Making History: The Holocaust [COMPLETE]

The Choosing

"Get up, Eliana! Hurry, it's time for counting!" Sylvia woke me, grabbing my arm and running out of our small room together. Most of the bunks were empty, which was unusual considering how early it was. When we got outside, Sylvia and I joined in line next to a few of the girls I recognized from our room.

"What's going on, Sylvia?" I asked her quietly. There were many officers outside standing around talking, looking at the long line of girls.

"Quiet. If we're caught talking, we'll be shot." She said, making her left hand into a gun and pretending to shoot one of the officers.

Once the rest of the girls were outside and lined up, a man in a funny looking uniform came out and began looking at us very closely. He would come up to the girl, pull at her arm and torso, and look into her eyes.

Out of the first one hundred girls, seventy five of them were pulled from the group. In my small section of only sixty five, fifteen were joined by the first group of picked girls. In the final group, out of the seventy in the group, fifty five were chosen. After that, all the girls who remained were divided into the rooms, and told that today was a rest day and we could rest in out new rooms.

"What just happened?" I asked Sylvia, who was thankfully in my new room.

"It's called a choosing, Eliana. Be glad you weren't picked either." She said in a hushed tone. Most of the girls were sleeping.

"What's going to happen to them?" I asked, wishing I hadn't.

"They're going to die. Burned, gassed, shot, any way they can dispose of us one by one. They always do a choosing to make room for the new girls who will be coming in." She said. You could hear the growing hatred in her voice.

I was speechless. How could humans do something like this to our own kind? Only monsters.

"But why?" I asked her, sitting on the edge of my bunk.

"No one knows. Something to do with Adolf and the war is all I know." She replied, looking away.

"How often do they do choosings?" I asked, shifting my weight.

"It just depends. You better hope you don't get sick or left behind. Anyone inside the rooms during the choosing is automatically shot. It makes space for the new girls coming."

"More girls?" I shuttered.
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Two months had passed, and camp was beginning to become routine to me. I woke up early, went and worked in the garden with the other girls in my room, ate lunch when they decided to feed us, and went to bed. I began to take notice of the other girls in my room. All very thin, thinner than I thought was possible. We all had short hair, and I missed my long wavy locks more than anything.

At night, I listened to the cries of the other women around me, as well all missed our homes. Some women had even become victim to the guards at the camp, who preyed on the women who were thicker, and had more meat on their bones. They would come into our rooms, and do things to the girls, and we were forced to hear them plead for the guards to stop. I hoped I would never be like them.

 I thought of my mother every day, and wondered if they were walking on the other side of the camp. Had they returned home? Were they happy again? Surely they are better off than I am. 

Sylvia had become my closest friend. She was with me all the time, and we took care of each other. It was a blessing in disguise. I still thought of Aaron, wondering where he was. I thought of the other girls in bunks I was not, other camps, everyone in this war. Were they being treated like us? Every night, I prayed for a way out.