Alicia: My Story - Alicia Appleman Jurman

Alicia: My Story

Alicia Appleman Jurman

I have recently read several books relating to the Holocaust.
The latest one that I read was by Alicia Appleman Jurman.
This book was written in 1989, I can’t understand how I haven’t come across it before now.
In her autobiography - Alicia: My Story - Alicia writes of her experience as a young Jewish girl escaping the Nazis by hiding out in the forests and wheat fields of Poland. In her account as a survivor of the Holocaust, she observed some terrible sights, she saw babies shot in their cots; some people starve to death and others being inhumanly beaten or fed to hungry dogs. Luckily Alicia escaped the massacres and mass graves that so many of her friends were victims of.
Alicia expresses a physical insolence and heroism that stays with you when the book is finished.

This story is, I think, the most persuasive memoirs of the era. Alicia was the only daughter and the second youngest of Sigmund and Frieda Jurman’s five children. From the age of five, thefamily in Buczacz, Poland, which was about one third Jewish at that time, She was unaware of the anti-Semitism that was in her town, as well as the rest of Europe. This was all to change on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland, and nine year old Alicia would gradually have her whole family brutally taken from her.
This young girl witnessed events that devastated her youth.
One by one, her family was taken away from her, all cruelly killed by their enemies. Her second-eldest brother, Moshe, was the first to die.One at a time, her friends disappeared, never to be seen again.
There are many, many books that have been written about the Holocaust, what makes this book stand out is that all the horrors that we hear about are witnessed by a young girl who simply refuses to give in and give up. Alicia was an amazingly strong girl who did anything she could to survive.

When another of her brothers - Zachary - was caught and hanged right in front of the police building for everyone to see. She swore on his grave that she would protect her mother and only remaining little brother, and that if she survived she would avenge her family.
Unfortunately she could not save her mother and brother but this book is a powerful and unforgettable fulfilment of the second part of that oath.

At the age of twelve, Alicia, along with thousands of other Jews, were arrested by the Nazi's, but she managed to escape from the train taking her to the death camps, together with a group of other young people. She was put through the ordeal of holding a little girl’s hand as they walked to the train, the little girl carried a doll, which she dropped as they walked. Alicia then saw a German soldier pick up the doll, hand it to the little girl, and then shoot her in the face.

Alicia never had to experience the death camps her self; but she did live in continuous fear, and survived through skill and luck She had to endure witnessing her mother's brutal death, starvation, physical and mental deprivation. Despite all this, Alicia managed to re-establish her faith in herself, God and in her people.

Alicia goes from crisis to crisis and there seems no end to her problems, even after the Nazis have been defeated and war is over. This is not a story about being in a concentration camp, but it shows that life was just as hard for the people who weren't sent to the camps. Take The Diary of Anne Frank, her book told about Jews in hiding, not about her life in a concentration camp but it is still a powerful and important book.

I thought that this was a truly remarkable story, and a well-written book that kept my attention from start to finish. The horrific fact that everything in it is true makes it even more astonishing. It kept me intrigues on every page, as I read of her fight to survive.I cannot comprehend how someone managed to come through the kind of hell that Alicia recalls. I know for certain that I could not have undergone the persistent persecution that she experienced. This young lady was an incredible and brave and I, for one, will never forget her story

The 448 pages of this book, although an autobiography, reads like a good novel – except you would think that some of the factual events were too far fetched! I would recommend it to anyone over the age of 13, it really is a humbling book that everyone should read.

Today Alicia lectures to young people about the story of the people in her area of Poland and how they survived – or didn’t, in a hope that she can help stop such atrocities happening again.

In the conclusion of her book, Alicia writes:

”Through the story of 'Alicia', I wish to reach out, not only to survivors like myself, but to all people. I hope that it will help strengthen today's youth by imparting a better understanding of the true history of my entire generation. I believe my book can teach young people what enormous reserves of strength they possess within themselves. I pray that it's readers, Jew and non-Jew alike, may unite in the resolve that evil forces will never again be permitted to set one people against another”

I echo that sentiment.