Second place middle school: Lauren Welch

Lauren Welch, an eighth-grader at Garfield-Palouse Middle School, took second place in the middle school division of the 10th annual Eva Lassman Memorial Creative Writing Contest. Here is her essay:

“Those sounds I could never forget … their cries were bitter, they were unbearable.”

-Luba Tryszynska-Frederick

If you didn’t know, Luba Tryszynska-Frederick was a remarkable woman for many reasons. She was kind-hearted, courageous, and passionate. But she also managed to save the lives of almost 50 innocent children at the camp, Bergen-Belsen. And through all the grief around them all, she was their stand-in mother and managed to save them every single day.

Before 1943, Luba lived happily in Poland with her husband, Herschel, and her son, Isaac. But then when 1943 finally came, her life forever changed. Nazi soldiers came and took the little family away to Auschwitz, where they would soon be separated. Little Isaac was sent to the gas chambers, while Herschel was assigned to be a carpenter. Later Herschel was shot. After a year at Auschwitz, Luba was relocated to Bergen-Belsen.

The first night at Bergen-Belsen, Luba could hear Isaac calling to her. At first she thought she was just imagining, but then his voice rang out again,

“Mama! Mama!”

Luba asked her bunkmate if she heard him. Her bunkmate thought she was crazy; after all, why would a young child be wandering around in the cold dark?

Yet the voice kept calling, only getting louder.

“Mama! Mama!”

Eventually, Luba got out of bed and went outside, tracking the voice of her perished son. Soon, she came upon a field where 54 children lay. She came up to the oldest child, Jack.

“Where are your parents?” Luba asked.

He told her that the Nazis had taken them away.

“How did you get here?”

He then explained that the children had been riding in a truck and the driver had abandoned them there. The driver had refused to shoot them, so instead he dumped them in an empty field to freeze or starve to death.

She had repeatedly asked herself, “Why was I spared?” Now she knew why: to save the children. So she walked them back to the barracks. Luba put them to bed, where they would be housed for the rest of the year.

When Luba registered into Bergen-Belsen, the S.S. officers had mistaken her for a nurse. They then assigned her to take care of their injured soldiers. Her outfit contained a long-sleeved coat that covered the tattoo that showed she was a Jew.

Each morning, she would walk past soldiers, hoping she didn’t look suspicious. To them, she only looked like a political prisoner. First, she would stop at the bakery and grab some bread, then to the butcher’s for meat. None of these people ever said a word to the officers. Then, finally she would stop for soup to fill the big pot she hid under her dress. On the way back, she would pick up pieces of wood along the way for a fire to keep the children warm at night. With her risking her life every day, most of the children lived for the rest of their time at Bergen-Belsen.

The children loved Trysyznska after all she had done, how could they not? So when Luba’s birthday came around, they planned a surprise for her. They saved up a whole loaf of bread and traded it for a beautiful red scarf, as well as a poem they wrote for her. Some may not agree, but I think it was their everlasting love that kept them alive through the upcoming year.

When the end of 1944 rolled around, things got really bad. Word had it that Germany was losing the war, which normally you would think would be a good thing, right? In general, yes, but not for Luba and her angels. Food was scarcer, and soon Luba could not smuggle food to her children anymore. Soon, she could tell they were all dying. But just when hope was completely lost, that’s when the British soldiers liberated the camps in April, 1945.

Fast forward 50 years later, 1995. Luba is now married to Saul Frederick, another Holocaust survivor, and lives in Miami. One day, Luba is flown out to Amsterdam to receive a big surprise. She is greeted there by 31 of the children she saved; well actually, they weren’t really children. Most of them were in their 60s, but for them; it was like they were all young again: Luba hadn’t seen them since the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. She was then awarded with the Silver Medal of Honor for Humanitarian Deeds, which was well deserved.

Sadly, genocides still occur, the most recent being the Srebrenica Massacre, 1995. The target was Bosnian Muslim men and boys. Over 7,000 lives were lost because of ethnicity, as well as 20,000 people were pushed out of Serbia. Genocides happen, so the question is: how do we stop it? We can’t necessarily stop it, but we can try to prevent it and save more lives by taking baby steps. People could get involved and spread the word of these wrong-doings; just let others know so we can reach out. Show compassion to one another, you can never go wrong with that.

The reason I chose to write my essay on Luba Trysyznska-Frederick was simple: I fell in love with her story. I can’t comprehend the determination and endurance she needed to do her job. Really, it wasn’t even her job, it was a choice. A valiant choice. She lost everything: her husband, son, family, home, pride, her life. Even with nothing, she housed fifty-six children in the dirty, lifeless barracks with no second thoughts. Every day she would do the same thing. Smuggle, sneak, and smuggle, all out of the love in her heart. She truly was their savior and mother all through the terrible hardships. Even at the end, she loved them with everything she had. And I think that is the most selfless, the most beautiful thing any human being could do.