Ms. Nakada's Blog with Guest Speaker Lya Frank

Agenda
Guest speaker Lya Frank

HW: RJ 7.1-7.4 due pages 371-384

Today we welcomed a guest speaker, Holocaust speaker, Lya Frank. She was born in Holland before Germany invaded in WWII. The Dutch were not prepared to fight, and they surrendered after several days. From 1940-1945, Holland was under Nazi rule. At first there weren't many changes, just little things like no ice cream on certain days, things like that. Then Jews weren't allowed in public spaces, or schools. Jews weren't allowed to do public things or be on the streets after a certain time.

This wasn't enough so they started exterminating the Jews. Her aunt was taken away, for example, and sent to a camp. Others were sent to ghettos and then to concentration camps. Many tried to hide, but in Holland, it was hard. In 1943, her parents decided she and her sister should go into hiding. After her seventh birthday, she was taken with her sister, on the back of a bicycle, by friends in the resistance. They were placed in a home for a while, and then her sister was moved to a farm but it was too dangerous and so she was moved to a different farm. Mrs. Frank was placed in a city with a family of four. Because she was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, it wasn't as dangerous for her. The father in the family was an optometrist and worked from home. The doctor's two daughters and Mrs. Frank stayed upstairs while the doctor saw patients. She fit in with the other girls, who were just a couple years younger than she was. They said she was a from Rotterdam, displaced by the bombing.

A housekeeper asked about her, and she stuck to her story. This was the one time she thought she might be betrayed. The housekeeper was let go.

Her parents also went into hiding with a group of seven people and one of the families had a step-daughter who betrayed them to her lover, a German soldier. For the $1.50 per head reward, she informed about the family and cost them all their lives.

While in hiding, though, Mrs. Frank didn't know what happened to her parents and her parents didn't know what happened to her. She and her sister were the only survivors from her family, but they didn't know what was happening at the time.

She has stayed in touch with her hiding sisters, too. They are all grandmothers now.

After the war, her uncle found her and asked to take her to see her sister. When she saw her sister she didn't recognize her. It had been three years. They spent a day together, but didn't want to leave one another again, so after going back to her hiding family, they decided she could move in with her sister's hiding family.

Finally, her aunt and uncle were able to find a home in Amsterdam. Although it wasn't much, they brought Ms. Frank and her sister to live with them and their girls. With her aunt and uncle and the four girls, they had very little, but they started going to a Jewish school with other kids who had survived as well. She caught up. She had to in order to go to high school. She graduated and her aunt and uncle had a son. Mrs. Frank too care of him, and in 1956 the Russian Revolution began and they moved to the US. Here they started all over.

After a week of vacation getting used to life in the US, they went to work and she's been here ever since. She got married, has a daughter and is now a grandmother.

She was saved, her life was saved by a resistance movement started by students. It was dangerous, but these students were willing to stand up for what was right. Many were caught and killed but many survived. She hopes we will all remember the impact our lives can have by doing what is right.

Thank you, Mrs. Frank, for sharing your experience with us today!