It's surprising to read All But My Life. As Gerda mentioned in the book, she and others never thought any human could commit such crimes that occur in the first half of her book. The suspense came right off the bat on page one when she feels that time stopped at 9:10 a.m. What happened? What's going on? Those were the thoughts that flooded through my mind as I continued to read. Other than the fact that Gerda and her way of life was chaning gradually, her life seemed fairly good. I knew that when Arthur left home to go to war, that her life and her family's life would never be the same. To me, it seems that Abek is an annoying pest that will not leave Gerda alone. I really wish Gerda could have given a clue as to if she really loved him or not. Moving to the ghetto ruined Gerda's view on life and her hope for the future. It killed me when her father went on a different train and when her mother got separated from her. "Be strong," those were Gerda's mother's final words to her before she left on a big black truck. What was to come? A horrible time for her young life where all that she knew before was crumbling at her feet.