Choose Your Own Fate in the Holocaust
Abbey Kellett
It is the year 1939. You are 15, Jewish, and live in Lodz, Poland, with your parents and five year old sister. Your family is still recovering from World War 1 and the Great Depression. Then World War 2 starts when Germany invades. Germany has been going through troubled times, but now a strong leader has appeared. This leader is called Adolf Hitler. Poland is the first country to be attacked and invaded, so you have had no warning as to what is happening. The Nazis, the National Socialist party led by Hitler, are kidnapping and killing the Jews. No one is spared, not even the children. They send whole families of Jews to Germany or Holland, and make all the Jews wear yellow stars on their clothes to identify them as Jews. If somebody who is not a Jew speaks out against the genocide committed by the Nazis, they are publicly humiliated then either shot or hung. Your parents encourage you to leave; to run way and live a happy life elsewhere. But you will be on your own, and will be leaving your family to the Nazis. What will you do?