[ WP ] Martin Luther King Jr dies aged 15 , the year Anne Frank ( would have ) died . Anne Frank is now a civil rights leader in the 1960s . Write her diary .

I sometimes feel like I should be dead. There is always that question, nagging at me, every single moment of every single day- why? Why not me? I had died after I entered that place, that place, I ca n't even say the name without shaking, am I really as brave as they say? I am scared of my memories. I am scared of my father too, that one day he will turn to me and say that he wishes my sister could have taken my place, my mother perhaps. He always said she was his true love, although I remember some arguments, and I, I, his little bookish girl, survived when his hale, strong, *alive* wife did n't? Once he confessed he felt- well, not similar. 
 
 I survived. I write this in you every day, but it's to remind me. I survived. I do not need the food in the pantry because I will not starve. I do not need to keep old clothing for fear of never having it again. I do not need to wash all my clothes and iron all my clothes every day for fear of being dirty. That sounds stupid, maybe, but it's the dirt, the grime, it feels like it clings to me. I saw people die and yet it's being unclean that I am terrified of. It was the grey and the dirt, those are my main memories, of that place I mean, and what contrast was that to the clean, tidy little attic, to our old little home, the housework always done perfectly. 
 
 Emigrating to America, emigrating to America was not like I thought it would be. I did n't think it would be like anything, actually. I expected to die, or it was more than that. I knew I would die then, I knew I would die before having children, before leaving that place, before living my life. I knew that my life would be short and grey and painful and hopeless and I did n't want it, I so desperately wanted to believe that was n't how it would end, but I knew it would. And then- and then it did n't. We were reunited, my father and me, while we were still staying in that place, after it had been liberated. Where else could we go? Where else could the thousands of people go? We were thin and desperate and we knew we could n't go home, to the neighbours who wanted us dead, to the streets filled with ghosts. I met a girl, from Belarus, and she said her family had ended up in a work camp. They had built roads, she said. If she came back, she'd be travelling on the roads they died to build. Some just- stayed, though. In a nearby town. Not because they wanted to, but because they did n't know what to do. Because they knew they would die and then they did not and now they were living in a country which hated them. 
 
 First, we went to Italy. There were displaced person camps, that was what we called, displaced persons, or DPs. As if we'd been lost by accident, and we'd be found down the back of a sofa or under the bed. I know my mother is ashes, now, she died and she was burnt and even though I do n't, ca n't, believe any more, I still mourn for that. Because there is no whole body left like our law states. No one tore clothes for her. There is no grave for me to place stones for. There is just ash. Her ashes are displaced, I suppose, somewhere in the wind, but we were forced out and away and into camps. Some people called them survivors camps, because we'd survived this, this cleansing of Europe, of the Jews and the gypsies and so many more, but no one survived completely. 
 
 I know I recount the story to you every single day, but it's to show me that it's real. From Italy, to Israel. Israel! The Holy Land, the land people were desperate to see. My mother will never step foot on the Holy Land. The Holy Land? What Holy Land is this? The site where the Romans slaughtered us? The site where we chased out of, forced out of? The site where, even during our own suffering in that place, pogroms were still ongoing, in the streets of Jerusalem? We are a cursed people and we come from a cursed people. 
 
 We actually left to America not long after. America, freedom, hope, that is what is said about it. The Statue of Liberty, a shining beacon for the huddled masses. And me, within them, I suppose, but the huddled masses sounds too broad. Every person in the huddled mass has a story and feelings and personalities, it is not a huddled mass, cowering together, it is people who have railed and fought and survived. I did not rail and fight, I suppose, but I survived. 
 
 We wanted to live on a kibbutz but in the end it was the *we* which meant we could not. *We* meant my father and me. Us. Instead, it was both of us, two, a father and a daughter, sister less, motherless, wifeless, daughter less. Dusty and dry and so much work. We were tired. My father had been used almost as a slave. We could not live on a small dusty hill and farm. My father managed to find employment through a friend we had made in the camp, and so we left. 
 
