Life in hiding was always scary. German officials and their friends punished anyone who helped Jews and offered rewards to anyone willing to turn them in. Beginning in March 1943, the Gestapo (the German secret state police) protected some Jews in Germany in exchange for tracking down Jews who had gone underground. By spring 1945, when the Nazi government fell, thousands of Jews had been turned in. In other countries, neighbours betrayed Jews in order to gain their money and property.
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the world learned of the staggering human toll of the Holocaust. Few Jewish children survived. In ghettos and concentration camps right across Europe, systematic murder, abuse, disease and medical experiments took many lives. Of the estimated 216,000 Jewish youngsters deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, only 6,700 teenagers were selected for forced labour. Nearly all the others died in the gas chambers. When the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945, Soviet troops found just 451 Jewish children among the 9,000 surviving prisoners.
In September 1939 approximately 1.6 million Jewish children were living in areas that the Germans or their allies would occupy. By the end of the war, at least 1.5 million Jewish children were dead. Soon after, Jewish agencies throughout Europe began tracing survivors and measuring losses. In the Low Countries, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, only 9,000 Jewish children survived. Of the almost 1 million Jewish children living in 1939 Poland only about 5,000 survived, mostly by hiding.
Following the Holocaust, some Nazi party leaders were charged and convicted with crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials.
Although justice was served in some cases, many perpetrators of the Holocaust escaped prosecution. There could be no real restitution for the victims of the Holocaust. The crime was too great.
GLOSSARY
Aryan
In the 19th century, the Ayran race was defined as being part of the Caucasian race. It includes Europeans, Australians, New Zealanders, Anglo-Americans, Canadians, South African and people in Latin America and the Indian sub-continent. Hitler defined Aryans as Nordic Europeans, and called them the ‘master race’. Nordic Europeans have fair skin and blue eyes. Hitler deemed other Caucasians to belong to Ayran sub-races. Other European races, such as the Slavs, which includes Russians and Serbians and ethnic Poles, were believed to be inferior and dangerous and fit for enslavement. Hitler described Jews and gypsies as the lowest of races, and to be unworthy of life. Hitler’s racist beliefs and doctrines were untrue, dangerous and evil.
Gestapo
The Gestapo was Nazi Germany’s feared secret police force. The Gestapo had its own courts and effectively acted as judge, jury and, frequently, executioner.
Mensch
Yiddish for ‘a person of integrity and honour’.
Nazi
The Nazi Party was founded as the anti-semitic ‘German Workers’ Party’ in January 1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler had become leader and assumed all control. He renamed this party as the ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’.
Rosh Hashanah
Jewish New Year and a time of celebration. The Jewish Calender is based on cycles of the moon and dates back over five thousand years.
SS (Schutzstaffel)
Part of the German Nazi Party, they were a paramilitary organisation whose methods of violent intimidation played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
Yom Kippur
Jewish Day of Atonement when religious Jews fast and pray to God for forgiveness for the year’s sins.
Yiddish
For nearly a thousand years, Yiddish was the primary language that Ashkenazi (European) Jews spoke. Unlike most languages, which are spoken by the residents of a particular area or by members of a particular nationality, Yiddish—at the height of its usage—was spoken by millions of Jews of different nationalities all over the globe.
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was established in October 1940. The ghetto’s walls were closed on November 1940. Over 400,000 Jews lived in the ghetto, an area of 3.4km2. The wall itself was built by Jews, under threat of death by Nazi soldiers. It was almost 10 feet (3 metres) high and topped with barbed wire and broken glass.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Goldie Alexander’s parents migrated from Poland just before the Second World War. Born in Melbourne, her first books for young adults were ‘Dolly Fiction’ novels published under the pseudonym of Gerri Lapin. Her first book under her own name, Mavis Road Medley, is a time travel fiction exploring the world of Princes Hill and her parents’ struggles to survive the Depression.
Goldie is known for writing historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy and mystery novels. She has written more than 80 books, and many short stories and articles. My Australian Story: Surviving Sydney Cove is now in its tenth edition. Mavis Road Medley (Margaret Hamilton Books, 1991) was chosen by Victoria’s Australian Centre for Youth Literature as one of their 150 ‘treasures’.
The author expresses thanks to Clare Hallifax for all her help and advice during the writing of this novel.
COURAGE TO CARE
You have been reading about the life of a Jewish child who endured discrimination and persecution during World War II, in what came to be called the Holocaust.
Courage to Care is an exhibition and educational program. It helps us to understand how lives are affected if we let discrimination occur and it also shows what can happen if we are willing to step in and help.
The program shares stories from the lives of people who were not acceptable in Nazi society. They were left unprotected and suffered in many ways such as being driven from their homes, losing all their possessions and being worked to death in labour gangs.
However, many people who saw what was happening believed that it was wrong. They refused to remain bystanders and risked their own safety in order to rescue others.
By honouring their bravery, the Courage to Care program challenges us not to be bystanders, but to take action when we see injustice in our society today. In the two-hour workshops we move and inspire young people to become passionate about their heritage and that of their community.
Each person can make a difference!
www.couragetocare.com.au
Call: 02 9321-6300
Courage to Care (NSW) Inc.
Published by Scholastic Australia
Pty Ltd PO Box 579 Gosford NSW 2250
ABN 11 000 614 577
www.scholastic.com.au
Part of the Scholastic Group
Sydney • Auckland • New York • Toronto • London • Mexico City
• New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires • Puerto Rico
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First edition published by Scholastic Australia in 2015.
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2015.
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-925065-47-3
Text copyright © Goldie Alexander, 2015.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended.
My Holocaust Story: Hanna Page 13
