Survival in the Holocaust
Imagine you haven’t had food in weeks; you’ve been put in a situation where survival is rare. If you had a chance to get through it, would you do it? Even if it meant risking your life? Survival is a human necessity. Many people will go against all odds just to survive; this was very true in the time of the Holocaust. To live during the Holocaust, people took risks, were lucky, or just never gave up.
Many of the Jews took risks in order to survive through the Holocaust. Some of them decided to trust a German and hide. In “The Book Thief”, Max takes the risk of trusting Liesel’s father who lets him hide in their basement for the sake of survival. “I had to trust him, I had no other choice” (Zusak 254). In this quote, it demonstrates how Max took a risk in order to survive. He trusted Liesel and her parents. Many people put themselves in jeopardy just for the chance to live a bit longer. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night”, he took the risk of going on the march with his father; it was a decision that could have led him to certain death. “‘...were the SS really going to allow the prisoners to remain in the infirmaries....’ ‘Of course not. The patients will be finished off on the spot’ said the faceless one.” (Wiesel 81). Elie did not know what would happen if he had stayed in the infirmaries; even though he had a lousy foot, Elie …show more content…
Very rarely, people would simply have perfect timing, such as Eva Umlauf, a survivor of the Holocaust, who would’ve died if she had arrived just two days earlier. “Had we arrived just two days earlier, we would have been gassed immediately. Our transport was the first from which no one was taken to the gas chambers, probably because they knew by then that the Russians were very close.” (Umlauf ). She was very lucky that she hadn’t arrived two days earlier, or she would not have survived. Many people were lucky enough to have a set of skills that would allow them to survive.
Imagine you haven’t had food in weeks; you’ve been put in a situation where survival is rare. If you had a chance to get through it, would you do it? Even if it meant risking your life? Survival is a human necessity. Many people will go against all odds just to survive; this was very true in the time of the Holocaust. To live during the Holocaust, people took risks, were lucky, or just never gave up.
Many of the Jews took risks in order to survive through the Holocaust. Some of them decided to trust a German and hide. In “The Book Thief”, Max takes the risk of trusting Liesel’s father who lets him hide in their basement for the sake of survival. “I had to trust him, I had no other choice” (Zusak 254). In this quote, it demonstrates how Max took a risk in order to survive. He trusted Liesel and her parents. Many people put themselves in jeopardy just for the chance to live a bit longer. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night”, he took the risk of going on the march with his father; it was a decision that could have led him to certain death. “‘...were the SS really going to allow the prisoners to remain in the infirmaries....’ ‘Of course not. The patients will be finished off on the spot’ said the faceless one.” (Wiesel 81). Elie did not know what would happen if he had stayed in the infirmaries; even though he had a lousy foot, Elie …show more content…
Very rarely, people would simply have perfect timing, such as Eva Umlauf, a survivor of the Holocaust, who would’ve died if she had arrived just two days earlier. “Had we arrived just two days earlier, we would have been gassed immediately. Our transport was the first from which no one was taken to the gas chambers, probably because they knew by then that the Russians were very close.” (Umlauf ). She was very lucky that she hadn’t arrived two days earlier, or she would not have survived. Many people were lucky enough to have a set of skills that would allow them to survive.