3 Points: reading a letter by a child living through the holocaust was eye opening and saddening, as she had expressed gratitude and appreciation for her families letters. I admire how appreciative she is of the little packages and letters she had received and treasures from her family, she said it was like having “A little piece of you”. So grateful for them. She was very optimistic and positive, as she had hope for being together again with her family. That is the only thing that she looks forward to. Misses her siblings and parents and doesn’t want anyone to worry about her. It’s just sad thinking about how this was the last letter she had sent before she was killed in the womens concentration camp in France. Considering her living conditions, she was so thoughtful and uplifting with the way she wrote these letters. She wanted to make sure everyone she loved was doing okay. Another letter that I read about, young girl, She secretly wrote this last letter in a bunker as her last goodbye, knowing she was going to die soon. Poured out all her her last thoughts, as she was trembling and crying with her mother and father. She knew everything was lost but was proud to be Jewish and dying for her people. I just thought this was packed with so much emotion, as she wished the best for everyone who would be alive reading this but you can tell this letter was rushed. The last point I have is that I think that from what I have read so far regarding holocaust letters, they either are pouring out emotion and last minute appreciation and gratitude for their lives and religion or writing about having hope for the future.
2 Questions: one question I have is how the secretly written letters from the holocaust were preserved and the second is, how was anti-Jewish legislation in Germany established?
1 aha Moment: Having listened to my classmates presentations on different Muhlenberg alumni who had served during WWII, I gained a deeper understanding of their personal experiences and relationships, as I had an insight to specific emotions and situations that they had wrote about in letters to the office of Muhlenberg alumni or their loved ones. Considering some of their letters were v-mail, it was interesting to see how they had to get around to the restrictions on what they could say. In general, I was pleasantly surprised with how positive and hopeful most of the letters were. The alumni were grateful for the ability to write letters and the ones sent to them were something they could hold on to from their old lives with their families and at Muhlenberg. I admire how a lot of them had a great perspective on life, even though they had to give up their last year/years at Muhlenberg, and some went to achieve great things after the war was over.
