All But My Life Book Summary

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I just read this great book I would suggest to any one. All But My Life written by Gerda Weissmann Klein. The story begins on September 3, 1939, when she is fifteen. On this day the beginning of horror that lasted six years. She was living in Bielitz, Poland, where she was born, and she reacts with terror as she watches her neighbors meet the invading Nazis with happiness. They were trying to hide the fact of war from Gerda’s father because he was sick and they didn’t want to worry him. When their town was invaded they couldn’t keep it a secret from him any more. Bad things started happening to the Jews, and the Nazis were taking Jewish men. In October, Gerda’s brother Arthur, was forced to leave with a Nazi and all of the other young men in town. Gerda never sees him again, but she got letters from him throughout alot of the war. The situation becomes more and more severe for the Jews, as the Aryan neighbors take advantage of the situation by…show more content…
In 1942, the family is forced into a Jewish ghetto and ordered to work for the German war effort. It is not long before all the Jews are told they will be moved out of town so Bielitz can be free of Jews. Gerda is separated from her parents and never sees them again. After she goes to a transit camp in Sosnowitz, where Abek’s family makes sacrifices to try and get her freedom. Then she chooses to not go with them because she realizes that she will be so thoroughly in their debt that she will be forced to marry Abek, and she doesn’t want to. Gerda and Ilse are then transported to a labor camp that specializes in weaving, which they are forced to do for the German war effort. Gerda regularly receives loving letters from Abek while in the
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