We Were the Lucky Ones

Bella is hiding in a men’s lavatory with her belongings, waiting for Jakob. They are planning to escape from the factory, as it is no longer a safe place to be. They will try to make their way to the Glinice ghetto, which has been “liquidated,” in hopes of finding her parents. Bella clings to the slight hope that her parents are alive, but she fears they are gone.

A friend of Bella and Jakob from school, Ruben, warned them that the soldiers were planning to clear out the ghetto. Ruben had to pretend he did not know Bella when they encountered each other on the street, but he wanted to secretly help her and her family. Ruben heard that all the Jews in the ghetto would be sent to a camp called Treblinka.

Bella went to her factory supervisor and begged to have her parents transferred to the factory. He agreed, but her parents refused to leave the ghetto. They feared that they would be shot if they tried to leave, and that Bella would be killed too: “Bella had finally begged, sobbing into her mother’s arms, tears flooding her cheeks, but she could see it in the pitch of their shoulders, in the downward cast of their eyes—they had lost the will to fight” (234).