Emma's+WWII+Narrative+Essay

=__Beautiful Eyes__=

My Father said we would never get caught. We would always be safe, always be together, through thick and thin. The morning when the soldier came to our door, I knew that was all over. My family would never be the same.

That soldier was from Germany, the country that invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. My Family lived in Warsaw, Poland. That soldier requested one male from our family to have the honor of fighting for the Nazi Army. My Older brother quickly volunteered to save my 50 year old dad. Without hesitation, the soldier took my only brother, whom I loved so much. My brother Rafael, would most likely die at the hands of those who he hated. That was day I vowed I would help all those hurt by Germany.

My family was Catholic, so we weren't targeted right away when the Nazis invaded Poland. Jewish people were moved to special sections of our city. Most of these sections were dirty and had very little food. But our neighbor, Lilian, asked if she could hide at our house. My family knew the consequences of helping the Jews, but we took the risk. When she moved in she brought in only 1 suitcase of clothes, and a lot of cloth to sell so we would be able to feed her. She was forced to give up all of her Jewish traditions so she would not get caught. We now had 5 people living in our house.

My mother and father, Hanna and Dawid, who I loved very much. My mother had dark hair and a larger nose, so when the soldiers cam through our house they took her away. She ended up getting shot in the town square. My Father owneda button and thread shop under our apartment. When the Germans closed his shop, we had to rely on selling Lilian's cloth. My sister, Felicia, was only 4 when the war had started, so she did not understand why my brother had to leave. We shared a room and cried for weeks after he was taken. When the war started, I was only 9 years old. My family lived in secret for about 4 years.

When ever a German soldier would come through our house Lilian would hid in a secret compartment in our attic the you could only find if you were looking for it. So when soldiers would go through our house, they would not find her. But one early morning, the latch of the compartment was broken, and she could not open it, so the soldiers found her. She was shot right in our house, and the soldiers only laughed at her dead body. We were then forced out of our house and to the town square. Many Jews who I knew had lived in the ghettos were also there, and I started to get very scared. My Father was staring straight ahead, knowing about what was about to happen to us. He held my sister and slowly rocked her, she was now 8 years old. She was still to young to understand what was going on. Then I heard them, those awful trains.

Their wheels clicking on the tracks until they came to a screeching halt, right in front of us. My sister was finally understanding what was going on. She slowly lowered to the ground and grabbed my hand, squeezed it once, then stared at those trains. After 3 hours, I knew that we weren't going home, this wasn't like the last time, when they held all the people in our town hostage, but let us go after about an hour or so. We were soon herded into those train cars, train cars that are meant for cows. But never the less, about 50 of us were stuffed into one car. I was unable to even move, and breathing was hard. There was more people then oxygen in the car, so 25% of the people in each car died because they simply could not breathe.

After the 2 hours in the cattle car, we arrived at Treblinka. The men were forced to the left, and the women and children to the right. The last thing I had ever said to my father was love you. Not, “I Love you,” or, “Daddy, I Love you.” It was just, “Love You.” Because a soldier beat me with his gun until I stopped talking. I only had me younger sister Felicia. A tall, fire eyed man stood at the front of our line. He seemed to be examining us. And he did something like pointing to the left, or waving his hand in the air in disgust. I had no idea what that was until I was 2 away from the front of the line. I then grabbed my sister and whispered in her ear, “Lie. You have to lie to him!” She did not say anything, but only looked ahead and gave me the smallest almost undetectable nod. I knew she understood.

I reached the front of the line. I was asked for my name, age, and occupation. I answered with Elzbieta, 13, and Student. He seemed to stare at me trying to tell if I was lying. But I did not need to lie. I was older then some of the people he sent to left. He then said one word, “Left.” I had no hesitation on walking. Until I realized that my sister, who was not old enough to live, was still waiting for her fate. He asked her the same questions as me, and she did exactly what I told her. She lied. She said Felicia, 10, and clothes maker. But he did not like that answer, and sent her to the right. The direction was the difference of barracks and the gas chambers. The left meant you got to live to see tomorrow, but the right meant certain death.

She looked at me one last time. I was tearing up, and she said, “I'll Miss You.” A soldier then started tobeat her with a gun. She died right in front of me. And I couldn't do anything to stop it. I ran to where the soldier was forcing us to go. We reached some showers. I started to get very scared that these were gas chambers, but then a whole group of people rushed out of the showers, soaking wet, which made me feel better. Before we got into the shower, we had our heads shaved, and a number tattooed to our forearms. We were no longer refereed to by our name, but our number. They slowly stripped us of our identity. Until we felt useless and wanted to die anyway.

We had meals only twice a day, and it was one slice of moldy bread. The bread was made of sawdust, and the two slices only added up to about 300 calories. That is not enough to function regularly. This is why many people became extremely skinny, because all the useless work we were forced into doing burned all of our calories from our bread. The work we were forced to do was carrying rocks the size of babies from place to place, folding new prisoners clothes, unfolding, then refolding. Since I was a little bit younger than most people, I got some less demanding jobs, like handing out bread at meal times, or collecting new arrivals bags and luggage.

