Blue Eyes Wide Open (4D22)

Date: 27/04/2026

Good morning, everyone. I am Fan Tung Wing, Edward from class 4D. Today, I'd like to share a biography about the sufferings of Jews in the Holocaust, "Blue Eyes Wide Open" by Rachel Spigelman. While we often read about the Holocaust in textbooks, this book shares a real story of a young Jewish boy who survived by disguising himself as a Polish girl. It is not only a testimony of Nazi’s criminal activity, but also a story about identity, fear, and survival.

His journey reflected three stages, scare, struggle, and survival.

"Scare" began when the German army marched into the town where they lived. Imagine the terror of seeing the world around transformed into a landscape of segregation. All one could do was to stand still, helplessly, and wait for the judgement from those brutes dressed in uniforms. Rachel recalled the moment the crowds were divided into groups—a split second when he and his mother were nearly separated forever. The streets were filled with paralyzing fear.

However, even in the darkest instant, there was a flicker of hope. A German officer, moved by the boy’s blue eyes, decided to let Rachel’s husband and his mother go. This is a reminder to us that kindness is always a part of human nature. The German officer showed us that even in a system advocating hostility, kindness remained.

Following their narrow escape, the "struggle" began. Life became a series of haunting moves to avoid detection by the Nazis. They hid in places from bunkers beneath relatives' house to garbage dumps, or even in a cramped farmhouse next to Nazi’s concentration camp.

How can one survive under such conditions? The answer is resilience. At one point, when the boy’s mother went missing, his father lost hope altogether. It was the boy’s simple and firm reply, "I want to live on." saved them. This reflected the importance of resilience that helps us overcome insurmountable obstacles with faith.

Finally, they reached "survival." The end of the war brought a big contrast to the misery before. After the liberation of Poland, the boy felt overwhelmed. The greatest gift wasn't just safety, but the fact that he no longer had to hide his identity, and his gender.

To prevent the horrors of the Holocaust from ever occurring again, one can play a role by standing against the persecution of vulnerable groups. We cannot afford the cost of silence, as what we suffered in the Holocaust.

As the famous poem "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller reminds us: "First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Let’s not wait until there is no one left. Let’s choose action. Let’s keep our eyes wide open and care more about different issues in the world around, such as inequality, discrimination, etc. Thank you!

 

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Prompt	Modify the book sharing script about the book 'blue eyes wide open' written by Rachel Spigelman to make it more persuasive