Alicia

A group of ladies at church just started a book club and I just finished reading the first book the group chose. It was titled Alicia: My Story written by Alicia Appleman-Jurman. It's an autobiography about her survival in Poland during World War II as a young Jewish girl. It was really difficult to read, not only because she included some of the language that the German soldiers used towards the Jews, but also just because the horror was incredible. One night I read for a couple of hours before bedtime and ended up dreaming about it all night. After that I decided I could only read it for short periods of time in order to keep myself unemotionally involved. While she spent a couple of weeks in a German prison and a few months in a Russian prison, mostly her experience of the German occupation was spent trying to find enough food and hide from the soldiers and police. I was amazed at her bravery and her ability to think on her feet. That is really the only way she was able to survive -- well, and of course the many times when divine intervention stepped in on her behalf. I am glad that I read it because it was such a moving story and I really learned a lot. I'm not sure that I could recommend it to everyone to read because it was so emotionally taxing to read about and to think about the brutality and discrimination the Jewish people faced. One part that struck me was a time when she came across a couple of hundred refugees who had made a camp in the forest. She did her best to hide her identity as a Jew, but apparently she was recognized. After these people had befriended her around their campfires and shared their food with her for two weeks, a German soldier on horseback happened upon their camp. She saw a man immediately go up to soldier and point her out. I was shocked at the betrayal. Did he hold the same prejudices against Jews that Hitler was preaching to the Germans? Or was it just out of his fear that the soldier would kill them if he found they were harboring a Jew? How could he sleep well at night knowing he sent a young girl off to her death in order to save his own life? It turned out that the soldier didn't kill her, but she was fully expecting to be shot on the spot.

I think mostly it has made me look introspectively at how much I look out for myself compared to how much I am willing to help other people. I've never been faced with the horrible option of turning over neighbors to the authorities or be considered myself a traitor such as the people in Europe faced in the 1940s, but I would hope that I would have enough compassion and integrity to try to help others rather than save myself. I just don't know how brave I could really be. I'm grateful I haven't had that kind of test, but I do face questions of being kind to others or looking out for my own comfort and ease all the time. I hope after reading this book I will be kinder than I have been in the past.