Essay Questions

Why did so few children survive Auschwitz?

Fewer than sixty children were alive at the time of liberation, and that is largely because the Nazis planned it that way. Their objective in creating the death camps was to exterminate all Jews, and to eliminate the Jewish race from Europe forever. They believed that the quickest way to do this was to kill the next generation so that there would simply be no Jewish children left to grow up into adulthood.

The children at the camp were generally killed as soon as they arrived; they would be sent immediately to the gas chambers. A few were housed in the children's barracks, and usually used by the camp guards to run errands or to work in some other capacity. Those who were spared the gas chamber were fed so little food that they usually died of either starvation or a disease that was rife in the camp. Michael survived because of his mother's courage in protecting him, but not all of the children housed with him had a parent still alive at the camp. They were really on their own at a very young age and this also did not help their chances of survival.

How were some Polish Jews able to escape the ghetto before they were transferred to a death camp?

Many of the Polish Jews who escaped did so through the courage and bravery of others who put themselves and their families at risk in order to save the lives of strangers. One example was a Japanese diplomat and business owner who, despite his country's allegiance with Germany in the war, issued thousands of exit visas for Polish Jews who wanted to flee to Japan. Had this been discovered he would have been arrested, and sent to one of the internment camps himself.

Michael's aunt was hidden for a long time by a Catholic priest who allowed her, and others, to hide in the church. Despite many visits from the Gestapo, he continued to hide her. Although she was ultimately discovered and killed, the priest himself never gave her away. As time went on, more and more Catholics found themselves arrested and taken to Auschwitz for assisting Jews, unable to sit back and watch what was going on around them without doing something about it.