هیتلر و نازی ها

CHAPTER 1 - Hitler and the Nazis

. Ben Ross taught history at Gordon High School. One afternoon he showed a film about Hitler and the Nazis.’ At the end of the film, he told his students: ‘The Nazis killed more than ten million men, women and children.’

A student near the door turned the lights on. Ben looked round.

He saw sad faces all round the room.

‘I know many of you are very sad,’ Ben told the students, ‘But I want you to think about what you saw. Does anybody have any questions?’

Amy Smith put her hand up. ‘What was the place in the film called?’

‘It was called Auschwitz. The Nazis built Auschwitz to kill people quickly.’

The room was very quiet. Amy put her hand up again. ‘Were all the Germans Nazis?’ she asked.

‘No, most Germans were not Nazis.’

‘Did the German people try to stop them?’ Amy asked.

‘No, most Germans didn’t try to stop the Nazis,’ Ben told her.

‘Perhaps they were afraid of them.’

‘But why were they afraid?’

‘You must remember that life was very hard in Germany at that time,’ said Ben. ‘There weren’t very many Nazis but they had guns. And after 1945 most Germans said, “We didn’t know that they killed all those people. We didn’t know about Auschwitz.”’ Now Laurie Saunders put her hand up. ‘I can’t believe that,’ she said. ‘I think they knew what happened.’ Ben was happy that his students were interested. They were not usually interested in history. ‘Only they know what they knew,’ • Adolf Hitler and the Nazis led Germany between 1933 and 1945 Ben told Laurie. ‘And we don’t know why most German people did not try to stop the Nazis.’

It was time for lunch. The students left the room quickly. David Collins looked over at Laurie. ‘Come on, Laurie,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to lunch. I’m hungry.’

‘I’ll be down in a few minutes, David,’ said Laurie.

David went off to lunch. There were only a few students left in the room now. Laurie looked up at Mr Ross.

‘How many people did the Nazis kill?’ Laurie asked her teacher.

‘They killed more than six million Jews. And about four million others.’

‘But why did they kill them? Were all the Nazis bad people?’

Mr Ross put his books in his bag. For about a minute he was quiet. Then he turned to Laurie. ‘I don’t know, Laurie,’ said Mr Ross. ‘I can’t answer that question.’ ♦

A few minutes later, Laurie sat next to David in the school restaurant.

‘Look at Robert Billings,’ said David. ‘Nobody wants to sit with him.’

Robert tried to sit next to two students from Mr Ross’s history lesson. The students stood up and went to another table.

‘Do you think there’s something wrong with him?’ Laurie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said David. ‘He’s very strange. But perhaps that’s because he doesn’t have any friends.’ David began eating again. Laurie did not eat any of her lunch.

Her face was very sad.

‘What’s wrong?’ David asked.

‘That film, David,’ Laurie answered. ‘I thought it was very sad.

Did you think it was sad?’

‘Yes, but those things happened a long time ago,’ said David.

‘You can’t change what happened then.’ ‘But we mustn’t forget that it did happen,’ Laurie said.

Amy Smith and Brian Amman came over to their table.

‘I want to sit here,’ said Amy. ‘I was here first!’ ‘No, I want to sit here,’ said Brian. ‘I want to talk to David about our football team. We’re playing Clarkstown on Saturday.’ ‘And I want to talk to Laurie about The Grapevine.’ David played football for the Gordon High team. Laurie wrote for the school newspaper. It was called The Grapevine.

Laurie laughed. ‘It’s OK, there are two places,’ she said.

Brian and Amy sat down.

‘Will you win on Saturday?’ Laurie asked. ‘I’m going to write about the game for next week’s Grapevine.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said David. ‘Our players don’t have much discipline.’

‘That’s right,’ said Brian. ‘And we don’t have any good new players.’

♦

Later, Amy Smith and Laurie Saunders sat in the office of The Grapevine.

‘That was a very sad film,’ Amy said. ‘What did David think of it?’

‘David doesn’t think about sad things,’ said Laurie. ‘All he thinks about is football.’

‘What are you and David going to do next year?’ Amy asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do when we finish school. Perhaps we’ll go away together. I love David, but I don’t know what is going to happen to us. We’re very young.’