15 September 2023

Published September 13, 2023 by rochellewisoff

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PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

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This weekend is Rosh HaShanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year. So it seemed the time to remember.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count: 100

SURVIVAL

Risa kissed her slice of bread before slathering it with butter and taking a bite. She ate slowly, savoring every morsel.

Ten-year-old Aaron’s gaze held her, his brown eyes wide. “Bubbe, why do you kiss your bread like you would kiss a holy book if you had dropped it?”

“Bread is holy and precious. In the camp, a slice of bread could buy a bag of gold. A slice of bread stood between life and death.”

Aaron kissed his toast. “Blessed are You, Adonai our God Who brings forth bread from the earth and saved my dear grandma with it.”

*******

Remembering Food in the Concentration Camps: Interviews with Holocaust Survivors

12 February 2021

Published February 10, 2021 by rochellewisoff

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PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas

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Genre: Historical Fiction

Word Count: 100

JUNE 12, 1943

“My little girl is a young woman.” Papa kissed Rutka’s cheek. “Happy fourteenth birthday!”

“I’ll never see my fifteenth.”

His reassuring smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Our God will protect you.”

“Will He? He allows innocent babies to have their heads smashed in while grandmothers are deported to the death camps.”

Rutka longed to go outside without a yellow star on her dress—to romp among fragrant flowers and trees.

“I’m young in age but old in experience,” she wrote in her diary. “The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Despite all these atrocities, I want to live…”

17 May 2019

Published May 15, 2019 by rochellewisoff

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PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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Genre: Historical Fiction

Word Count: 100

HOMMAGE À ALFRED NAKACHE

The guard tossed his dagger into a tank. “Bring this back to me in your teeth, like the Jew dog that you are.”

Alfred jumped into the fetid water. Diving under, Auschwitz disappeared and he remembered the crowd cheering when he set the world record for the 200 meter breastroke.

At night he’d lie in his flea-infested bunk and dream of Annie and Paule. Determination to reunite with his wife and daughter gave him the strength to survive the death march to Buchenwald.

In 1948 Alfred Nakache returned to his passion and went on to become a French national champion.

Alfred Nakache will be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2019 during the Honoree Induction ceremony in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, May 18, 2019. For more information about him CLICK HERE

18 May 2018

Published May 16, 2018 by rochellewisoff

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As always, please be considerate of your fellow Fictioneers and keep your stories to 100 words. (Title is not included in the word count.) Many thanks.

The next photo is the PROMPT. Remember, all photos are property of the photographer, donated for use in Friday Fictioneers only. They shouldn’t be used for any other purpose without express permission. It is proper etiquette to give the contributor credit.

PHOTO PROMPT submitted by Courtney Wright. © Photographer prefers to remain anonymous.

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Genre: Historical Fiction

Word Count: 100

FOOTPRINTS

The uniformed matron smiled. “Take off your shoes and tie the laces together so you can find them more quickly after your shower.”

The doors clanked shut behind the child. No cleansing water sprayed from the nozzles.

Cold tile chilled his bare feet. Naked, he shivered and gasped his final breaths.

“Mama! Mama!”

His desperate, silenced voice rattles my soul.

Could he have been another Einstein?

Perhaps he’d have been a storyteller whose words delighted thousands.

The shoe is crumpled and the eyelets are rusted. It fits the palms of my hands—the only evidence of a candle snuffed aborning.

*

26 January 2018

Published January 24, 2018 by rochellewisoff

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Saturday, January 27th is the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The following story is one that I discovered a few years back and never ceases to fascinate me.

Genre: Realistic Fiction based on a True Story

Word Count: 100

RENOVATION

As he did every morning, Dov Ben Avraham recited the Sh’ma, “Hear O, Yisrael, Adonai is our Lord, Adonai is one.” The Hebrew words from Deuteronomy 6 were sweet to his tongue and uplifting to his heart. After saying his final amen, he added, “Thank you for making me a Jew.”

Later that night, at the synagogue he prepared to tell his story at a memorial dinner to honor those who perished at Auschwitz.

Gazing at a few survivors among the guests, Dov, Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger, said, “Please forgive me for the sins of my father, a Nazi tank commander.”

Bernd Wollschlaeger, M.D.

To see an interview with Dr. Wollschlaeger CLICK HERE

28 August 2015

Published August 26, 2015 by rochellewisoff

*Note: It is also common courtesy to give the contributor of the photo credit in your post. The next photo in this gallery is the PHOTO PROMPT. Does it suggest a story to you? Tell us in one hundred words or less. My story will follow the inLinkz icon. I enjoy honest feedback and comments.

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Genre: Historical Fiction

Word Count: 100

HAINING, JANE; PRISONER NUMBER 79467

When I was six they sent me to the girl’s home where I found Jane Haining the house matron. Sometimes I had trouble understanding her brogue-accented Hungarian but her love transcended all language barriers.

She mothered each of us as her own “wee bairns”, whether Jewish or Christian.

When the Nazis took over Budapest she disobeyed orders and refused to return to Scotland, saying, “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more in darkness?”

***

I study the numbers tattooed on my arm and I’m haunted by the question, “Why did I live and that angel die?”.

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