Surviving
WWII The Blitz
About the Auther After word
Information and research.
THE FASCINATING STORY OF CHRITINE THOMPSON WRITTEN BY TALLULAH BURNS
Table of contents Information and research The blitz (historical narrative) Afterword About the author Citations
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pages 4-7 pages 8-9 page 10 page 11 page 12
I dedicate this piece to my grandma, Christine Thompson for being an amazing grandma and sharing her story with me.
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The Blitz
I hid my face in my clothing and stepped off the platform. We walked a ways then stopped, By Tallulah Burns looking for someone that we recognised or something that My sister Molly and I sat in utter silence. We rocked back and forth, showed we were coming with occasionally glancing up at each them, but there wasn’t anything. other, our father getting farther and farther away and our new home getting closer and closer. I was frightened and tired but the train didn’t care, it just went hurtling on. The carriage swayed and moaned as if it were someone dragging a heavy weight for miles. I looked around, my eyes scanning (children running to the trains) the details on the carpeted floors and the expression on my sister’s I leaned against one of the pillars face. All the light seemed to have that lined the wall and slowly slid to the ground. My head lolled. My disappeared from her eyes, her hair pulled back into a neat braid. sister above me frequently looking Her fingers were nervously playing about us for someone or around with a small paper in her something. Gradually as the time lap, and her eyes were focused on passed the people started the window. What was going on? becoming fewer and fewer and Why are we leaving? Where are my the turmoil of the train station eased into a low throb of silence. I parents! I thought. noticed somebody in the distance, Suddenly, everything went black, a man, swiftly making his way my sister grabbed me and pulled toward us. He was tall and skinny, with a slight moustache growing. me off my seat and onto the ground. We sat there-the carriage “Excuse me ladies, if no one has had stopped swaying but a faint come to get you, I will have to take you girls to our children's buzzing was vibrating from the home. You c’an call me Uncle” he floor. A plane! A lump started forming in my throat, I buried my paused, smiled and offered his hand to me, I took and lifted face in my hands and started myself off the floor “Now if you’d sobbing, my eyes gushing out come with me please,” he took my waterfalls. My sister nudged me, hand and led me and Molly to a “Shhhhhhhhh!” We waited for what seemed like hours, the dark car. We drove to a place called Burnt Oak, I looked out the was never getting comfortable. Suddenly the train lurched and we window shivering What was going were thrown forward, and slowly to happen to us? we emerged from the darkness. All I could see was light, blinding I looked around the damp hall and followed as we emerged into me. I just sat there waiting for something to happen, but nothing a huge room filled with all the toys I could ever imagine. But happened. We soon came to a halt and were led to the door by something stuck out to me, a small head peered through the the conductor. mound of toys, its longing eyes 8
staring at me. I pulled away from uncle’s hand and ran toward the pile and pulled out the toy. Its clean polished body rested against my weary and dirty hands. I ran my fingers delicately across the doll's face. Melanie. I looked up at uncle …. and he nodded. I could keep her! 3 weeks later: There were other children here, too: some like us, some were jews escaping the nazis, but it came down to the same thing: we were all running away. Molly and I would walk everyday to our school. If we saw an american soldier we would tap him on the shoulder and say, “Got any gum chum?” if we were lucky he’d have a piece of candy to give us. We would walk back and play games with our friends. But all the while I still thought about mummy, she was probably stuck in a hospital bed aching for a chance to see us--I know I was. We were told that if the siren went off we would need to either run to school or back to the children's home. I was always scared that it would go off at any moment but it never happened. We had all just finished dinner. Molly and I each brought a package upstairs, I was dying to open it. I put my night clothes on and hurriedly opened the package. It was a beautiful blue knitted sweater. I looked over my shoulder to see what Molly got. Why did she always get the best gifts! I want one to! She got a few chocolate bars and a stuffed bear, I looked at her gift then at mine. I should be getting that too! Why don’t my foster parents give me stuff like that? I slipped into bed, the cold fresh blankets enclosing me. I put the doll on the pillow beside my head. I kissed her on the head, smoothing her thick brown hair against her head.
Molly,” I waited for an answer “Molly are you awake?” “No go back to sleep,” I twisted round to face the bare wall and closed my eyes. What would happen to us? My eyes fidgeted and I slowly began to doze off, the darkness finally welcoming. “
Nazi fighter jet) The sound was deafening. I shot up in my bed and looked at my sister as she looked at me. She sprung out of bed and helped me out of mine. Run! I ran as fast as I could, my sister a few steps ahead of me, the adrenalin powering me forward. Down the stairs through the hall and out into the gardens that led to fields. My sister turned to me, I could see tears in her eyes and some of the other children running down and out of the house. She took my hand and we ran, we ran as fast as we could down the gardens and into the fields. I let go of my sister’s hand and my arms flailed around as they were trying to balance me. We kept running. I could see some other children running near us. The bunker was not far, we had a few more metres to go. I was wired, this had never happened before. It was scary and exciting, the matron, stood beckoning to us at the top of the bunker lifting the small hatch open for us to get inside. The bunker smelled damp, the air was crisp and we were in the dark. Matron turned a lamp on, the light scared away the darkness and shone over all the (
faces of each child. Some were crying, some were just sitting in silence, and some were just excited like me. We were quickly led to bunk beds. We all sat down and made ourselves comfortable, still saying nothing.
