Maria 8B

By: Maria Cortez, 8B 

This diary entry was found in Auschwitz near the place where the fence was, back in WW2, few years after the Second World War ended.  Just a small piece of paper under a rock, with a very sentimental message. All this written by a little boy, which was in the concentration camp.  Apparently, Shmuel (a Jewish boy), made a friend at Auschwitz, but were they allowed to be friends, or may I say best friends? This piece of paper is now in a museum in Germany. 

“The day that I met my everyday company” 

“Three weeks ago, I made a new friend! His name is Bruno, he is really nice, but very different than me. First of all, he lives on the other side of the fence, which means he probably has a good life, but in reality compared to my life everything is good! Bruno is a nice kid, oh and do you want to know a fun fact about him, his birthday is in the exact same day as mine, April the 15th, 1934. That is probably one of the few things we have in common!  Yeah, I know that we both moved to Auschwitz, but you know he’s on the ‘good’ side of the fence and I’m on this side…which means he is obviously not in the concentration camp. And then the way he got here was so much different than mine, and it was so much nicer, I mean at least it sounded like it… But the true fact is that, I don’t really care if his life is better than mine, I am just really happy that I have a new friend, and even though I’ve just met him, I know he’s trustful, and we can’t always compare ourselves to the others! At least that’s what my mom told me once. Bruno is a very nice kid, but I don’t think he knows the reality that he is living in. Every time, he asks me what would be the problem of just coming on this side of the fence to play. I mean, I don’t think he really understands what the fence is separating; I don’t think he understands that we, us people in the striped pyjamas, don’t play around and run and jump. WE are not allowed! But I don’t really know how to tell him that, I think that he is going to get mad. I mean not at me but…he would probably be mad at his father (the Commandant), and of course we don’t want that… I don’t want Bruno to be mad at his father and not say anything about it. Oh yeah, I forgot to say, but we have this thing that we decided just between us two, and that thing is, NOT to tell anyone about our friendship! And if we can’t talk about each other to other people, it means that if I tell Bruno that we are not allowed to play on this side of fence, he is going to be mad at his father. But if he can’t ask anything about this to his father (because he is going to make questions), it means that Bruno is going to have a lot of thoughts about this and then he   is going to ask me questions that I’m not willing to answer. So I think that I am just going to keep my mouth shut, and if he asks again if we can play, I’ll just say no again! 

 You know, I am very happy I met Bruno, I feel like he is a miracle! If he hadn’t been exploring, I would just be here all day lonely, having sad thoughts, I would be so… No, no,no,  never mind! ‘Shmuel stop it, we are not going to do this, Bruno makes you happy, and just thank that you met him!’.  Even though I’ve just met Bruno (3 weeks ago) I feel like I’ve known him for the longest, and I hope he feels that too. But, I know why that is, it’s because when we are together we just talk, we have the best conversations. He tells me about his life before moving to ‘Out-with’ as he says. I already know that he lived in Berlin, his house had 5 floors, he has a sister (Gretel) and he calls her the Hopeless Case, but Bruno says she is not very nice to him. He says that Gretel thinks that just because she is older, she can make fun of him, and think she is better in everything. But, I don’t think that’s very nice, my brother Josef is nothing like that! 

Bruno might be very nice and all, but sometimes I feel like he doesn’t know what he’s saying , sometimes he is a little bit dumb, no offense, but it is true. For example, in the day that we met, I don’t really remember why,  but we started to talk about Poland, and then he says that Poland is in Denmark! And in my head I’m like: ‘what is going on?! This boy doesn’t know a single thing that he’s saying…’ He says that Poland is in Denmark, but we are in Poland… Bruno didn’t even know that we were in Poland; it was me that told him, on the first day that we were together! He just said that Poland was in Denmark because he didn’t know where Poland was, and he thought it was many miles away, (even though we were in Poland). And he knew that Denmark was very far away (at least he knew that…), so he just said that Poland was in Denmark. So random right?! It was a little bit funny, but I didn’t want to laugh because I know it would be rude! And I know how it feels when someone makes fun of you , because when we were taken to the other side of the city in Cracow, and my family and another family lived in a single room, there was this guy called Luka (he was bigger than me) he was always making fun of me and hitting me. I hated him, I mean I hate him! I hate him and people that are like him, people that are bullies, like Lieutenant Kotler – he thinks he is the biggest man in the world, and just because he’s a soldier he thinks he can do whatever he wants, even talk in a very rude manner to older people – people that are bullies, just bully because they are not okay with themselves, my mom told me this when Luka was not nice to me. She gives the best advice! She is one of my best friends. My mom is one, my father is another, my  brother is another and Bruno is another!  I did have best friends in my old school, but I haven’t seen them in so long, so they don’t count anymore! My family are my best friends, but now my best best friend is Bruno. Seeing him everyday and he being exactly the same age helps a lot! He understands me so well (in some things)! 

Every day that passes since the day I met Bruno I feel like I get to know him better and better, and I think I really like him. He is really fun to be with, I love the conversations I have with him, the games we play (not many, but still fun), every single second that we are together is so nice! I say he is my best friend, not just because he is my age, or not just because I love the conversations we have, but also because we’ve never been mad at each other. I’m a very calm person, and Bruno also doesn’t get mad very often (at me at least)… Oh there’s a soldier coming, I have to go! 

Just to finish very quickly before he sees me with the diary, I really liked meeting Bruno three weeks ago, he is my new best friends! 

Bye!”