Finding Light In The Darkness

Greetings! It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Zara Afridi. I am in 8th grade and a student at Natomas Pacific Pathways Prep Middle School (NP3). During the end of the year, we had the opportunity to learn about the Holocaust and what it was and what happened during the Holocaust. Our theme was “Finding Light in the Darkness”. We also had a chance to read non-fictional books about the Holocaust. I am writing specifically to you because I want you to know what I have learned from this unit. It is very exciting to write to a real Holocaust survivor volunteer because the Holocaust happened such a long time ago and i never knew that people from that time are still alive. So,here we go.

During our unit, I had the chance to read ¨We Are Witnesses¨.

The first example was in Eva Heyman’s Diary, she said, “Yet my little Diary, I don 't want to die,I still want to live...I would wait” (Heyman). Eva Heyman was a 13 year old girl born in February 13, 1931 who loved fashion and had a bestfriend named Marta Munzer. She is saying that she still wanted to live and she didn’t want to die. This shows the theme of “Finding Light in the Darkness” and it made me feel very sad and upset because i knew that she did die. So her wish never really came true. I felt very bad about her. The second example was in Anne Frank’s diary. In her diary, she says, “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy” (Frank). Anne Frank is one of the most famous discussed person from the Holocaust as you may know. She is also my favorite character in this book. She meant that even though there was terrible things going on around her,she still tried to find a way to be happy. It made me sad that she didn’t make it but I was proud of her about the fact that she tried to find a way to be happy. That also relates to theme we are learning about. The third example was in Yitzhak Rudashevski diary and he wrote, “In our group two important and interesting things were decided. We