 And today, today in my 30s. Today, I have campaigned. I came here and suddenly my world was n't divided into Jew or not, into enemy of the Nazis or not, into survivor or not, it was black or white, coloured or not. And my father's friend, he said, at least they are not starving or locked up or made to wear badges! Badges? They are marked out by the colour of their skin like we were with our yellow stars on the camp's clothes. Just because they are not dying- and who is to say they are not? Forced into poverty and crime, many are suffering, surely- does not mean we can ignore it. No, they were not being starved, but they were being denied jobs. No, they were not locked up in work camps, instead many black people were, are, trapped in poverty instead. 
 
 Of course, there was a problem. How could I, how could I do something? I was eighteen, by the time we we reached America, and I wanted to go to college and have a husband. I wanted children, then, but not now, not any more, because I've watched my father as he grieves and I do not want to risk that, ever, I can not bear to risk that loss and pain. I fear by being born Jewish, he will suffer. By being born Jewish, he will be cursed. 
 
 I did not want to mark myself out. And people would have told me to be grateful. You are complaining about the society which accepted you, they'd say. You should be grateful. I am not grateful, but should I be? My father works hard and pays taxes and he benefits your country. We require no assistance or help. It was not you personally who liberated the camp, was it? I am not in debt to you. If I saved someone's life, I would not want them to be in debt to me. It is simple human decency and I would not want them to have to repay me for something as simple, as basic, as that, for something anyone should have done. And I think they should have done it but for many years I felt like I could not criticise anything, because I should be grateful for being alive, for being in an attic not a camp, for being in a work camp not a death camp, for being in a refugee camp not a morgue, for being in Israel and not dead, for being in America and not be starving. 
 
 That was not the only problem. Yes, I knew it was wrong- but I was also afraid. How could they accept me when they could not accept black people? People born and raised there, who's grandparents were born and raised there, were less accepted in white society than me, a Jewish immigrant. That is not to say I never experienced anti semitism, quite the opposite in fact, America was not exactly free of anti semitism, but if they could turn on their own people, then why not on me, on us? If I spoke out, would they come for me too? 
 
 And, of course, I am not black. I joined forces with Thomas Rudwell, and his group. He was born next to a house with a nice family living in it, or so he said. I do n't know as I never met them. Then their son, Martin he was called, was stabbed walking home from work. He mouthed off, said something the murderers did n't like, whatever. Eye witnesses saw everything. Some even told it in court. But the murderers were n't sentenced, no, they were let off, and Thomas knew it was because Martin's life just did n't matter. 
 
 I was in some ways a poster girl. Who could say no to the comparisons I drew between my past and their current? Between the othering of their own people. Were black people so dirty we could not drink water with them? I had been called a dirty Jew. Would they call me one? Of course, many did. And I was not a leading force, no. Thomas did what he wanted and I said mostly what he wanted, but I was white and people were more likely to listen to me. A whole lot of black people did n't want a white girl campaigning on their behalf and I get why. I was campaigning for women's rights as well. Equal pay and equal respect. Where were the women bankers? The doctors? The politicians? That, I could be more vocal about. Being a woman meant I was a victim of that system, but for racism and civil rights dealing with that, I was just a poster girl, more than anything. 
 
 Today. The rally. The rally was great. There was shouting and cheering and then Thomas stood up and his speech- his speech. I ca n't write it all down here as I've got to go to sleep soon, but I dream the same dream as him. Women and men, black and white. I tell myself I want Jewish descendants of survivors to shake hands with descendants of Nazis but I do n't. Is that wrong? It's wrong, I suppose. Maybe that means Thomas is better than me, and that's probably true. I should have died when I was fifteen and yet I am alive and I'm still just as flawed. 
 
 ( Note, this was based on my gran's experiences during the war. She did n't come to America though, but went from Belarus through to Italy to Israel ).
