5.04 Holocaust

1. I was sitting with my family at the breakfast table drinking milk and eating a piece of burnt toast; that was when I heard the feint sound of sirens coming from the east end of the block. My dads face grew pale and my mother quickly stood up and grabbed my brother and mines hand. She guided us towards the back of the house through a small opening in the floor. Once we reached the hole, she took my brothers hand and placed it in mine, telling him to watch over me. We were put into the hole and she kissed our heads, then covered the little light we had with a rug. I started to panic, unaware of the destruction and persecution that lay before me on a silver platter. We spent a week in that ditch, although it had felt like a lifetime. All the while, I thought of my parents: where had they gone; would they soon return? One day while we were there, with cramps building up in my legs, I heard footsteps coming from above my head. My brother hoping it was our parents returning to save us from the forever darkness that we faced slid the rug over and peered up with squinting eyes. The rough man standing above us, however, was not our father, but a man I would soon come to know as, Nazi soldier. The reasons of our taking were not because of crime, but because of my ethnicity, the way I looked, the way I spoke, and even my religion.
2. I was split up from my brother, the only family I had left, when we were put into different groups. I was with the women; he was with the men. I cried that day, not knowing if or when I would ever see my brother again, and the thought of being alone in this horrific place. We waited in the hot sun for what seemed like hours, but finally we were let in a room where we showered and then guided to a set of chairs lined up in a row. There we sat and had our hair forcefully cut off from our scalp. That was the final piece of myself and my past I had left, and it was gone in a matter of minutes. I was told to put on the rags in front of me and