Rebecca (Becca) Alder was only ten years old when the war first started. She witnessed her parents slaughtered in front of her. Can she survive? Can she find a new life, and maybe even love? Mature.
*In the process of being revised and edited*
May 1942 It's time to finally get out of here. I've been cutting a whole in the fence leading to the woods for a few months now, since mother's death. I went out every night, despite the frost biting my nose. I took her backpack and stuffed grandmothers quilt in it, and the soothing sweater mother made me.
I've made my escape, the Nazi soldiers did not see me. I'm deep in the woods now, running toward the train station. I can see the dim lights of the distant lamps from the trains in the distance. I am going to hide in a cargo box until I get out of Warsaw. I pray everything goes smoothly.
I did it, I am so lucky and I know it. I might never leave this train. About a few hours into the ride I hear the train is headed to Łeba, Poland. Which's right on the Baltic Sea. From there I would take a boat to Stockholm, Sweden. Which I would be more safe.
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We had reached ŁeBay but right before I was to get on the ship, Nazi soldiers spotted me. I scream as they took me away.... to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp back in Poland. Tape was wrapped around my mouth and eyes, I could only hear their stern voices. I weep almost every night, knowing I will end up just like my mama and papa. Soon after I arrived there I was thrown into a room full of weak looking Jews like me. I shuddered at the sight of bones on everyone's bodies. I was going to end up just like them. What do the Nazi's want from us? July 1943 It's been over a year since I've been in this terrible camp, I'm almost thirteen.. Grandma's quilt keeps me warm at night. I've only just recovered from the flu.. which killed hundreds in the camp. I saw my friend from the ghetto.. Macy get sent to the gas chamber. You never come back out from there. The fumes make us all cough during each hard day of work. On our sacred holidays I did everything I could to pray for rescue. I'm hoping the allied troops come and rescue us... before the Germans take the lives of all of us good people. The dead bodies of Jews are piled up for us to see. You smell death and human waste everywhere, your so lucky if you get a shower. I can't remember the last time I've bathed. I'm skin and bones are look for scrapes of food everywhere. The Nazi's have made me into some kind of an animal! October 1943 There is a plan for a hundred of us to escape tonight, on my thirteenth birthday. I heard the allies captured Sicily. Five American planes are secretly waiting for us ten miles from here. We have to get there, which means many of us will be killed. But at least we won't have died in the gas chambers. I want to grow up and live a happy life. I want to live in America, I heard it's wonderful there. It would be amazing to be a writer that lives in the fast moving city of New York. Right now though, I have to focus on getting out of here. I can't stay here anymore, I can't keep going on like this. I walk through the clouds of smoke everyday to harvest the Nazi's crops for their fancy balls and dinners. I sleep on a thin towel on the cold hard ground. Every night I wonder if it can get any worse than this. It always does... ........................... Up the fence I went, along with a hundred others. I felt the spikes cut into my ankles, but pressed on. Many of us didn't make it, the Germans slaughtered them without a thought. We ran and ran, for what seemed like hours and hours. The weaker ones stopped after a few miles of running, bad choice... I could hear gun shots about a quarter mile behind me as I ran. After eight miles I had to stop. I jumped into a barrel... and rested for about ten minutes. Then off I ran faster than ever before.... somehow I made it to a plane before the Nazi's got there. I found out only twenty out of the hundred survived to the plane. It must've been all the planes and my family up in heaven that kept me alive. The American planes were shot at as we took us, luckily none got hit. We had a smooth ride to Sicily. I was frozen in fear, I spoke no words for a day! The problem is I only knew Polish and common English. I planned to spend about a year in Sicily before finding some way into America. I was just so happy to be alive and away from the Axis powers. Despite all the odds I made it. The only problem was what do I do now? But one thing was clear, I was an escapee.
