Blog Entry #1 All But My Life by Gerda Weissman Klein

When I first began reading All But My Life I just thought it was going to be another boring and depressing book. But as I got into the book and started visualizing what was actually happening within the story that is when it truly got to me. The things Hitler and his followers (Nazis) did to the Jewish people of Germany was completely inhuman and cruel. I would never want my valuables and my home taken from me, but who would? No one, not even Hitler or the Nazis. I believe that you should treat people how you want to be treated and it absolutely horrifies me that something like the Holocaust really happened in this world. It made me extremely uncomfortable reading what had happened to the Jewish people in Germany. I felt Gerda's pain, when she mentioned her brother Arthur leaving. Personally, I would go insane if my brother ever left. The story made me anxious, when they were talking about Gerda and her family waiting for Arthur to write them. I thought that he would have died at the beginning. It made me feel at ease, when Gisa wrote Gerda's family to say that Arthur was okay. But it made me upset, when Peter told Gerda that Gisa was just telling that to Gerda and her family to make them feel better. If I was Gerda I would have told my mama and papa, but thank God that Arthur was actually okay and escaped to Russia. Gerda was a strong girl throughout the Holocaust and I probably wouldn't have been able to take anything that any of the Jewish people of Germany took. I would not give up my house and I would not let some "perfect" German people live in the house I paid for or lived in for my entire life. I would have rebelled or I would have died because that isn't right taking things that aren't rightfully yours. Honestly, I think that anyone who participated in the Holocaust as a Nazi or as someone who didn't do anything on helping the Jewish people should be ashamed of themselves. I forgot to meant Trude, if I was Gerda I would have killed her. Trude was ungrateful, because she and her grandmother lived in Gerda's basement rent-free for doing laundry. That would have drove me completely off the edge. I would had to hit Trude or something. Honestly, I think that it is horrible, scary, and hurtful that any human or any thing that is living had to go through the Holocaust. It's like a bad nightmare, but you're actually in reality. I have the utmost respect for Gerda, her family, and any other person who went through the Holocaust. It is a miracle that Gerda or anyone survived through all of the abuse. But I thank God that the Holocaust is over and that people lived to tell there stories.