# Rena's Promise

## Metadata
- Author: [[Rena Kornreich Gelissen and Heather Dune Macadam]]
- Full Title: Rena's Promise
- Category: #books
## Highlights
- God? I rarely say God anymore, but seeing their faces reflected in my heart I must try to pray one last time: God, you are my God and I believe in you. Won’t you strike just one of these monsters down? Smite just one SS for these children, your children. You, whom I obey and believe in so much with all my heart? I have never held so much as a penny in my hand on the Sabbath and since I was old enough to fast I have always fasted on Yom Kippur. Don’t allow this to happen. Give us a sign that you have not forsaken these children, the children of Israel. Never mind my suffering. It does not matter the time I have been in this place. Never mind all the things I’ve heard about people being burned and gassed, all the things I’ve seen for myself, not ([Location 2227](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LLIX7Q&location=2227))
- wanting to believe any of it is true. Never mind about me. What about these sweet children? For them, show them you are our God and kill just one of these Nazis. My hands are fists of fury tight against my thighs. My eyes squeeze shut, holding a vision of lightning striking the guards in their neat and orderly tracks. Not one adult can move to save these toddlers, only divine intervention can supersede now: Please, God ... They fade in the distance, nearing the gas chambers. My heart screams for them to stop. Someone passes by me, then halts. Her feet crunch against the gravel road as she steps back to look at our stricken faces. Her hot breath hits my cheek. I open my eyes warily into the cool cruelty of Hasse’s stare. Her clean boots, her polished and shiny skin, stand before us in full Aryan superiority. She has seen our agony; she has read my mind. I know from the moment I hear her voice that religion will never be the same. I will still pray, I will ([Location 2232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LLIX7Q&location=2232))
- try to believe and have faith, but it will never be as pure and sincere as it once was. Her lips pull back into a grimace which I am sure is meant to be a smile. Her words are harsh and staccato, like machine-gun fire; they shoot us down. “Where is your God now?” Life drains out of me. There is no answer. ([Location 2240](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LLIX7Q&location=2240))
- Will there ever come a time when we can thank God for being alive today before we have to ask the same privilege tomorrow, and the next day? Is life a privilege or a curse? ([Location 3028](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LLIX7Q&location=3028))
- Should I pray? Should I thank God for saving our lives again? How can I thank or praise a Creator who allows this to happen? There are five hundred of us, maybe a thousand, left in camp. This is not a miracle, to be alive-it is a tragedy. How can I praise the miracle that Danka and I live while thousands of our fellow girlwomen prisoners are gassed and cremated just a few hundred meters from where we have life? ([Location 3153](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004LLIX7Q&location=3153))