March 13, 1940

3.5K 98 4
                                    

March 13, 1940

Dear Diary,

Shalom. I miss Papa so much. My heart aches where he used to be. I can still smell tobacco on his clothes. I sleep with one of his favorite shirts, because it belonged to him. I'm keeping it safe for him, just until he can come home to reclaim it. I'm leaving the shirt here for him when I go to America. When he comes home, I'll be gone, but his shirt will be there with a note from me.  Sometimes I wonder if Papa is still alive, and where he is. But I know that they wouldn't keep such an outspoken Jew alive, and then I don't wonder if he is alive. I simply wonder how he died. I wonder if they told him he was showering and then pumped in poison gas, or if they put him in a hole crammed with others, and then shot them all at once, or if they simply hung him. I've heard rumors of all of these things happening at those awful Concentration Camps. I hope to God these rumors have no merit. Hitler is an evil man. His goal in life is to rid the world of all Jews. Our population is decreasing vastly. It is only luck that we found Mrs. Simon and that I look Aryan, for otherwise I would be laying dead among the unfortunate. Because of Adolf Hitler, I must leave my family and Poland, my home. Because of him, we must hide away in the attic. I am only allowed out to work, and I must sneak out in order to take my strolls through the woods. We live in fear of the Nazis, in fear of our lives every day. Hitler is a truly evil man, and I hate him! I hate him with all of my heart!

Diary of a Holocaust SurvivorWhere stories live. Discover now