What was it like accepting your fate in WWII?
During WWII when people were being executed for merely holding the identity of a Jew, hostages had no method to reach their voice out to the world except by writing letters, hoping that the receivers would get to read them before they were executed. For a lot of the letters, this was not the case, the writers couldn’t convey their news to their families who were hiding elsewhere; instead, 84 years later, we get to read them.
From only reading two of the numerous letters, so much was shared, a wide variety of information was taught, and yet despite the hostages living an almost identical day-to-day crisis, their letters were told from different perspectives, making each letter unique.
One concept one must point out as a starting point is that Jews were captured from all over the world. You didn’t have to be a Jew living in Germany to fall under the Nazi’s regime, you just had to be a Jew who was not hiding too well compared to the search methods of the Nazis who investigated every square inch.
Some were in Poland (now Belarus) very far east from Germany, others were Italian, some were Turkish, and the list goes on… You just had to be a Jew…
Letter 1:
Prison, Milan
By Claire
May 1944
Claire was a Turkish Jewish citizen who moved to Italy with her husband in 1938 where they had a daughter and a son. When WW2 began, the mother, Claire and her son hid at their aunt’s house where they were then caught and sent together to prison with her child. The father was later also caught when his business partner betrayed him to the Germans which shows how inhumane ppl can be perhaps for money greed or fear from the gov. The only survivor was Carmen, the daughter who no one knows how she survived. It doesn’t mention what happened with their son but he was imprisoned with his mom and assuming executed when his mother was.
Letter 2:
Druja, Poland
Fanya 1942 (3 years after war began)
Druja was from Poland (Belarus) went to Russian school yet was still sent to concentration camps for being a jew which shows that the prejudice can be diverse. She was very faithful and strong and wrote on the behalf of her relatives expressing that she is watching jews being executed one by one and is waiting for their turn not knowing when. She uses a very powerful yet sad simile comparing themselves to sheep on the slaughter. She writes on the behalf of a baby who doesn’t understand anything and ends her letter with a religious phrase.
It is so cruel and sorrowful that she was informing her husband that she and the child were ok, but perhaps by the time the husband received the letter, they were probably murdered. Perhaps her husband did not even read it because it was said that he was murdered shortly after the mother’s execution.
These letters function to express the oppression and unexplainable prejudice. That even children, unaware that they were Jewish, were being killed for their identity.
