Jacob's Rescue
A Holocaust Story
The Characters:
Jacob Gutgel is a Jewish child who is trying to survive the holocaust. He is very mature for his is age and knows how to protect himself and stay calm. In the story, Jacob is one of the main characters. Alex Roslan and Mela Roslan are caring, giving people. Alex and Mela take Jacob into their home to protect him from being put into a concentration camp. They are great people because they are putting themselves and the rest of their family at risk, but still continue to help Jacob survive.
Plot
Jacob's Rescue is a true story about the Holocaust. Jacob is an 8 year old boy living in the Ghetto with his Aunt Hannah and Grandmother. Stasek, the chauffeur, decided to bring Jacob to the Roslan Family to be protected from being put into a concentration camp. Alex gladly takes Jacob into his home and renames him Genyek. Mela, Alex's wife takes a while to accept the fact that they are risking their lives, but finally decides that she wants to help Jacob. Throughout the story, it talks about how difficult it is to hide someone Jewish in your home and the struggles the Roslans faced to stay alive.
Connections
Alex and Mela deserve the Righteous Among Nation's Award because they are non-jews helping a Jew survive. The Roslan's life was very much at risk because later in the story, they also helped other Jews such as Sholom and David. This was risky because if The Roslans were caught, they would be put into the concentration camps and possibly die. They also supplied Alex, David and Sholom with food, and tried their best to take them into a hospital for treatment they needed when the boys were sick. This book has a lot of relation to Global Studies because we learned the details about World War II and a lot about the Holocaust and how people could survive and how concentration members were treated and put into the camps. I also related this book to Nicholas Winton because we learned about him in Global Studies and he saved Jews just like The Roslans did.
Quote
A powerful quote to me was "I hate being Jewish." This is powerful to me because no one should be ashamed of their religion. People should be proud of what they are. It is also depressing how people of the Jewish faith have to protect themselves from being put into a concentration camp by hiding what their religion is. This also means that Jacob always had to hide who he was and couldn't be himself.
My Reflection
I think this book was really good because it is descriptive of how things were in the time of World War II and the Holocaust. I also could put myself in the position of Jacob because the book was very descriptive. I could relate to how Jacob was feeling while police officers came into the Roslan's Home; he was scared and worried. I actually felt scared and worried myself. I liked the fact that the book was a true story because it really showed what people went through during this time period.