Refugee By Alan Gratz

Refugee

By Alan Gratz

Refugee has three stories about migration of refugees from a war stricken country to a safe country, and how all of them are tied up together in the end, and what do they all have in common, so here I go!

 

1930: Josef is a Jewish boy in Nazi controlled Germany. When Josef was 12 & a half, his father was threatened & sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis.  In concentration camp, his father was tortured and was given 14 days to leave the country. Josef, his mother, & little sister "Ruthie" decided to leave Germany and meet his father on the way. They met his father when they boarded the ship named MS. Saint Louis. When they were on the ship, his father heard they were "turning back”, and returning to Germany so he jumped into the sea, he was hurt, and was left in Cuba while everyone else left for France. 8 months after that, Germany invaded France too. They were chased, and when they caught them, Joseph's mom only had enough money to save one child. She couldn't decide between the two kids so Josef decided for her and went to the concentration camp along with the mother leaving Ruthie safe but alone in the woods.

1994: Isabel is a Cuban girl.  Her country was running low on food and things were getting very expensive. There were fights for the food and still the president of Cuba was not letting the Cubans to cross the border.  After a few fights, the president announced that he will let people cross the border, but only for a few days. Isabel's family decided to flew the country to USA. They were going to Florida with Isabel, her mom, her dad, her grandpa, Ivan (her neighbor), Ivan's dad and mom. When they stopped at an island to rest, two police officers escaped with them in the boat. One was Luis, and another was his girlfriend (Amara). Everybody on the boat took turns in the water because they didn't had enough space on the boat at the same time. After sometime when Ivan and Isabel were both out of the boat, Ivan got bitten by a lot of sharks and they were not able to save him. 😭😰. When they were few yards away from the US land, a guard saw them and they were almost caught but Lito (Isabel's grandfather) sacrificed and jumped of the side of the boat and kept the guard busy while everyone else reached the land.

2015: Mahmoud is a Syrian boy. With his homeland torn apart by violence, destruction and bombs, they take a car and drive to turkey and then take a raft to Greece. The rubber raft was not very sturdy and strong, so it crashed. The next minute everyone was calling out for help. Mahmoud's brother (Waleed) didn't even felt scared and they just gave away her baby sister (Hana) to a group of strangers on a different boat because her mom was drowning and tired from holding up Hana over her head. When they got back on land, they looked everywhere for Hana but could not find her. Next day, they took a train to take them to the border of Macedonia. They were caught by Hungarian soldiers and sent to a place called győr. Everyone there were punished and sent to AUSTRALASIA. They were treated very nicely and were given new clothes at Australasia. From Australasia, they bought train tickets to Vienna, and further to Germany. It felt the same as Australasia. They stayed with 2 elders, Lito, and Ruthie (Isabel's grandpa, and Josef's sister!!!) and when Mahmoud's family were fortunate enough to buy a house, they were all happy, even though what EVERYONE in the house has been through.

What they have in common:

All three main charterers went through harrowing journeys and all faced unimaginable dangers like drownings, bombings, and betrayals. They all were refugees, how Ruthie and Lito are related to the adventures of Mahmoud and his family. Also they all lost someone they cared about, how they feared of getting caught or dying, but in the end, everyone is healed by all the nice people in this world.