A Good Jew
Anya Goldberg
"But people came, and I hid again, in the sideboard. The one with papa's, Sol's Torah on. I grabbed it, the Torah, and got inside. I could see out through a crack in the door. And these people came in, a family, looking around our apartment, Hilda. They were well dressed. Like we used to be. I saw them. A woman and a girl my age. Her father too. They said “It would do” for them, but for the smell..."
"Guess what. I saw Kurt Gerron when I came in. I always thought he was fatter."
Children were especially vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust.
The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security.
The Nazis and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children. This number included over a million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy)children, German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children, and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union.
From an article on http://www.ushmm.org
Jewish and some non-Jewish adolescents (13-18 years old) had a greater chance of survival, as they could be used for forced labour.
I was born into an extremely happy and loving family, in Frankfurt, Germany.
Even though I was young when things changed, and when dad was sent away, I still remember him, no matter what Sol says.
I remember how my Papa used to play the piano after he had read the Haggadah at pesach and we would all gather around and sing traditional songs.
That's what interested Sol into the piano so much. I was three when Papa was taken, yet I know little about it. As I grew I began to play too, just like Papa did and Sol does, but not as good , yet.
I love writing poems and small songs or stories too, on things I see on a walk or things I hear in conversations,
Yet I don't understand everything that is said,... but how am I meant to when everyone tells me how young I am and says I will find out when I'm older.
At the moment I am drawing,... drawing everything and anything I can.
I love drawing, especially my family.
I have one image I drew of Uncle Gustav alone at the table,,,, because he is still eating, with Hilda and Mama talking in the background.
I hide it in the bottom of my left slipper so I can keep it forever.
The fates of Jewish and non-Jewish children can be categorized in the following ways:
1) children killed when they arrived in killing centers
2) children killed immediately after birth or in institutions
3) children born in ghettos and camps who survived because prisoners hid them
4) children, usually over age 12, who were used as laborers and as subjects of medical experiments
5) children killed during reprisal operations or so-called anti-partisan operations.
In the Ghettos
In the ghettos, Jewish children died from starvation, exposure, and a lack of adequate clothing and shelter. The German authorities were indifferent to this mass death. They considered most of the younger ghetto children to be unproductive and hence “useless eaters.” Because children were generally too young to be used for forced labor, German authorities generally selected them, the elderly, ill, and disabled, for the first deportations to killing centers, or as the first victims led to mass graves to be shot.
"I've got a present for you Sol. Here!
It's papa's Torah. Your Torah, Sol.
I brought it for you.
Don't you want it, Sol?"
Anya is played by Luci Flo
At the age of 4 years old Luci knew she wanted to act after seeing a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, a year later she was on stage as a fairy and hasn't looked back since.
She has acted in The Doll's House,The Railway Children and sung and danced in pantomines and Musical all while living in Spain.
Returning to England 7 years ago, education took the forefront, yet she still paticipated in a Sylvia Young production of Grease, playing Jan.
In The Good Jew Luci plays Anya and she is enjoying the chance to grow as an actress and experience difference ways to portray her character.
In the Killing Centers
Camp authorities sent the majority of children directly to the gas chambers upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers. SS and police forces in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union shot thousands of children at the edge of mass graves.
Sometimes the selection of children to fill the first transports to the killing centers or to provide the first victims of shooting operations resulted from the agonizing and controversial decisions of Jewish council (Judenrat) chairmen. The decision by the Judenrat in Lodzin September 1942 to deport children to the Chelmno killing center was an example of the tragic choices made by adults when faced with German demands. Janusz Korczak, director of an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto, however, refused to abandon the children under his care when they were selected for deportation. He accompanied them on the transport to the Treblinka killing center and into the gas chambers, sharing their fate.
Dear Diary,
My bother has just got home, I am meant to be sleeping but I couldn't because the noise outside is loud and is scaring me, there are more screams than usual and shouting. It sounds like thousands of people are dropping glasses at once. What does this mean? I may ask Sol when he comes to say goodnight to me but I don't want him to be worried about me. I bet it will all be okay by the morning though and plus I have a poem I want to show him instead. “ If you didn't learn your poetry at school, how can you have a good heart?” .
