Have you ever stopped to think about how fortunate you are and how facile survival is for you? Survival means to manage to stay alive in any situation using whatever methods required to maintain yourself alive. Today, there are numerous people who have to survive by escaping their homes because of wars occurring there, such as the Syrian refugees. They abandon their homes and almost all of their possessions in order to survive the situation and start their lives anew somewhere else. The Holocaust was a terrible moment in time where millions of Jews and other groups of people were massacred purely because of their beliefs.
Under Adolf Hitler’s rule, Nazi Germany slaughtered a countless amount of Jews because he thought that they had committed crimes against them in the past. Two examples of young girls who endured the Holocaust were Anne Frank and Krystyna Chiger, who entered hiding because of the Nazi persecution. Both of these girls were forced to use similar yet diverse survival skills to be able to stay alive during this period of time. Initially, Anne Frank was a young and lively teenager who lived through the last years of her life hidden away from the Nazis in the attic of a building.
Anne Frank was thirteen years old when her older sister Margot received a call up from the Nazis to enter a labor camp. Their father, Otto Frank, had already made arrangements for their family to go into hiding previously. Anne, Margot, Otto, and her mother Edith all entered hiding in the attic of Otto’s office building, which was dubbed the Secret Annex. Along with the Franks went the Van Daan family, who consisted of Hermann Van Daan, Auguste Van Daan, and their son, Peter Van Daan. Eventually, Albert Dussel, a dentist, joined them as well.
With the aid of Otto’s non-Jew associates, the members in the Secret Annex hid from the Nazis for over two years. Their living space was compact and cramped, and they could not create noise at certain hours when the office workers were downstairs. To spend the time in the attic, Anne kept a diary in which she wrote her thoughts and feelings because the believed that no one else understood her. Later on in her time hiding, Anne and Peter fell in love with each other and they found that they were able to share their feelings with each other.
Additionally, to acquire more money for food and other necessities, Mrs. Van Daan had to sell her fur coat, which she wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about, but it was necessary for the Van Daans to earn money. In the end, the members of the Secret Annexe were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and they all perished there except for Otto, who later published Anne’s diary. In addition, Krystyna Chiger was a juvenile girl who also endured the atrocities of the Holocaust, yet survived World War II. At seven years old, her ghetto would be liquidated and her father decided to take them into hiding.
Her family consisted of her, her father, her mother, and her little brother, Pawelek. Together with other families from the ghetto, they headed towards the sewer where they would hide for 14 months. The sewer workers brought their necessities to live into the sewers, and were kind to the people in hiding. Krystyna’s younger brother was not used to the darkness, so he cried a great deal and even had a gun pointed at his head until he became accustomed to it. After five weeks of them hiding there, they were discovered, so they ran along the sewers until they arrived at a new spot where they accomodations were improved.
Eventually, the Russians liberated them and they were able to go outside for the first time in over a year. However, Pawelek had gotten so accustomed to the darkness that he was afraid of the daylight and of the large amount of people that he would rather go into the sewers again. Furthermore, both the stories of Anne Frank and Krystyna Chiger include a variety of similarities. First off, both of these people entered hiding because of the Nazi persecution. They hid in cramped and awkward spaces that were not extremely comfortable to reside in. They were both fortunate enough to hide in a sheltered location with food brought to them.
Both of them also were opportune enough to hide from the Nazis with their family members. All of their family members were there to support each other when it was needed. In addition, they hid along with other families who were also being persecuted by the Nazis. Both Anne and Krystyna succeeded in remaining hidden from the Nazis for over a year. Conversely, the stories of Anne Frank and Krystyna Chiger have an abundance of diversities. The most prominent one is that Krystyna was able to survive the war, where Anne died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a few months before the war ended.
Krystyna and her family were able to endure through the war until the end, but Anne’s family all died in the war except for her father. Krystyna’s legacy lived on through her words in person, where Anne’s legacy lived through her diary kept through her years in hiding. Another difference is that Anne was older than Krystyna when they had to enter hiding, almost twice as old, which impacts the thoughts that the person is having while hiding. The actual hiding place of these two people was also a significant difference. Anne lived in more comfort because she had better food, she had a bed, a restroom, and entertainment to pass the time.
Krystyna hid in a filthy sewer with rats that looked like chickens scampering around and yellow worms crawling on the walls. Subsequently, there have been times in my life where I have had to survive on my own. One of these times was at science camp where I was away from my parents for a week. This survival was similar to Anne’s and Krystyna’s because they were in an unknown location. I did not have any knowledge of my surroundings of where the buildings were located, but I had to figure that out slowly on my own. I had to make my own decisions evaluate if they were correct or not.
My parents were ot there to tell me what to do at science camp. My survival was diverse from Anne’s and Krystyna’s because I knew that I was safe there and that everything would be provided for me. Anne or Krystyna were not sure about what would happen the next day and if they would be safe from the Nazis or they would be captured, but I knew that I was safe there and had nothing to worry about except myself. As can be seen here, survival can be found through many people’s diverse stories, some worse than others, yet it can be found throughout the world. The Holocaust was a ghastly moment in history where dreadful events occurred because of the Nazis.
As a result of the Holocaust, countless families were required to go into hiding to prevent being sent into concentration camps by the Nazis. During this time, there were millions that were massacred based on their beliefs and others simply because they were accused of opposing their thinking. Anne Frank and Krystyna Chiger were just two out of the millions of Jews that hid because of persecution from the Nazis. Each person in the Holocaust had a unique outcome in their lives. The young lives of Anne Frank and Krystyna Chiger were ruined by the Nazis and the Holocaust, a moment in history that can never be forgotten.
