Alicia My Story, Book Summary Essay -- essays research papers

The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book starts she is ten years old, she lives in the Polish town of Buczacz with her four brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio, and Herzl, and her mother and father . The holocaust experience began subtly at first when the Russians began to occupy Buczacz. When her brother Moshe was killed at a â€Å" Boys School† in Russia and her father was gathered up by German authorities, the reality of the whole situation quickly became very real. Her father was taken away shortly after the Russians had moved out and the Germans began to occupy Buczacz. Once the Germans occupied, they moved the Jewish population of Buczacz into mass ghettos. Alicia and the rest of her family had to share a house with several other families which had also been driven out of there homes. The only source of income in this situation was to sell things at the marketplace, and even there, Jews were forbidden. Alicia went anyway and sold what she could for food and money.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One day her brother Bunio disappeared from the ghetto. Alicia and her family found out later that he had been taken to a work camp, but that they could send food packages to him. Shortly after this, Alicia was taken into custody by German officials and put on a train to another work camp. Alicia managed to escape from this train by jumping through a small window. She found her way to a river which led her back to the ghetto. By this time several people in the ghetto had been feeling the effects of the impoverished conditions. Starvation, Typhoid, and other diseases, were beginning to take its toll on the people who lived in the ghetto. Then one day, Alicia found out that her brother Bunio had been killed in the work camp. A boy had escaped so they lined up all the boys and shot every fourth one .   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As time progressed, Alicia began assuming more responsibility for the daily tasks of the family such as going out and trading for more food in places other than the marketplace. While this was going on, Zachary and a few other boys from the ghetto had been forming a sort of resistance. One day Alicia was informed that her brother had been hanged. After Zachary’s death, Alicia was befriended by a woman named Bella. She met many good friends in the ghetto including a future friend as well as savior, Milek  ... ...and the police wanted to find out who was buying things from her. Over a span of 8 months they were kept but finally they were released. They received a lot of money from people that had been saved by their withholding of evidence. Alicia and her friend took this money and bought a train ticket to Lodz. They were stopped in Lvov because they went to get some tea while stopped at a station, but the train took off without them and they left all of their belongings on the train. Next they boarded a train to Krakow, and parted ways there. In Krakow, Alicia was staying at a rather large house with another family. She built a sort of orphanage by gathering up homeless children from the neighborhood. She lived with this family for a long time, and during this time she learned about a way that she could go to Eretz Island, Israel where she could be safe. She left her orphanage and went on a long journey where she met many people that were like her, in that she didn’t like to see people suffer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alicia made it to Israel but was taken by British border patrol officers to a jail on Cypress for coming into the country illegally. She was then released from Cyprus.