Finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the Blumenthal family. The prisoners on the death train were finally liberated about a mile from the small village of Trobitz, in eastern Germany. The prisoners were so weak and ill, they didn't want to walk all the way to the village, but the Russian soldiers assured them that there was comfortable housing and food and clothing for them to have. So the prisoners mad the trek to the village, and sure enough the village had been evacuated by the people who were living there and they had left the houses open and lots of food, clothing, and animals behind. However, even many people were so hungry that they had forgotten their stomachs could not take so much food and ended up getting sick. Also, the lice came with them so those who hadn't shaved their heads yet had to, but the worst struggle was the rapid spreading of typhus, still. At this point the war was officially over, Germany had surrendered, but the former prisoners could not leave because of the severe cases of typhus. Even Walter, Marion's father, fell victim to typhus, and it ended up taking his life. This had to have been one of the saddest parts of the book for me, because Albert had to bury is own father. No child should ever have to go through that. Then finally the family was their way to Holland.
Chapter 8, along with all the other chapters, was perfectly titled "Holland Again," because that was exactly where the family was headed. Now being refugees the family really had no place to go, because they had no place to call home, and no belongings. All the family could do for the time being was live with family. Ruth went to beautician school, this way she could try to support herself and the kids some way. Ruth's uncle Ernest took her and paid to have her eyes fixed, which at first she was very frightened but then he stayed with her through the surgery which made her feel more comfortable. By the end of chapter 8, things started looking up. The family finally was getting the chance to go to the America's, what Walter had always hoped for them.
Some teaching aspects of this chapter could be to have the children research what happened to many of the families after they were released as prisoners. How hard it was for them to find job's and what many of these families did just to survive, since they had no belongings or places to go. Perhaps we could find some diaries of the refugees of this time period and read about what they did.
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