Daniel's Story

Daniel and Joseph meet a kapo who introduces them to a man with tools. Using the tools, Daniel and his dad take apart a potential gas chamber. Karl tells them that prisoners purposely work slowly during the day and, at night, the resistance dismantles what work they did. Daniel listens to Karl’s radio, and, as it’s 1945, the Allies are on their way. If the Nazis try to kill them before then, the resistance has weapons and intends to fight back.

The main purpose of Buchenwald is work, and the prisoners work 14 hours a day. The Nazis kill someone for missing a button and beat a man for not saluting an SS man. Seven Polish men try to escape, but they fail, and Nazis tie them to their cots and force them to drink salt water until they die. Karl tells Daniel about the awful medical experiments on kids and adults. Daniel notices the ritzy spaces for the SS people who run the camp.

As order deteriorates, Karl gives Daniel a camera for his 18th birthday, and Daniel asks Karl why the resistance lets the Germans march 4,500 Jews out of the camp to their death. Karl says they’re not ready to fight yet. In April, after Passover, 8,000 Jews and non-Jewish prisoners leave. Now the counterattack is on, and Karl shows Daniel how to use a gun.

The signal—a grenade—goes off, and guards shoot Daniel’s dad in the arm, and Daniel shoots the guards. Daniel wants to kill the guard, but his dad tells him to keep him alive for a trial. Daniel then goes to the house of the SS dad who shot the kid in the leg. The resistance guards his family, and Daniel, holding a gun, grabs one of the daughters. Daniel tells the daughter it’s pretend, then points the gun at the dad and informs him that he’ll testify at his trial. Returning to his dad, Daniel hears Joseph say that they’re liberated.

On the night of the revolt, Daniel and Joseph sleep in the hospital surrounded by reminders of the Nazis’ medical experiments. Joseph’s bullet wound isn’t critical, and they eat the SS food, and Daniel walks among the skeletal prisoners and gives them some food. Daniel walks through the camp gate to get a grip on the reality of his situation. He notices the beauty of the natural world and cries.

Daniel takes pictures of the pits full of corpses, the camp guards begging for mercy, and the American soldiers who hand out cigarettes, gum, and chocolate. The soldiers bring in civilians from the area and force them to see what took place in Buchenwald. Daniel becomes a part of the militia that governs the camp and takes supplies from the locals.

May arrives, and Daniel, his dad, and Peter are on a train back to Lodz. They think about who might have survived and walk around when the train stops in a small Polish town. Antisemitic Polish farm boys taunt and attack Peter and Daniel, and no one helps them, so Daniel takes out his gun and shoots one of the boys in the leg. Wielding his gun, Daniel forces a policeman to get a doctor to help Peter; the doctor suspects internal bleeding. Peter needs to go to the hospital in Lodz. Still wielding his gun, Daniel makes the Polish boys carry Peter on the train. In Lodz, Peter slips into a coma.

As Peter dies, Daniel promises to tell his family and go to Palestine. Joseph stays to give Peter a funeral, and Daniel heads back to the ghetto—the only place he knows in Lodz. In front of his old apartment building, he sees Rosa. The people who took the apartment wouldn’t let Rosa leave a message for Daniel, but she forced her way in, got his stuff, and, every day for the past three weeks, she has sat outside the building with a book waiting for Daniel.

The couple declares their love for each other, flirt, and go to a big park, where they sit on a bench with a “No Jews Allowed” sign. Daniel wants to go to Palestine, and Rosa agrees to go with him. She tells him she stayed with Erika at an infirmary in Poland. Nazis marched her to Gross-Rosen, and she hid in the infirmary during the evacuation. She lived to see the Russians liberate the camp, but she lost her strength in the hospital. Friedrich is alive, but Rosa’s younger brother and dad are dead.

Rosa still feels fortunate (many people have zero family members left), and Daniel feels fortunate to be with Rosa. Holding hands, they walk together, and Daniel reiterates his vow to preserve his pictures and publicize his story. If people forget the evil, they might become evil. People have to learn how to stop evil before it happens.