The Final Journey Summary
This is a summary every two chapters of the book The Final Journey.
Hey guys. This is a book that I read about the Holocaust. This is a summary of every two chapters. Have fun, and thanks for reading!!
Chapter One
In this chapter, you are first introduced to the main character, Alice. Alice is 12 years old and has no brothers or sisters. Her family was living in an underground basement hiding from the Nazis. But when her mom had a terrible tooth ache, they believed that their old friend, a dentist, would cure her. Alice is told that nothing could be done there, and that she would have to stay with her grandparents in the basement while her parents went to a dental clinic.
Chapter Three
We discover that Alice has been lied to during the time period of the Holocaust. She has often tried to ask her parents why they didn’t live in the big white house (her parents and herself previously lived in a very nice house) but they would always ignore her or tell her to finish something. We also discover that a lady has been hiding them in an old, coffee mill basement.
Chapter Five
Alice and her grandparents are discovered late in the night. She is forced to pack quickly then is forced to get on a train with several other people. Alice still doesn’t understand what is going on. Alice is shoved on a train cart with 48 other people, including her grandfather. Unfortunately, since her grandmother was moving so slow, they threw her up onto a separate vehicle. In this chapter, Alice describes how some of the people on her train cart look like. She also describes how nasty the train is and how she hates dirt.
Chapter Seven
Alice has been in the train for less than a couple of hours at this point. She starts describing how she used to go on much more luxurious train rides to see her nice. She also describes how there is a ‘pee crack’, as she describes it, in the corner, and the poop is starting to pile up. She starts to meet some of the kids on the train. Most of the kids are young boys, and she didn’t want to talk to them, but there was a 15 year old girl that she wanted to play with, but she says that she was too nervous to talk to her.
Chapter Nine
Alice is asked by the 15 year old, Rebecca, if she wanted plaits in her hair. Alice was overjoyed. She and Rebecca got along well together. She finally gets done with plaiting her hair, so she goes to sit by her grandfather. Shortly after, the train comes to an abrupt stop. Everybody is looking through the grating to see where they were and if they could get some water. Everybody in all the trains start yelling for water at the same time. The guards just tuned it out until a woman shouted at one of the guards, screaming ” What did you do with my son?”. Another man in a train started to explain that any disabled boy would probably be in the…then Alice and everybody else saw a guard walk up to the man and shoot him. The cart got really loud and then everyone hushed down just in time to see the woman get shot as well. Then Alice hears the guard say “Bloody dogs, shut the hell up!”.
Chapter Eleven
It has been about 24 hours since they were shoved into the cart. Alice describes how she sees a man always writing on his knee, then sticking the paper in envelopes. This reminds her of the letters her parents had wrote to her. She pulls out a letter and reads it. At the end she says that she once told grandpa that the letter ‘d’ on the letter is messed up just like when he typed on his type writer. All her grandfather said was that it was just a coincidence. Rebecca calls her over to talk. Rebecca says that her parents were divorced several years ago. Alice says that her parents are in a dental institute. Rebecca tells her that that is impossible if her parents were Jews. She tells Alice that her parents were probably in a camp. Alice soon questions what she meant. Alice is explained to that a war is going on, and all Jews are being sent to camps and killed. Alice is astonished and angry that her parents lied to her. She now understands that the letter was not sent from her parents, but typed by her grandfather. She storms over to her grandfather.
Chapter Thirteen
She shakes her grandfather and yells at him and questions why she was lied to, then her grandfather says that he just wanted to protect her. Then her grandfather has a heart attack. Her grandfather dies, so Alice is told that she is part of Rebecca’s family now. Rebecca randomly asks if Alice has had her periods yet. Alice doesn’t know what she is talking about at first, but soon discovers (after she is explained about sex) that she was lied to about how babies came into the world. She also says that she hasn’t had her periods yet. Rebecca also explains a little about the camps she thought they were going to. Alice soon after goes to sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Alice wakes up when she hears a sharp screeching noise. The train stops once again and people start shouting for water. They have not had water for several days. The corner is also filling up very quickly with poop and the train is smelling really bad. Two people from each train are allowed to get off and grab two buckets of water. Three men decide that it is better to kill three Nazis and get shot than it is to starve to death in a camp. They hop off and attempt to kill three SS men with their bare hands, but none of them succeed. Meanwhile, the whole cart has drank water and has been allowed one more bucket because they have a pregnant lady. A man yells at one of the men and says that they need a doctor, and that there is a pregnant lady on the train. Three Nazis grab him off the train, throw him to the ground, and stomp on his face until he dies. The train takes off, and it is completely dark in the truck.
Chapter Seventeen
The pregnant woman is in labor. After hours of screaming, a baby boy is born. Alice gives away the last of her food to the lady for strength. Alice goes to sleep and dreams that she is back in her big white house. Then it turns to a nightmare when she sees her synagogue burning to the ground and her parents being dragged across the ground.
Chapter Nineteen
Alice awakes when the train once again stops. She sees a sign that tells her that she is at Auschwitz. She hears a man yell that if you are a woman, line up on the left, and if you are a man, line up on the right. She does what she is told and follows Rebecca. In the next room, she must strip. She doesn’t want to do it at first, but when she sees Rebecca and other women she knew where already undressed, she took off her clothes. She is told to walk into the next room.
Chapter Twenty-one
She walks into the other room, being pushed and shoved. It is almost ¾ the way full, when a door opens and all the men are pushed into the room. Then she hears two loud clunks, and gas starts to fill the room. When the gas starts to pour in, she has her first period. Rebecca lays her hand on her shoulder, as they hear people scream and pound on the doors, but it’s useless. Alice collapses onto the ground, dead.
The story ends this way with a deep feeling of sadness when you realize that she had to go through all of this, her grandfather dying, her parents gone, and she just dies. While I may have plainly described the story in a brief summary, in reality, the book is really emotional because of how you feel you know the character very well through out the story. This truly was, The Final Journey!
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