Posted by: Emily Jennings

“After a while, she whispered, ‘Hold my hand.’ I held her hand tightly, and we both fell asleep again. When I woke, it was getting light. Ilse’s hand was cold. Her eyes were half open. She no longer breathed.” (Gerda 205). My first thought when reading this part of All But My Life was that I would never be able to go on if my best friend died like Ilse did. After all the pain and humiliation, how could I possibly have the motivation to go on? How did Gerda keep her life going after such a heavy loss of friends and family? Gerda had so many chances to disobey the promise she made to her father, and then to Ilse. Both Gerda's father and Ilse made her promise that she would keep on living, but how easy would it have been to end the suffering, the inhumane treatment? It would have been only too easy. Gerda even had poison stashed away in case she wished to make everything go away; but she honored the wishes of her family and friend. Gerda was very brave, because of her courage she now has a wonderful family who loves her. Gerda's choice to live on says a lot about her; Gerda is brave and proud, she didn't take the easy way out. To think how many people ended their lives just to escape the torture. It almost seems that no one did just that, despite what you may believe, it feels as if everyone bore the horrors that happened. How is it that nearly all of Germany believed Hitler's lies? How did they allow all those innocent people to be lost forever? There is no excuse for the ignorance of the world's countries during the Holocaust. If people had only reached out and stopped Hitler from committing the greatest crime mankind has ever witnessed, if only people had rebelled against the killing of fellow humans, then millions of lives would have been spared.