Have Faith

Chapter 1: Running Away

Even before the Holocaust, my life stunk.

 My name is Kayla.  I live in Germany.  That's all I know.  That, and my age.  My dad abandoned my mom, who died giving birth to me.  The orphanage found me and brought me in.  I became property of the government of Germany.  All of this happened before I was one.  I was set next to hundreds of other little girls who had been through everything I had been through, but at age one, I had no way of knowing that.  As I got older, I started to think I was all alone.

But by the time I was five, I knew that everyone in the orphanage had their own stories, and that I really wasn't alone.  One girl in particular shared my feelings of loneliness.  Her name was Abby and she became my best friend.  We spent all our time together.  She was the one person I talked to in the entire orphanage. 

The first time I was fostered, I thought it was the greatest feeling ever.  I thought a mother and a father would finally love me.  But my foster family didn't care for me at all.  They ignored me and told me I was worthless.  So, after a few months of being treated like dirt, I plucked up the courage and ran from them.  When they found me, they brought me back to the orphanage.  Abby was the only orphan who asked me what it had been like, and who empathized with me about losing a family.  She was my best and only friend. 

I belonged to the government until I was 7.  That's when I ran.  I was sick of all the foster parents who pretended to care about me but never actually talked to me.  I was sick of the little brothers and sisters who always got all the attention.   So, I ran.

I had been planning it out for months.  I slipped quietly out the window in the early morning of May 30th, 1926.  My best friend, Abby, had a taxi waiting.  She had given the driver 20 Euros – a fortune to us.  We had saved that money between us for 2 years.  The driver told us he could take me as far as Brunswick, and then I was on my own.  So, I said a tearful goodbye to my best friend, who I would never see again.  I thanked her for everything she had done to help me escape.  Then, I rode off toward my freedom in the back of a cab just as dawn was beginning to break.

It was only a 15-minute ride, but I watched out the window the whole time.  We passed mostly boring office buildings, but there was this one pasture that seemed to go on forever.  Cows, horses, and goats grazed in the wide, open space, free, with an owner who cared about them.  As I stared at them, I wondered what it would be like to be just like them.  It was what I had always wanted.

When we got to Brunswick, I collected my things – there wasn't much – and stepped outside the taxi.  I'm finally free, I thought.

I paid the driver and he sped off without a word.  I decided to explore the world of freedom, a world that I had never visited before, and had no intention of leaving.

I saw absolutely everything in the city.  I peered down every alley and every crevice.  I entered every shop, even though I had no money.  I even found a Christian church.

Hmm, I thought to myself.  I wonder if there's a Jewish sacred place here?  Then I could still pray to the Lord, even if I have nowhere to go.

I kept exploring, and sure enough, I spotted a synagogue on the other side of town.  I quickly decided to make my home close to the synagogue.

However, there was still one problem – how to make my home.  Obviously, since I was only 7, I couldn't afford a luxury home.  I didn't have any money – not a single Euro.  It had all been spent on this trip.

As luck would have it, as I explored an alley, I noticed a dumpster on the end, filled with nothing but people's trash.  Gross.

 But then I noticed that mixed in among rotting food and ragged clothes, there was some cardboard.  I pulled it out and discovered that it was a refrigerator box.

 It must have been a huge refrigerator, because the box was enormous.  There was plenty of room for me.  It was the perfect home.