Dear Diary,
My name is Rachel Gracie Chaya Bergen. A big name for a little girl my grandma always says. I have always hated having this name, it is much too long and all of the other girls tease me that if someone was to call me by my full name they'd never get finished. In all reality it is four names, but they are all short and one is my last name. So first, before I do anything I'm going to explain that for you. My mom wanted me to be named after her best friend who is dead now and has been dead for years, her name was Rachel Ann Rosenberg. She also wanted me to be named after Chaya, my grandmother, and just when she was about to name me Rachel Chaya Bergen my father announced that his brother's wife Gracie had just died of pneumonia. So that is how I was named Rachel Gracie Chaya Bergen. My sisters are all named after people too, but none of them have four names. I have 3 sisters, and one brother. Asa is my brother. He is 20 years old. He is studying to be a doctor, because that is what my parents wanted, but his heart isn't really all the way in it. I am fourteen years old, and the next child after him. After me is my sister Channah Beylke Bergen. She is only 12, next is Esther Devorah Bergen. She is 9, and in my opinion the prettiest of all of 'The Bergen Girls' as my father calls us. Marnie Rayna Bergen is the last one. She is the baby at five years old. If you haven't guessed we are a Jewish family. My mother Shaynah Bergen, and my father Wolfe Bergen own a little Inn in the southern part of Poland. The year is 1942 on the Christian calendar, but on ours it is 5701. Currently our house is packed full, we have my aunt, my grandmother, my great-grandmother on my mother's side and an uncle on my father's. We are packed in this house. Normally I wouldn't mind having all of my family staying with us but the languages are confusing, I can hear mixing of Russian, Polish, English German, and Yiddish. My mother speaks Yiddish, Russian, and Polish. My father speaks all of them. He and his brother are blabbering on in German so nobody else will understand them while my great-grandmother and my grandmother are screaming at my younger sisters in Yiddish. My mother and my aunt keep speaking in Russian and my brother is outside with his non-Jewish friends (something he really shouldn't have) speaking in Polish rather loudly. For some reason I keep hearing English from somewhere. I have taken it upon myself to learn each and every language, although my father doesn't know that I learned German or English. He probably wouldn't mind if I knew English but I know he wouldn't like it if he knew I could understand everything he was saying. Despite the cramped up house, the dizzying languages and the mud all over the floor from my sisters running through the house shoeless, the day is pretty nice. Since I just got this diary and you now know about my family, my name, and the languages I speak (although I can only write in Polish, English and Yiddish) I guess I can describe myself now. We'll start with the top, my hair. I have a dark chestnut hair like almost everyone in my family. It is disgustingly straight but I do have some pretty soft curls around my face. All of my sisters, and all of my mom's family have pretty curly hair. Unusually I have light bluish- greenish eyes and I'm very pale despite a lot of sunlight. I have pretty small nicely shaped eyes and sharp cheekbones. My jawbone is much too sharp and my lips are kind of thin. My nose is nice though. I'm sort of on the thin side, but not overly thin. Overall I'm pretty happy with my looks, even though a few things could be improved. Well, I've been writing in this for a very long time so I guess I should probably go in and help fix supper.

Love Rachel