I just read a story from WW2 called Maria's story. It was a very sad story, although it had a happy ending. Maria was 16, and lived in Poland with her family. They were not Jewish, but they lived in a Jewish neighborhood, so Maria had Jewish friends, and she spoke Jewish along with German, Polish and 3 other languages. The family had got on well with the Jews, as well as the Germans that lived in the area. Her father even owned a business along with a Jew. As the war started, the family sold their business, and moved to the countryside to a farm. One day, her mother was told that the SS was going to take her brother. He hid at another farm, but instead the SS took Maria. She was sent to a camp in Germany, and set to work at a factory along with many other girls. They were working under terrible conditions, and got only a slice of bread and some soup a day.
After four years as prisoners, they were freed by Americans. Many of the girls went to America and Canada, but Maria wanted to find her family, so she stayed at the camp and worked as interpreter at the red cross hospital for a year. During that year she met a young English man. they fell in love and got married, and moved to England together. After some time the Red Cross found her family in Poland, and they were all reunited.
On the pictures: polish refugees
If you want to read this story by yourself, here is the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/65/a3864765.shtml
I find it interesting how Maria's parents thought that the SS was going to take away her brother, when in reality they took her away. Could it be that the information they got was fed to them by the SS? I also find it interesting how kind some people were to her under the face of adversity, especially how after the war they returned the kindness by protecting the old man whom the American soldiers were being cruel to.
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting story. What would have happened if they had found her brother instead. Good thing that they were reunited after the war. Not many families that were separated like that were.
ReplyDeleteHello Karoline, I also wrote a blog post on World War Two on Japanese American internment in the United States. I would appreciate it if you would take a look:
ReplyDeleteHere is the link
http://brownww2literature.blogspot.com/2013/01/safety-first-really.html#comment-form