Michigan's Insurance Company
Other States
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America & Me Essay Contest
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Second Place Essay
Will Wiener
Cranbrook Boys' Middle School
Bloomfield Hills
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The Greatest Generation (My Michigan Heroes)
Imagine running for your life while snarling German Shepherds and Nazis with machine guns ready to fire are at your heels. This sounds like a nightmare that would wake you up in a horrible sweat but this was the real life experience of members of my family and millions of other innocent human beings during Hitler's reign over Nazi Germany. My dad's family were Jews, living in Poland during Hitler's lunacy. My grandmother, Pola, and grandfather Wolf, were just young teens living in Warsaw when the war started. My grandma Pola was torn from her family and was shipped like an animal going to the slaughterhouse to work camps and death camps. My grandma had a mom, a dad, three brothers, and three sisters. By the time the war ended, they were all dead. My grandpa was luckier because although he didn't get sent to a death camp he was forced to be a prisoner at various work camps. By some miracle my two grandparents survived the winters, the starvation, the torture and more horrific things. The war ended, they met and married and while they tried to recover they stayed in Germany for a year. Someone in Germany told them about a place called Michigan were they could live a free life. They left war-torn Germany to find their dream of freedom and acceptance of everybody.
In Michigan, my grandparents discovered what freedom meant. Here my grandparents realized what a great country America is. With just five dollars in their pockets and hardly able to speak a word of English, my grandparents quickly realized if they worked hard they could find their way and be successful Americans. At that time in Michigan there were tons of jobs available at the car plants. For fifteen years my grandpa worked at Ford's and GM's factory where he scrimped and saved enough money for his earnings to purchase his own American company, a butcher shop in Detroit's Eastern Market. Getting up at 4:00 in the morning, cutting up meat and returning exhausted at 7:30 at night was my Grandfather's routine for thirty years. My Grandma worked for a Michigan company, Sanders. There she worked behind the counter and served people ice cream and treats. My grandparents worked to provide for their family. My Grandfather was so proud that he come to the United States a poor man and worked to send my dad, their American born son, to the University of Michigan and to Wayne State for Medical School. Paying my Dad's tuition signified to my grandparents that they had "beat" Hitler's quest to obliterate the Jews.
Both of my grandparents have passed away. Though they experienced things humans should never have to, they not only survived Hitler, they were able to overcome. Who knows why they survived and others didn't. Some people think it was their cunning, some think it was their perseverance, others believe they were spared by old fashioned luck. Like other Holocaust survivors, my grandparents believed they survived to share the atrocities they witnessed so that the world would know and the past would never be repeated. Their son, my Dad, a kind physician whose compassion and tolerance makes the world a better place, was one of my grandparent's greatest achievements. Sharing the story of the Holocaust so future generations shall never forget what their ancestors went through was a generous and thoughtful act which they also accomplished. For obvious reasons, my grandparents are my Michigan heroes.
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