Holocaust Monologue
Holocaust Monologue: Memoir of Eva Buchbinder
(from Torn Threads by Anne Isaacs)
My name is Eva Buchbinder. I have many family members that live with me in the fenced in ghetto of Bedzin, Poland; my father, Papa, my sister, Rachel, my aunt, Rivka, Uncle Nathaniel, and my cousin, David. Papa, Rachel, and I used to live in the proper part of town in Bedzin, but once Hitler came to power he made many laws that condemned us because we were Jewish. In the winter of 1942 we were forced to move to the ghetto where we were fenced in and given rations. Once we were in the ghetto many people were assigned jobs, but some, like Papa, were able to keep their professions and go into the city to work and earn a descent pay. Rachel and I did not get to go to school anymore. Rachel was always sick; in the summer of 1943 she started to feel a little bit better and wanted to go outside. Reluctantly I agreed. That night we had the first raid, where the Nazi’s, grabbed teenagers and young adults off the streets and took them to concentration camps. Rachel was taken. The next weeks were very hard for Papa and I, not knowing whether Rachel was alive on a concentration camp or shot because she was too weak. Since Papa got to go into town to work, he asked some of our trustworthy friends to find out how and where Rachel was. After a few more weeks Papa came home from work extremely late. I was terrified something horrible had happened. When he got home he told me that Rachel was fine on a concentration camp and that the next morning I would get on a train and go to the same concentration camp. I would take all my clothes—all the ones I could wear, or it would look too suspicious for the gaurds. After a long, unwelcoming, train ride, many days, with nothing to eat or drink I arrived at Parschnitz. When I arrived I could not find Rachel. There were at least 500 girls in my barrack with three floors! Luckily, I found one of her friends and she led me to Rachel. On
(from Torn Threads by Anne Isaacs)
My name is Eva Buchbinder. I have many family members that live with me in the fenced in ghetto of Bedzin, Poland; my father, Papa, my sister, Rachel, my aunt, Rivka, Uncle Nathaniel, and my cousin, David. Papa, Rachel, and I used to live in the proper part of town in Bedzin, but once Hitler came to power he made many laws that condemned us because we were Jewish. In the winter of 1942 we were forced to move to the ghetto where we were fenced in and given rations. Once we were in the ghetto many people were assigned jobs, but some, like Papa, were able to keep their professions and go into the city to work and earn a descent pay. Rachel and I did not get to go to school anymore. Rachel was always sick; in the summer of 1943 she started to feel a little bit better and wanted to go outside. Reluctantly I agreed. That night we had the first raid, where the Nazi’s, grabbed teenagers and young adults off the streets and took them to concentration camps. Rachel was taken. The next weeks were very hard for Papa and I, not knowing whether Rachel was alive on a concentration camp or shot because she was too weak. Since Papa got to go into town to work, he asked some of our trustworthy friends to find out how and where Rachel was. After a few more weeks Papa came home from work extremely late. I was terrified something horrible had happened. When he got home he told me that Rachel was fine on a concentration camp and that the next morning I would get on a train and go to the same concentration camp. I would take all my clothes—all the ones I could wear, or it would look too suspicious for the gaurds. After a long, unwelcoming, train ride, many days, with nothing to eat or drink I arrived at Parschnitz. When I arrived I could not find Rachel. There were at least 500 girls in my barrack with three floors! Luckily, I found one of her friends and she led me to Rachel. On