were also told that our mother would pick us up from the hospital. I stood there waiting on the rough ground that had once been the entrance to this place. I sat glumly at the entrance and breathed in the cool air that was obscured by the smoke. Molly sat My ears were still ringing from the next to me watching the trees siren, there was a huge bang and sway in the wind. They told us that the bunker shook gently and I they were going to build a new heard some shrieks from the other school somewhere safer and more children. We waited for the all in the countryside, that we’d be clear siren to go off but it never able to live there once it was built. came. We waited and waited, now A car pulled up in front of the even the sounds of breathing house, I looked over towards it. I scared us. Was that a bomb! I didn’t think much about it, it wonder where it hit! didn’t look special in any way. Uncle and the matron stepped Is everyone ok? My eyes widened out towards us. and every little sound made me jump as if each one was a bomb A man in a uniform got out of the a--BOOM, the bunker shook driver's seat and walked round the violently, making us fall forward. other side of the car to open the The sound seemed to just escape door to the passenger seat. A the reach of my ears, I couldn’t woman sat there, he took her hear anything but a faint ringing hand and escorted her out of the that stung my ears. I looked to see car. I sat there my eyes widening the matron stunned, she walked in awe. Was that… no it couldn’t around to check on us and tried to be! “Mummy!” I shrieked I ran into calm everybody down. But it her open arms, Molly not far didn’t work. Uncle opened the behind me. We were finally back latch, and gasped. I poked my together. head out and studied the ruins of our home. We circled the outside • The children’s home was rebuilt of the children’s home. The rubble and back to the way it was. My and dust were strewn across the father was killed in the navy in ground. 1942 when I was only 6. I was later sent to boarding school in September 1948, my mother died in November 1948 of a disease called Tuberculosis. But life goes on and I became a mother of three children Jane, Sarah, and Emma, and a grandmother to (Map of Bombs that hit London) Tallulah. We were told later that a bomber had dropped a doodle bug on the children’s home and that we would be sent to another. We
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Afterword In the 1930’s the countries of Europe were mostly building towards war. On the 1st of September 1939, the German army invaded Poland. Consequently this led to the start of World War II. When war broke out in Europe, Franklin Roosevelt, president of the USA, realized that the war was jeopardizing the security of their country, and tried to help the European democracies without directly being involved in the war. The importance of them being in the war increased in June 1940, when the Fall of France left Britain as the only democracy left between Nazi Germany and America. The war quickly spread beyond Europe, to Asia and Africa. The United States entered the war in December 1941 after the Japanese attacked the US military base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The war ended shortly after the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945 by the US. In The London Blitz for about 57 days, London was bombed during either night or day. Fires spread across many portions of the city. People sought shelter wherever they could find it many fleeing to the Underground stations, as many as 177,000 people were sheltered during the night. In the worst attack, 450 people were killed when a bomb destroyed a school that was being used as an air raid shelter.
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About the
Author
Tallulah Burns was born in Telki, Hungary, when she was nine years old she moved to Istanbul, Turkey and now currently lives there. She goes to IICS international school with her younger sister Milli and her parents, Kevin and Jane. She is half English and half American. She has many hobbies such as collecting feathers, bottle caps. She also plays goalie in soccer, softball.
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Citations “My Grandma, Christine Thompson.” For Sharing Her Story with Me. “The London Blitz, 1940.” The London Blitz, 1940, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitz.htm. “Events Leading to War.” Britannica School, school.eb.co.uk/levels/intermediate/article/442095#271595.toc. “US Entry and Alliance.” History, 30 May 2014, www.history.co.uk/study topics/historyofww2/usentryandalliance. “Almost Every ww2 Bomb to Fall on London.” Http://Gq Images.condecdn.net/Image/2Zp2zo4p9nE/Crop/1020. “Operation Pied Piper .” argunners.com/wp content/uploads/2016/01/a_group_of_children_arrive_at_brent_station_n ear_kingsbridge_devon_after_being_evacuated_from_bristol_in_1940._d 2592.jpg. “Google Maps.” Google Maps, www.google.com.tr/maps/place/kent,+uk/@52.8951088,8.1923711,5.74 z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8a815e2b18297:0x9251e76476201559!8m2!3 d51.2787075!4d0.5217254?hl=en.
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