Mara Scribner
6/29/10
The Sunflower

Eli is a little boy that Simon used to see playing outside of the ghetto. He had dark hair and dark questioning, accusing eyes, just like the little boy that the dying soldier saw falling from the window with his family. Eli was usually seen searching for scraps of food and playing ‘hide-and-seek’ with death. He was obviously a smart little boy, for he had outlived the rest of the children in his town. One fateful day, an SS leader decided he would set up a fake kindergarden so that he could find the rest of the living children in the area. SS soldiers viewed children as just an extra mouth to feed. To them, they were not of any real use, so they were murdered. The day the kindergarden was to start Eli stayed at home. Something within him told him that the kindergarden was not safe. The rest of the children that had chosen to go were taken away to the gas chambers.
I believe that after hearing the SS soldier’s story of the little boy falling from the window and after rethinking his own memories of Eli, Eli becomes a symbol for the will and to survive. Eli wanted to live, and he definitely knew how to go about achieving that. He would keep away from the other children, so that he was not obvious to the SS soldiers. He also had such a strength and will to survive that his young body could survive off of nearly no nutrients. The little boy falling from the window also wanted to live. The dying SS soldier saw it in the little boy’s eyes. His eyes were accusing and non-understanding. He knew that these terrible tyrants were taking his life from him much too early. They represent the want to survive because they know they are being cut short of their time here on Earth, and they know in their hearts that it is not right.
Young children should never have their lives taken from them, especially if the causes are not natural. I believe that murdering a child is one of the worst sins that someone could commit. I feel that because the life a child is so valuable and to take it away is so morally wrong, that some people are more likely to save a life of a child than to save the life of an adult. I also believe that when SS soldiers took the lives of children they felt much more regret and sadness than when they took the life of an adult.