The soldiers would rush into the barracks and shout until every last person got up out of bed, then you would be forced into working until the late hours of the days. This continued for about 2 years. And disease spreads fast through the crowded camps, and I caught Typhus. We were told that we were going to be moved to another camp because German troops needed to stay at this camp. I later learned that American and British forces were advancing tworads Germanyafter accomplishing D-Day on June 6, 1944. We were being forced to the front gate of the camp. We then heard the soldiers yell at us to start running. We ran for what seemed like ages. Any time someone slowed down of tripped they would get shot on the spot. Not many people could run because of lack of energy. I found it hard to run because I had typhus. Running with typhus is like waking up early in the morning and running at 30 miles an hour.

Then we saw them. The topless, worn down, train cars. We were then forced onto them. This was the winter of 1944, so it was snowing. That was the first drink any of us had had in days was the snow melting in our mouths. The Nazi soldiers pointed and laughed at us, because we looked sick and different. One man threw one slice of bread in our train car, and people started to fight each other over getting the smallest scrap of bread. Many people died during this fight. Some one must of thought that was amusing, because two more slices flew over the side of the car. Out of the 40 of us on that train, only 9 had survived the fight for bread.

When we arrived at the new camp, I felt like giving up. I didn't want to live anymore. But that's when I saw her. She had beautiful blue eyesand looked not a day over 10 years old. I ran to her because I thought it was my sister, Felicia, but that was just the typhus clouding my mind. I asked her her name, but she only responded by holding up her arm, which had a number tattooed to it, like almost everyone in our camp. I realized the Nazis had succeed in stripping her of any identity she had left. She no longer wanted to live, she was just going through the motions. When most people see this, they would see it through her eyes. The world has been cruel to someone who wasn't even 10 yet. But I would not let her die, and everyday after that, I would give her half of my bread slice. I don't know why, but I felt it was my job to save her. God had put me on this earth to save her, and I would do just that.

She never said one word to me, she only looked into my eyes. She started to recognize that I was trying to save her. She took my face in her hands and pointed to my eyes. I did not know why she did this. She did that every morning, when I would meet her on the steps outside of her barracks. I would kiss her forehead at night, then run back to my barrack before any soldiers saw me. I also befriended one older woman. Her name was Pixie. She liked to talk, but her voice sounded weird. She explained that polish was not her first language. She was originally from Georgia, a southern state in America. She knew 5 languages, and was sent to Poland by her family when she was 27. When the Germans invaded Poland, they found out she was American, and sent her away. She also pointed at my Eyes, and told me they were a beautiful shade of green. I got that unique color from my father. She called me Beautiful Eyes everyday.

I woke up one morning and went to meet that little girl, like every morning. In a way, I think she saved my life. If it wasn't for her, I would have no purpose to live either. I went to the steps, but they were empty, I went to my barracks, thinking she was meeting me there. I didn't find her. Then Pixie walked up to me, and she looked very sad. She sat down next to me and said, “Beautiful Eyes, I'm afraid I have some bad news. You know how that little girl was Jewish, right? Well those Nazis don't like Jews very much. They came into our barrack and took her away, in the dead of the night. She began to scream. I knew what they were doing. They were taking her to those gas chambers.” I looked into her eyes. I knew it was the truth, and I began to cry. But then I realized that crying wouldn't fix anything, it wouldn't bring my little girl back to life, it wouldn't get me out of this camp, it wouldn't bring my family to me. Crying got you know where in life, and I knew that.

After long days, little food, and no sleep, people who looked like soldiers opened our gates in the front of our camp. They looked different. They had different uniforms, looked different and talked different. They weren't speaking German, andthey certainly weren't speaking Polish either. They seemed to be really confused. One kept pointing in our direction. He used his hands when he talked. He scream at the other soldiers, then they started to hand out food. The food was the first thing I had eaten in 3 days, so I couldn't keep it down.

A German soldier walked around a corner. One of the mystery soldiers saw him and ran tworads him and pushed him to the ground. He started to beat the German soldier until he lay dead on the ground. One soldier slowly walked to the middle of the camp. He slowly said in a heavy accent, “Does..... Any........ Body........ Speak........ Russian....?” Pixie then stood up and slowly walked over to them. She explained what the Nazi soldiers doing, why they were doing it, and how they kept it contained.

Someone grabbed my shoulder behind me. I was very scarred, but I slowly turned around. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was looking at a soldier who I knew very well. I started to cry tears of joy. I thanked God for keeping me alive. I thanked the Russian army for rescuing him. I thanked everyone who gave me the strength to go on. But most of all, I thanked my dearest brother for surviving the hardships he had to go through with only the smallest ounce of hope. Hope that he would someday find anyone, anyone who he loved. =__Bibliography__= Brandman, Bronia, and Carol Bierman. //The Girl Who Survived: A True Story of the Holocaust//. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.