Journal #13

Journal #13-from chapter 13 "Just as our hunger is not that feeling of missing a meal, so our way of being cold has need of a new world. We say 'hunger', we say 'tiredness', 'fear', 'pain', we say 'winter' and they are different things. They are free words, created and used by free men who lived in comfort and suffering in their homes" I think that living in a concentration camp made the Jews realized how simple words as "hunger", "tiredness", "fear", "pain", and "winter" affects their lives. Simple words that was never important in the past. Never did anyone imagine that those simple words are painful in reality. Those five simple words can explain the life in a concentration camp. By those simple words are the only communication needed in the concentration camp. When the Jews use to live as a free man, they used these words with comfort and without any suffering. However, once they entered the concentration camp those words are so hard and painful to say. Once you say one of these words, you actually feel the hunger, the tiredness, the pain, the fear, and the coldness of winter. You now begin to hate these five simple words. You also begin to feel the hunger and cold you never felt in your past life. Sometimes, you regret how you were never thankful with your past life. You only wish that you can live your old life gracefully. Living in a different life style makes you look at things or percept things differently. As I entered Korean school, I began to see a different style of studying and a great amount. It wasn’t easy to adapt to the Korean study system and I was miserable for months, because I didn’t understand a single word in Korean. Even though my experience isn’t as harsh or painful as the Jews, I can see myself how difficult it is to live a different life from your past. What is worse is that your past life is so much better than your present life. Living in a concentration camp is living as hell and your past life of living in home is like living in heaven. You regret many things in the past and dream about the past. However, overall you are a Jew and must face the fact that you are living in a concentration camp. Those simple five words: “hunger”, “tiredness”, “pain”, “fear”, and “winter” is your life in a concentration camp.