Holocaust. You can read about her at the Cassutto Memorial Pages.

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