"Thanks To My Mother" by Susie Weksler, Book Report - Susie Weksler's Biography During the Holocaust.
When you were eight years old, what were you doing? Maybe building a snowman with your friends in the winter, running through sprinklers in your backyard
in summer, having sleepovers? Climbing on that new monkey bar set during recess, playing with Cabbage Patch Kid dolls? Sounds pretty normal, a pretty good life, doesn't it?
Susie Weksler wishes she could be able to do that. But, no - when she was eight years old, in the year of 1941, Hitler's forces invaded her home, where she lived with aunts, cousins, grandparents, and her mother, and relocated them to a ghetto camp. Here, they lived on insufficient food rations, were mistreated by the Nazi soldiers who were to watch over them, and were forbidden to do minor things such as go outside after it got dark, or form any kind of school. But worse was to come. When the ghetto was liquidated, some Jews were selected to be put in concentration camps - these were the healthy, younger ones - while the rest were selected to be killed - the old and sick, and babies. Susie was technically too young and was going to be killed. But it was her mother's courage and ingenuity that would save Susie. She carried her own daughter, hidden in a backpack, to the "right" side (the side to go to the labor camps), disguising her as an adult to fool the camp guards.
Concentration camps are easily one of the worst places that have ever existed in the universe. With one meal a day (consisting of thin soup which was nearly water and a slice of bread), standing outside for hours at a time in sometimes sub-zero weather every day for roll call, and being forced to take a freezing shower and relieve themselves in front of everyone else, the prisoners were forced to work until they almost died of exhaustion, then let back to their little huts to sleep for only a few hours - cramped with four in a small cot - before they had to do everything all over again. The type of work was extremely tiring, labor-intensive, and dangerous.
This went on until
in summer, having sleepovers? Climbing on that new monkey bar set during recess, playing with Cabbage Patch Kid dolls? Sounds pretty normal, a pretty good life, doesn't it?
Susie Weksler wishes she could be able to do that. But, no - when she was eight years old, in the year of 1941, Hitler's forces invaded her home, where she lived with aunts, cousins, grandparents, and her mother, and relocated them to a ghetto camp. Here, they lived on insufficient food rations, were mistreated by the Nazi soldiers who were to watch over them, and were forbidden to do minor things such as go outside after it got dark, or form any kind of school. But worse was to come. When the ghetto was liquidated, some Jews were selected to be put in concentration camps - these were the healthy, younger ones - while the rest were selected to be killed - the old and sick, and babies. Susie was technically too young and was going to be killed. But it was her mother's courage and ingenuity that would save Susie. She carried her own daughter, hidden in a backpack, to the "right" side (the side to go to the labor camps), disguising her as an adult to fool the camp guards.
Concentration camps are easily one of the worst places that have ever existed in the universe. With one meal a day (consisting of thin soup which was nearly water and a slice of bread), standing outside for hours at a time in sometimes sub-zero weather every day for roll call, and being forced to take a freezing shower and relieve themselves in front of everyone else, the prisoners were forced to work until they almost died of exhaustion, then let back to their little huts to sleep for only a few hours - cramped with four in a small cot - before they had to do everything all over again. The type of work was extremely tiring, labor-intensive, and dangerous.
This went on until