Yellow Star Quotes

“We must honor our differences while we find our own courage and our own strength the best we know how.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“because yellow is meant to be a happy color, not the color of hate.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“I wish I could rip the star off (carefully, stitch by stitch, so as not to ruin my lovely coat), because yellow is meant to be a happy color, not the color of hate.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Hello!” “Hello!” the Russian says, waving his gloved hand. And I realize something else. I understood him. He said hello in Yiddish. He is Jewish, too.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“It is very lonely being Jewish, I think. And confusing.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Hava is missing. She went for a short walk on the street and never came back.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Then there is the boy who talks out loud to himself and his only subject is food. This is what he sounds like— Meat, stew, potatoes, peppers, roasted turnips, spices, flour to thicken. Cook over low heat. Potato dumplings, edges browned, not burned. Ladle thick gravy on roast. Cabbage galumpkies, noodle kugel, Carrot cake with dates, finely chopped…”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“In 1939, the Germans invaded the town of Lodz, Poland. They forced all of the Jewish people to live in a small part of the city called a ghetto. They built a barbed-wire fence around it and posted Nazi guards to keep everyone inside it. Two hundred and seventy thousand people lived in the Lodz ghetto. “In 1945, the war ended. The Germans surrendered, and the ghetto was liberated. Out of more than a quarter of a million people, only about 800 walked out of the ghetto. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. “I was one of the twelve.” —Excerpt from interview with Sylvia Perlmutter, March 2003”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Bright colors don’t exist in the ghetto, except for the yellow stars and puddles of red blood that we carefully step around. “More shootings,” Papa says quietly. His face is gray.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“By July fifteenth, 7,175 “volunteers” had taken the trains…to Chelmno extermination camp, where they were killed.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“By mid-1944, all of the ghettos—except for Lodz—had been destroyed.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Out of more than a quarter of a million people, only about 800 walked out of the ghetto. Of those who survived, only twelve were children.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Hitler commits suicide.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“I don’t want a Nazi to notice me and think, Jew. Because then I might die, too.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“and a person is dead.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“the best we know how.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“yellow is meant to be a happy color, not the color of hate.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“I’m not a little child anymore. I know that she means they might be dead, not just in another place somewhere, but it doesn’t make sense that all those people are dead. It’s impossible.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Then I have a new worry. If God dies, who will run the world? I hope it’s not the Nazis.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“We are free! Poland is free! We can go home! An”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Syvia,” says Papa, “it is the Russians.” Liberation”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Hello!” the Russian says, waving his gloved hand. And I realize something else. I understood him. He said hello in Yiddish. He is Jewish, too. A”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Then there are no more planes, no more sounds of bombs. Our voices die down and the courtyard is quiet. It stays like that for a long time. Everyone is afraid to move in case a new wave of bombing starts up. “It is a miracle!” a woman cries. Then suddenly everyone is getting up from the ground, shaking off snow, embracing each other, cheering. “A miracle!” Mother agrees. There”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Survivors Like Us Then we see them. Others like us. Survivors. Jewish”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“more successful. After watching the population”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Bright colors don’t exist in the ghetto, except for the yellow stars and puddles of red blood that we carefully step around.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“As Papa pulls me along, I see brown shoes, brown pants legs, brown dresses, brown road. I look up at the brown buildings and the cloud of brown dust and smoke that hangs in the sky. Bright colors don’t exist in the ghetto, except for the yellow stars and puddles of red blood that we carefully step around.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Papa says. “Our Stars of David glowed in the spotlight! He immediately ordered his soldiers to avoid bombing that area. Then he flew down to rescue us! The Russians are stationed not far away in Lodz so they ran for their horses and rode in to find us!” Amazing!”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“He had orders to demolish the whole ghetto, and he and his men were doing so, when he flew over the courtyard. And guess what? The spotlight on his plane shone down and he saw…” Papa pauses. We all lean in to hear more. “He saw our yellow stars!”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star

“Every single evening, for over fifty years, Sylvia has said Kaddish—the prayer for the dead. She prays for her little friends Hava and Itka. Then she prays for all the others—uncles, cousins, neighbors, and strangers—who perished in the war. Their voices were silenced years ago. Now Sylvia has spoken up to remember them, and to share her memories so that we will never forget.”
― Jennifer Roy, Yellow Star