Writing Letters

Shmuel to his family back in Poland (if they were still alive) about his life in the camp and his best friend Bruno.

Dear family,
                I am still very sad about all that has happened to us back home and I can never forget how I was taken away and the trip coming here to camp. For days and nights I was awake thinking about what will happen and whether I will ever come home to see your faces once again. I am now struggling to survive and I am always hungry and i am always picked on and beat by the other people and soldiers for doing nothing wrong. It's really sad to see the other people fight in the camp as of right now we are making hut's to live in and everyone is constantly fighting and this reminds me of home and how I always would start fights and how now I look back and see how I wish I could change everything and live everyone moment to the fullest knowing know how quickly everything can change.

Just one day as I was sitting behind the concrete rubble by myself I cam across a new Friend called Bruno. Bruno is very different to me and he lives on the other side of the fence, the first day I met him he came across quite rude but I knew that he was the only friend I will have so I had to make sure i was very nice to him. Every afternoon now Bruno comes to visit me and we sit and talk for hours about home and how our lives changed. This sometimes make me very sad but I can see that he is trying his best to listen because he understands how It felt in some regards to be taken away from home to a different place without any choice.

I hope one day I will be able to leave this place and become much better Friends with Bruno as he has asked me for dinner and for a play. But I don't think yet he understands why I am on the other side of the fence and I feel that it should be kept that way as our unlikely friendship is only able to work if Bruno is kept innocent about the whole situation. I hope despite everything that has happened Home is still the same and one day I will return to you when everything is back to normal.

Loving regards Shmuel


Bruno to his Grandmother right before going on his final adventure (imagine she was still alive)

Dear Grandmother,
                            I am very sad that you weren't able to visit us at our new house although I dont really think you would've enjoyed your stay I still miss you very much. Our new house Is completely different to our old house I thought that since our last house was so great that our new house would be even better but when we arrives here is 'out with' I came to see that the house was much worse so I began to think why would we move into a much worse house.

Time moved along and I realised that my opinion shouldn't be voiced as much as I normally do, I discovered this when during dinner the horrible Lt Kotler who was always around the house in Father's absence had Pavel a waiter here pour him another glass of wine when he accidentally dropped it on Kotler's lap and after that I only remember crying after Kotler beat Pavel severely for just an accident. From them I realised that living here was something much more than changing houses I felt like I was here for a job also and my job was only to keep quiet and do as I was told.

Despite all the negativity I found only one thing that I would mainly spend my time on which was making a new friend. When we first arrived at the house I noticed an odd type of camp with huge fences that went on for miles and different types of buildings which let out a huge amount of smoke daily which I thought was very strange and also very horrible I decided to start exploration since there was nothing else to do around the house. On my first day I say something very amazing a boy, out my window I could see people but I was told by my father that the people in pyjamas actually weren't people at all so when I say a boy in pyjamas I felt like saying to dad that I found a boy in pyjamas but I then I thought about not causing trouble so I decided to keep it to myself.

From that point on I spent every afternoon of every day talking to this new friend, I discovered his name was Shmuel and he was from a family in Poland which wad further evidence that he was a person. During our conversations we talked about home and friends and life before we both were taken away to a different place. I discovered that Shmuel was also taken away from his home which made my feel better that I wasn't the only person who had to go through that. Months went on but after all I learned still one question hadn't been answered why couldn't he leave the camp and why he was wearing pyjamas. Naturally I left it alone becuase I didn't want to upset my new friend but now I think to myself I should ask father for Gretal and myself to go back to Berlin for a day to visit you since you couldn't get here last visit and hopefully I will be able to see you soon.

From your loving Bruno