Broken Beginnings:

Trigger Warning this story deals with the Holocaust, it is fictionalized of course but I’ve done my best to be as factual as possible without taking from the plot-line!

I was ten, the first time my world changed.

Bobbe handed me a worn leather journal that day, tears filling her eyes!

“You are too young now to understand the importance of these pages, or what a miracle it is that this journal even survived, but this is our story, our history. A truth that will die with us if these stories are not told.”

The conviction in Bobe’s voice, a voice thick with tears told me the importance of these words, the numbers tattooed on her forearm told of the horrors, and just what a miracle it was that she was here to tell her story.

“Babula. I know this is a heavy weight to carry, but I know with G-d you can carry it. And this story though sad it is not without hope. I found Yeshua in those barracks, when all hope was lost he brought me hope.

I opened the journal, not quite ready for what they would bring me, the pain, the hope, the tears!

Bobbe was gone now, like so many survivors, and she was right, we had to tell the stories, stories, that too many no longer heard as hard as they were they needed to be told.

If we don’t learn from history, it’s bound to repeat itself,

I had opened the journal and really began reading it, the summer between my Freshmen and Sophomore year and High School just a few days before we lost Bobe, that day had crushed me and the only thing that brought me comfort was reading Bobe’s words, written in her own hand no matter how hard they were.

Chapter One:

November.09.1938

The world has gone mad! Is it the end? All we hear is the sound of glass breaking everywhere, I cannot even begin to describe the sound. It is all I can do to keep Naomi from crying out, they call us identical twins, but the only thing that is identical about us is that we look the same. There was a problem when Naomi was born just a short time after I was, so she’s forever like a four-year-old, although we are both soon to be twelve, old enough to celebrate our Bat-Mitzvah, but how can we when evil is trying to destroy us. Mother says we cannot let madness win, and I know she is right, but it is hard.

We do not dare to go outside, to make any noise, we will eventually have to go out to get food, but everyday they make it harder for Jews to get what they need, to go where they need. They are slowly stripping life from us, and too many take pleasure from doing this.

It is all too much, to much pain, to much hurt, but we must fight, we cannot let the evil win,

Mother says someday we will be able to share the truth with the rest of the world, the truth we are not even fully aware of, but how do we tell them what we do not know? How do we tell them if we do not survive?

I must make myself think of happy things, the joy we will experience when this is all over.

I think the first thing I will do, is visit the library, and check out all the books my arms can carry and read for as long as I want.