Coming of Age in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson Free Essay Example

The book “Elli” is an account of the Jewish race being devastated in the death camps during the Second World War. They suffered inhuman brutality and starvation. It was Elli’s courage and determination which helped her to stay alive. The Jews suffered inhuman brutality. An example of this is Felicia’s story. Felicia is the Blockalteste at Plaszow. She told of how she had to either shoot her family quickly or the German guards would kill all her family very slowly.

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Her eighteen month old baby boy was ripped in two just as an example of what was going to happen to her family if she did not kill her husband, father and mother. Elli listens in stunned silence to the most horrific event never heard until now. The Jews survived starvation in World War two by consuming raw food from the ground. These delicacies such as potatoes were smuggled into a factory in Dreherei and washed in the toilet.

These were only eaten at night when the German guards were not around.

One night the Jews in the factory burned a candle for Hanukkah using thread from their blankets as wicks, oil and potato halves carve hollow. It was courage which helped her to stay alive. Elli attacked an SS supervisor which is the gravest form of sabotage but she is still alive. Her mothers arm and leg was paralysed due to a bunk bed collapsing on her. Elli was so happy for saving her mothers arm from being broken, but which it led to two days of separation from each other.

The book “Elli” is an account of her life being devastated in the death camps during World War Two. Her determination to stay alive saved her during innocent slaughter in the day prior to liberation. Her impulses told her to put from around her waist her metal soup bowl on her head as her surroundings were hammered with machine gun fire. She shouted to her mother to put her metal soup bowl on her head because she was looking after her brother Bubi, who had been shot in the head.