Lost in History

As you're reading this letter I am probably dead. After I finish this I will end my life because I found out how shitty and pointless it is. I can't run away because I am in the middle of nowhere with nobody, so ending my life is the only option right now.

My name is Leeba, which means "beloved" in Hebrew. Yes I am a Jew, but I wasn't raised like one. To start out, my life before the incident was very normal. The whole town knew each other and my little brother Betzalel, which means "Shadow of God", was one of my best friends. My mom's name was Abira which is funny because it means "strong," and she was a really strong person. Not physically but emotionally, which is where I get my strength from. My dad Elisha, which means "God will help," was the head of the house, and he always had everything under control. I also had a bestfriend named Hedva and I remember one time we went to the park and got lost. We got in trouble, but it's the only thing I remember about her. I also remember the last conversation with my brother about how everything was going to be fine while we were getting distributed to the train.

I was from a town named Sandomierz. It was in south-eastern Poland, and I had a great life there. I will never forget running to the well with my brother to get water. Every night before me and my brother went to sleep my mother would sing 'Makh tsi di eygelekh' which means "Close your eyes." It was so soothing and lovely to hear before we fell asleep. But the thing I miss the most is my family always being together. We were always happy and always sharing. Also my town was always so alive and it felt like a bustling town. Then one day there was no one outside, that was the day the Germans come and took us. They came in truck loads, big strong men holding guns and yelling for us to get out of our homes. I was shaking, had goosebumps, and I can tell my family was feeling the same way. "We better get out into the streets before something bad happens," my dad said while the Germans were screaming at us. We walked outside and saw the whole town in the streets. They put us in lines and funneled us into trucks and drove to a train station. We were all then placed into train carts, they packed tons of people into just one train cart, more than what looked like could fit. I was worried that I wasn't going to get on the same cart as the rest of my family, but in the end my family and I got on the same cart. We almost lost my brother amongst the sea of people. In the cart it was so uncomfortable, you couldn't sit down and you had no space to do anything. The whole time this tragic journey was going on, my mother was the strongest. She kept on telling me and my brother to not be scared and to do what we were told by the men. I think she was more of a help than my dad because he was just as scared as me and my brother were.

I am now 16 and i found some files and newspaper articles that were hidden inside this small house and as I am going through them, I found out that 1.6 million Jews being murdered I found my family to be in the first 100. I remember now how I met Joseph. I was walking with my family to go inside Auschwitz-Birkenau about to get killed since it's a death camp. Next thing you know I drop my teddy bear and when I went to go looking for it, I got out of the group. This man notices me, he had a pencil and a paper in his hands and from what it looked like he was taking notes. Then he stares at me for a while and tells me to hide in this small dark place, so I did. I waited for so long until he came back, he gave me some blankets and took me to a train. We traveled for a long time, we even got in a train, and from time to time I had to use the bathroom and we would stop; he also bought food. That was the first good meal I had ever had after the removal of my hometown. We arrived at this small house and it was so far in farmland. I didn't even see the house until we got there, it was in the middle of nowhere. For the first few days he was very quiet and didn't speak to me much except when he asked me what I wanted to eat or if I was okay. I just nodded or shrug my shoulders. He told me his name was Joseph Berchtold and that he had other things to do. After a week of being at the small house, Joseph left me with an elder couple. The couple soon became my parents, and they were really nice to me. We would talk a lot about books we read, and as I grew older our conversations got better. They taught me how to cook, clean, read, and write.

They died two weeks ago and before they died they told me there was something I needed to know but I never found out. I have spent one year by myself and a week ago I find all these newspaper articles about all the people that died. There are so many I couldn't read them all, they were so upsetting and racist. I also found Joseph's journal which was very emotional to me because I wondered so many times why was I here and not with my family. Turns out that my eyes are the same as his moms. Joseph loved and appreciated his mom so much and by the time he found me he said he fell in love with my eyes. I have been in this house 9 years of my life and when I was 14 Joseph stopped visiting me for no reason.

Now that you know the truth, you can fully understand why I am ending my life. My last words would be that even though I didn't get to see my family after the age of 7, I remember them like it was yesterday. These people were so cold hearted and horrible but I am glad there was some that had somewhat sympathy for me.