The Story of a Holocaust Survivor | Teen Ink

The Story of a Holocaust Survivor

April 8, 2012
By Taconut7 GOLD, Cohasset, Minnesota
Taconut7 GOLD, Cohasset, Minnesota
17 articles 1 photo 34 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life&#039;s challenges are not to bring you down, they are to help you become a stronger and better person! -Me<br /> <br /> &quot;If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will forever live its life believing it is stupid.&quot; - Albert Einstein


My name is Bronia
And I have a story to tell,
It was when I was forced to live
In a place more vicious then he**.

This story of he** started
When I was only 12 years old,
In a little old house in Vienna
That was always covered in mold.

One day the Germans
Came knocking on our door,
They said we had to leave our house
To bring only our clothes and nothing more.

My parents were then chosen
As the first ones to go,
We had begged to go with them
But the officers had told us no.

As we hugged our parents
And said our goodbyes,
It took all of my strength
To try not to cry.

They were shoved into a boxcar
Of an evil looking train,
And that’s when my happiness
Was flushed down the drain.


My siblings and I were next
Shoved into a small little box,
With a little bread and water
As if we were just a fox.

The train started to move
Into the dark and dangerous night,
While we stood there on the train
All of us filled with fright.

My little siblings kept sobbing
Asking for dad and mom
My older sister and I comforted them
Even though I was struggling to be calm

The nights were cold
And the days were hot
All we had to “go” in
Was a small little pot

We stayed on the train for days
Until we finally arrived at the camp,
A sign spelled Auschwitz, in dark red letters
I then got pushed out as my legs started to cramp

Suddenly there was shouting and chaos
As they forced us to run,
If anyone stopped to rest
They would get shot in the head with a gun.


First they shaved my head
And then tattooed my arm,
Next they gave me clothes
That looked like they were made on a farm.


We went to our bunks that night
To lay down and try to sleep,
When just outside there were corpses
That lay in a piled heap.

The next day my older sister and I
Were assigned to work in the fields,
While the rest of my younger siblings
Were told they had to heel.

We begged them to by spared
That they were too young to die
They just laughed and grabbed them by the hair
As my sister and I solemnly said are last goodbyes

They were sent to the gas chambers
And were thrown into the fire,
My sister and I watched
As their souls flew higher and higher.

My sister got sick with an illness one day
Which spread throughout our block,
The illness didn’t spread to me
Because I was as hard as a rock.

The head of the block called me down and told me
The whole block was going to be shot,
But since I was healthy I would be spared
But unfortunately my sister would not.


I pleaded with the officer
Asking if there was another way
He firmly told me no
So I then started to pray

God, O Father of heaven and earth
Please make sure my sister reaches you
Re-unite her with our siblings
So one day I can visit them too

I watched them drag my sister
Into a big deep hole,
And then they pulled the trigger
As the air around me turned cold.

One day I was told
That the front was getting to near,
We then set out West on a death march
And that’s when I was filled with fear.

We had to trudge through snow
The cold air nipping at my nose,
After walking for a while
I could no longer feel my toes.

When we finally reached another camp
We were told to find a bunk,
I had to squeeze in with 5 other people
But when I did I just closed my eyes and sunk.


A few days later a siren went off
And that’s when we had to hide,
We watched as the Russian Army approached
And that’s when luck had finally joined our side.


Gun shots were fired
And the SS officers dropped dead,
We then came out of hiding
As the Russian Army said.

Your days of living in he**
Are no more,
We then cheered hooray
With a mighty big roar.

I will never forget that day
Because it was such a beautiful sight,
So let’s make sure this will never happen again
So no one will never again have to live with fright.


The author's comments:
I wrote this piece to remind people of the pain and torture the victims of the holocaust went through. I especially wrote it for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I also made it have a rhyme scheme of ABAB

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This article has 7 comments.


Cat521 SILVER said...
on Dec. 29 2013 at 1:02 pm
Cat521 SILVER, Berwick, Maine
6 articles 0 photos 14 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Think, before you speak. Know, before you react. Love, before you hate. There is far too much anger and hatred in the world for you to be the cause of anymore.&quot;

This was beautiful and meaningful and it's really amazing to take inspiration from someone own life and make it into something that someone could almost feel.

on Jan. 10 2013 at 6:39 am
thatunknownthing DIAMOND, Dubai, Other
67 articles 0 photos 208 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift; that&#039;s why they call it the present&quot;

this makes a nice ballad, though it doesn't dig too far back into history, and you have made a spectacular job of rhyming your poem well, though i felt that for some lines, you tried too hard to get the rhyming right and have missed out on making them interesting or meaningful. overall, it's great, and I admire your rhyming skills, of which i posses very little! please take some time to pose your views on my work, too. thanks :)

on Apr. 23 2012 at 4:07 pm
JoPepper PLATINUM, Annandale, Virginia
35 articles 0 photos 782 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Freedom is the ability to not care what the other person thinks.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;Not all those who wander are lost&quot; --JRR Tolkien<br /> <br /> &quot;When you are listening to music it is better to cover your eyes than your ears.&quot; --Jose&#039; Bergamin

I really liked I am fascinated by this subject even though its depressing.  Sometime's I felt that the poem fell out of the rhythm.  But other than that I really liked it keep writing! :)

on Apr. 20 2012 at 10:03 am
amahzing_grace GOLD, Prattville, Alabama
12 articles 0 photos 25 comments

Favorite Quote:
I pay no attention whatever to anybody&#039;s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. <br /> -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

this is really really good  (: it moved me.

on Apr. 15 2012 at 8:56 pm
bearsfan654 SILVER, Elmhurst, Illinois
7 articles 8 photos 47 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Feb 20, 1962, The USA launches John Glenn into Earth orbit. Something America could do fifty years ago.... but not today.&quot; - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Great job! I loved how vivid your poem was. It definitely shows the importance of an event that happened so long ago. 

Taconut7 GOLD said...
on Apr. 15 2012 at 5:20 pm
Taconut7 GOLD, Cohasset, Minnesota
17 articles 1 photo 34 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life&#039;s challenges are not to bring you down, they are to help you become a stronger and better person! -Me<br /> <br /> &quot;If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will forever live its life believing it is stupid.&quot; - Albert Einstein

Thanks for your feedback! I actually took a holocaust survivor's story that I found online and wrote a poem about it. So they deserve some credit also.

on Apr. 15 2012 at 2:05 pm
gb12197 PLATINUM, Bridgeport, Pennsylvania
20 articles 3 photos 23 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;next time you feel like a failure, think about how you are alive, and you have the opportunity to be successful.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;i don&#039;t have an attitude, i have a personality you can&#039;t handle&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;i am weird&quot;

good job! really great imagery and rhyme. it is so hard to believe that people actually went through this. you did such a great job putting emotion into, it is impossible to portray what they really felt, because it is undescribable, but i say you did a great job putting in those emotions (anger, sorrow,pain, ect.)