April 30, 1946

Dear friend,
Once you read this letter you will remember the event that every Jewish person
was going through this time period called the Holocaust. You may have heard it before
but maybe never heard what really happened to us. As a Jewish I had a long life living
in Germany everything was calm, free, and everyone was having a good time living here
with no problems to even worry about. Then everything had changed when I heard in
August 2, 1934, Adolf Hitler became our new leader and named himself as Der
Fuhrer. The German people started saluting Hitler by raising their right hand and said
Heil Hitler. Ive seen that every Jewish person was wearing a yellow star badge called
the Star of David to identify themselves as Jews. The yellow star had the word Jude
,that means Jew, in it and it has to be worn when we go outside everyday if we dont
wear it we are taken to jail or sentenced to death immediately. I saw how horrible the
Nazi party mistreated us Jews by burning and destroying everything we had and
suspending us out of our homes. Every Jewish store was closed and wrecked apart with
a lot of broken glass in each place and a sign that says Jew in big letters in every store,
it was the night of the broken glass. Everyone had to pack everything up to move out
of their homes and leaving them behind to move to our new homes. The Nazi took
many Jews to a train that lead them to a horrible place called concentration camps, I
was one of those people in that train. Mothers, fathers and children were frightened
they had no idea where they are going or where they will end up, I was frightened as
well. I saw everyone suffering and crying on what will happen to them next. It was
hard to imagine to know what it will happen to us as Jews because we were the only
ones suffering at this moment. As we came to a stop we got out of the train and saw a
line of houses. There were so many of them by looking at them you cant see where it
ends it just keeps going until it fades away and what hurts is that it was for Jews
only. We had to go to a house and it was not what I had expected in mind but it was a

sad place for a Jew to live in. There was a really long wooden bunk bed that all of us
had to sleep on, it was really hard and all of us had to squeeze in the bed and tried to
fit everyone in. We feel uncomfortable but we had to get used to it since we are going to
be here for a while or maybe forever. There were so many concentration camps and
death camps and in every concentration camp many Jewish people had to do labour
work while in death camps is where all Jews are being murdered. I was put on the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany it was prisoner of war camp, everyone
had a job to do and no one cant rest. One day in late 1944 the food was shrinking too
much and we were left with no food we had to go without food for days. It was those
terrible days that I go with hunger and was killing me I was wishing that I could
find food around here but I never had luck finding food. We were mistreated, had too
much heavy work everyday, and we always get tired by this job so hard and tiring. I
always felt that I cant keep up with this it was too much for me I always felt to fall
and give up but I know that the Nazi will come for me and maybe kill me like the rest.
I had no choice it was too cruel for us to live like this many Jews had this idea to
escape from camp and hideaway somewhere to never be found again but I have heard
before that to those people who have done it they were found or caught and sentenced to
death. I really dont want to die not by this tragic event that has been happening for a
really long time I was hoping so much for someone to save us. Since that lack of water
and food we had in the shelter we had led an outbreak of diseases like typhus. Many of
them looked too ill and it keep increasing and many people were dying from this
disease, it was a virus that had spread almost everyone in this camp it cant be stopped.
By the months in the year 1945, ten thousand prisoners had died but I have survived
and there are still people who survived from this outbreak. As what I have seen I had
never seen an outbreak so terrible like this one that we were going through. When I
have been working carrying materials that the Nazis had demanded us to do I
sometimes pass a place where there was a huge pile of Jewish people. I couldnt believe
what I had seen the tragedy of the poor Jewish people who tried to survive this terrible
place called concentration camp. I was heartbroken to see this I always felt like crying
because I couldnt take it anymore of this looking at people dying and suffering it was a

terrible nightmare that we were going through. I never thought of Hitler hating us for
causing too much trouble in Germany and other places where Jewish people lived. There
was so much hate on us they just want to get rid of us by making us come here and die
by hunger, thirst, suffrage, and diseases. Everything have ended when April 15, 1945
came I saw our hero the British forces came and had liberated us from this horrible
camp that we were stuck in since the beginning of the Holocaust for us in April 1940.
We were finally free I couldn't believe that I have survived from this event so
humiliated and abominable. We had to evacuate from this camp and I have seen that
there are still people who were seriously ill. After the liberation, between 36,400 to
37,600 people couldn't recover from the disease they died afterwards. Then later I
heard that the British forces went back to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp to
burn the whole camp to be able to stop the typhus from spreading around. As you can
see my friend it wasn't a really happy ending for the Jewish people for what the Nazi
had done to us. Everything was a really big humiliation to us everyone had wished this
had never happened to us and there are still survivors living somewhere better, I am
one of them. Everything is now peaceful but still tormented by what we were going
through during the Holocaust its a nightmare that comes back every time. Its an event
that we will never forget if will always be a horrifying memory. Thank you for reading
this letter I hope this is useful from our memory from the Holocaust.

Sincerely,
Your Jewish friend