Alicia My Story, Book Summary

The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book starts she is ten years old, she lives in the Polish town of Buczacz with her four brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio, and Herzl, and her mother and father . The holocaust experience began subtly at first when the Russians began to occupy Buczacz. When her brother Moshe was killed at a " Boys School" in Russia and her father was gathered up by German authorities, the reality of the whole situation quickly became very real. Her father was taken away shortly after the Russians had moved out and the Germans began to occupy Buczacz. Once the Germans occupied, they moved the Jewish population of Buczacz into mass ghettos. Alicia and the rest of her family had to share a house with several other families which had also been driven out of there homes. The only source of income in this situation was to sell things at the marketplace, and even there, Jews were forbidden. Alicia went anyway and sold what she could for food and money. One day her brother Bunio disappeared from the ghetto. Alicia and her family found out later that he had been taken to a work camp, but that they could send food packages to him. Shortly after this, Alicia was taken into custody by German officials and put on a train to another work camp. Alicia managed to escape from this train by jumping through a small window. She found her way to a river which led her back to the ghetto. By this time several people in the ghetto had been feeling the effects of the impoverished conditions. Starvation, Typhoid, and other diseases, were beginning to take its toll on the people who lived in the ghetto. Then one day, Alicia found out that her brother Bunio had been killed in the work camp. A boy had escaped so they lined up all the boys and shot every fourth one . As time progressed, Alicia began assuming more responsibility for the daily tasks of the family such as going