Auschwitz

Chapter 1 Deportation.

Everyone knows why we cant have cars why we cant sit on benches, but I don't and it's so frustrating. Why are we so hated? us Jews. The star? is that what it is? ill gladly take it off. Playing with it isn't the slightest bit fun. My mother told me if I ever take it off, I'd get shot. I cant bare thinking about how I would die. No German would care if I did, Their goal is to kill us and they want a reason to do so. Everyday were forced to move into smaller houses than were used to. Mother tells me its just temporary like that's true.

The Germans will never stop hating us. Today is the eighteenth of January 1943, and the weather is cold, although it doesn't feel cold with us being so cramped. were allowed outside during the day but at night we all have a curfew. I'm bedding with this nice girl named Marian. Her name is similar to mine. When I woke up it was like there was ice against my body, shes pale as a ghost and her mother is crying.

"She died in the night." My mother says as she pulls me out of the small bed made for one. Shes dead? I slept next to a dead person.. What world is this? is it a nightmare. I was cold, not because of the temperature.. but because of death.

"We should bury her." I mumble shocked that I didn't know she slipped away, I wish I had known.

"Bury her?" her mother asks me as if there were was no more dirt left on this earth. "bury her with bloody what?" she cries and kneels down by her lifeless daughter.

"Why cant we bury her?" my sister asks quietly, my sister doesn't think straight shes special, autistic. People don't seem to get that and push her around, to me shes just annoying, I wish she would just shut up.

"oh shut up!" the girls mother cries.

"Don't talk to my daughter like that you know she haves a condition!" my mother yells back to defend my sister.

"Soon she'll be found out and well have no more of this!" I almost wanted to chop her head off she knows that I hate it when people talk bad about her. Ariel might be stupid, she maybe even annoying but shes my sister and only I tell her to shut up. I heard the rumors, the gas chambers, it could be true. I'm afraid to ask. Every one was, I guess they were scared they'd find out the truth. That, that was our future, us Jews.

Not many people have gone to the work camps. None came back. I wasn't ready for death, although I knew no one was, it was still terrifying.

My mother left me alone, after the way I spoke to her. I stare at the blank grey wall imagining me married with children. Unlikely, but still a hope for Jews. Generations, it was a dream of my grandfathers, that more Greene's would live on and on. It was getting dark and the room was filled with loss and hatred. The mother holding her dead daughter wailed. It was a painful cry of loss. Her father trying to calm the mourning mother. I too was mourning the loss of my only friend. Even though I couldn't show, we had only met a while ago.

The room got as dark as the sky, black. One window, one door, one room. This haunted me, why must I go on in this hell, what have I done to deserve this hate and this neglect.My mother has slept well and so has my sister, I toss and turn. Sleep does not greet me well. Dreams of killing and smoke scare my dreams. Sometimes I sleep its a dreamless sleep but at least it's sleep.

I have a small pet, a spider. Which isn't really a pet, but this pet the Nazis cant take. I have him kept under a cup. I have named this spider Albert after my father. I just want this to end, I just want them to stop hating me. I hate Nazis, they're cruel, and horrible. I wish I had a kitten or a dog, but my mother said no. They'd kill it before I would get a chance to love him or her. But I have a spider. a frail little spider who I tell my hopes and dreams in secret.

"Do you know what their doing to Jews in Auschwitz? They're gassing them!" Marian's father would tell me sister to get my mother mad.

"Stop! Your scaring her!" My mother would politely tell her all the time, but the family kept going, as always trying to scare us kids.

"They don't feed you or give you water then when your giving up hope they has you. Then they burn your body."

"Stop it. Ariel get away from him." She says and pulls her to a corner where she would cover her ears. I can believe what I heard, they don't feed you. You don't get water. What is that place, that horrible sounding place. I walked to the other side of the room and just watched Albert. I play around with Albert in my little cup, how he just runs around and around, and I realize what's happening, I'm keeping Albert prisoner. I can't do that, I'd be no better than the Nazis. I lift the cup and watch him scurry to the door and run out. that was the last thing before I hear a loud banging on the door, which almost rattled it off the hinges. This loud banging woke me, and the other family. They must be here to get Marian.

"Get up now!" Shouted a deep dark voice I have always been scared of. The SS.

"Raus hier!" he shouted in German. why? it is not seven in the morning yet.

"Get up! and get out!" he shouted angrily.

"what is wrong Maria?" My mother asked in a scared hushed tone.

"Mother, something is happening, they're yelling at us to get out now. " She looked at me with, very scared eyes, I have never seen my mother so scared. It killed me, her eyes, so filled with dear, how could this happen? how could someone do this to a family. Everything is going wrong.

"Ariel wake!" She shakes my sister heavily and she wakes with alarm. "You must be quiet alright?" My sister quickly nods as they're standing up. The guard outside bangs on the door once more. "Raus hier!" He screams and I open the door so fast I think I could've started a plane. looking up at him it seemed like a tower, of meanness. 

"You all have twenty minutes to grab your valuables and meet at the train station. Twenty minutes!" commands in a hard voice pulling my mother by her arm, like he was her father and she was a disobedient child.

The man shoved my mother and I grabbed her hand in fear she would fall. We immediately grabbed our suitcases and I shoved every thing I owned into it, our pictures of my father, our gold, everything we had.my mother grabbed both our suitcases and I grabbed hers, and started leading the way. To them we were monsters. Monsters who had to be exterminated. While walking through the ghetto I see bodies, familiar faces, friends, childhood memories, family, and Jews more and more Jews. how they got us in here is a mystery of mine. The ghetto is the size of three blocks, they try to squeeze 40,000 into that space.

There were so many people living on the streets. So many kids without parents, so many people,and a lot of SS guards. "Curse you Jews!!!" I constantly hear, along with "Jude die!" This is very vague, very mysterious. Nobody could predict that we would be trapped here. It was so crowded, only three blocks to keep 40,000 Jews. I was lucky I wasn't out on the streets for the time I was here.

"Good riddance dirty Jews!" Cried the SS and the commandants. I know where we're going, work camps. There were thousands upon thousands of people, thousands of people, who did nothing wrong, thousands of people, just as confused as me. Making our way to get our names read, to get on the train, 

As we get to the train station I could see more SS and more commandants, they were hitting people to get in train cars. Hitting, with guns, clubs. As if we weren't moving fast enough.They're so small that I think a small family could live in it. It was made for cows, cows, and sheep, or animals. How could we fit in it? that was my question.  while in line to get on a train we heard a voice over the loud speaker.

"Write your names on your luggage so that we may return them to you! you will get your luggage back when you reach your destination!" I saw the people writing their names on their luggage and I just thought that it was stupid to do so, they would never give it back to us, I wrote our names on it regardless. while walking forward to get on a train car I thought very quickly, maybe if i get on the train holding my mothers hand I wouldn't feel so scared. The very instant I thought of that, I looked around and realized.

My family was gone.