Prisoner B-1941

The Goodbyes

When we finally got off the train, it was terrible to see that a few people had died from exhaustion and hunger. I felt awful, I’ve never experienced anything like that. When I got my suitcase out of the train, I could hear them saying,

"Out, as soon as you can, OUT! Leave you belongings there!"

A bald headed man in a striped uniform came out and whispered in Yiddish to my younger sister Anne who is thirteen,

“You’re fifteen, remember fifteen!”

How strange? Why is he dressed like that?

I turn around to see my older sister. She quickly takes my necklace off and puts it in her shoe.

“What are you doing Rebekka?”

All she does is put her finger to her lips. She then points behind me. I turn around. There, in front of me was a Nazi soldier standing on a stool,

“Gentlemen and Ladies,

we know that you are very tired, that you had a very long and exhausting journey. Neither food nor water was plentiful. We are sorry, but this is not our fault. Now, that is behind you. We will put you into a Camp. Those who are able will work. All will live in normal conditions.

We are sorry that we have to give you some bad news. To the Camp, where you would live and work, are some 3 km and so happen that just today we do not have transportation. Thus, we are asking now that:

All females, mothers with their children no older than 14, all men sick or disabled to go to the left.

The rest that are able to work, and thus able to walk to the Camp, to stay put on the right of the ramp.” *

Mother runs over to me a gives me a big hug and a kiss knowing that this might be the last time I will see her. I then turn to my little brother Tomas, as before he looks very confused and upset. I pick him up and say goodbye. Quickly I go back to the others as Father says goodbye to his wife and youngest son. Anne looking unsure says,

“Should I do what that man told me to do?”

I just nod and wave goodbye to mother thinking just this morning I was talking to her like any other day and now, our lives have changed forever. We walked to the right side of the terrifying barbed wire building. The rusty wire fencing seems to go on forever. As we walk we see tall watch towers from all of the sides of the camp.

We felt like we had walked for days when we finally reached our camp. The Guards ordered us to take a shower, when we got out they put chemicals in our hair and under our arms. They then shaved our heads. Screaming from the pain of the chemicals running into my eyes and the humiliation of having no hair, I walk on to wear they give me; a strange looking grey dress with a red cross on the back and a pair of wooden shoes. When I’ve put my uniform on, I squeeze my feet into the wooden shoes. They’re tiny!

“Get into single file!” the Guard demands.

Quickly I find Rebekka, Anne, Father and Hiram. We line up one behind another and walk slowly up to another soldier who tattoos a number on our left arms. I can’t help noticing that the soldier looks quite young and very handsome, I must say. He catches my eye but quickly looks away again before anyone sees. I read the tattoo on my arm; it reads ‘B-7941’. I don’t feel like a human being now, I’m just another number, with a life no one cares about.

We are then told to go different ways from the males and so quickly I say goodbye to father and Hiram knowing if I’m too long they may beat me, as I can see that happening to someone else.