Writing About the Holocaust–Performance Piece by Victoria Ritter–Part I

Congratulations to La Plata High School freshman, Victoria Ritter, who won first place at the county level for National History Day in Maryland. Inspired in part, by Escaping Into the Night, Victoria wrote a performance piece on Children Hiding in the Holocaust. Victoria writes, “I did not realize that children were hiding during the Holocaust until I read your book then I started to read more and was so fascinated. ” Her character, Hanne, like my character, Halina, is made up, but her experiences are based on historical research.

Following is the first part of Victoria’s piece. The rest will follow in another post.

Hanne: A Young Jewish Girl’s Story

Mother loved that wretched thing; well she didn’t have to practice it every single day. It hurt my arm, holding it up. Sometimes I just wanted to throw the piece of wood away. My chance came. German Officers were coming around asking for all musical instruments, my mother wanted to hide it, but I said “no you can’t defy law!” So she came down with my violin and with sad eyes gave it to the officer. A little bit later Germany said I couldn’t play with my non-Jewish friends, not even go to school with them!! We were no longer allowed at the pool or the ice skating rink. Girls had to add Sarah to their name and boys had to add Israel. I was now Hanne Sarah. We also had to carry an identification card. Mother handed me a Star of David and said I had to wear it, all day, everyday.

We were ordered to pack our things once. “Moving, that’s what we were doing” said father. “Just imagine it as an adventure”. The Ghetto Rules were horrible. We couldn’t stop near the fence, we had to be quiet and work hard, we had a curfew and could not go through the streets after dark, we had to salute German officials and we could not have jewelry. We could only send letters from the ghetto to friends back home on certain days. Of course we didn’t always follow the rules. During work we whispered to each other when the Germans weren’t looking, and mother and I had a tiny set of jewelry we hid under a floorboard of our ghetto house. When we arrived at our new home, we were appalled. It was disgusting.

We didn’t have much to unpack since we had become poor just before we moved. Mother and Father could no longer work their jobs because of the laws. Mother got a factory job, just as I did in a different factory. Father got a job digging ditches. Mother and I both tried to clean the house a little with a piece of cloth I had found off the streets. Everyone had to work in the ghetto. When another family moved in with us things became even harder. I slept on the floor. There was hardly room to stand. The new family was bothersome. I felt cold-hearted like Hitler and the Nazi’s when I thought it for I knew they all had to go through the same trouble, but the other family was the type to snitch on any Jews breaking the rules just because they wanted to try to stay in favor with the Nazis and live. We were always hungry. We were given one loaf of bread per week and it tasted like cardboard. Our soup was a pot of water with an old turnip in it.

Then one day when I heard the news I didn’t know what to do. The other family had apparently told German soldiers that we had been doing something illegal and so the Nazis went to find father, then took him to a ditch and shot him along with others. Mother cried all day.

At one point Mother said to me “Hanne, I would like you go on the Kindertransport, any children in this camp are allowed to go. It will take you to England where you can live with a foster family.” But I told her that I could be anywhere, even away from the Nazis, and still be unhappy because I was not with her. So, I stayed. We knew that whatever happened though, we could NOT go to a concentration camp. Not one single person had we ever known to come back from one. Mother looked into ways of getting out of the Ghetto. And one day Mother heard that a group called the Partisans was helping many Jews go into hiding in the forest.