My family's life was a lot different before the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust we would smile and gather around the dinner table with each other. We had our disagreements but if we had known that the Holocaust was coming we never would have been as mean to each other as we were at times. We loved each other with every part of our hearts and never would have wanted to separate from each other. Our memories were great including all the times we had roamed the world on family vacations and trips. We had gotten to see a large amount of the world up until this point. Soon however the Holocaust came closer and we did not get to go anywhere or even do anything. We of course had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen.
Our rights were quickly being taken away. We all wore yellow stars on our clothing and basically stayed inside. I was seventeen years old two weeks after we all were put into ghettos. I looked like I was a twenty year old though. Life there was absolutely dreadful like snow coming out of no where when someone is dressed for the hottest day of the year. We could not eat freely because our food was rationed. We all started getting skinnier except my younger siblings who my parents and I gave part of our rations to. People started dying on the streets due to starvation and disease since we all lived so close together. Many people were forced to live in one apartment. We lived with my grand parents and a few aunts and uncles. Then the deportations started after a few weeks and a few hundred people had died.
One of these people had been my mother. She had gone out for a few minutes and never returned. I went outside to look for her and saw her lying at the bottom of the stairs. I ran over as tears came to my eyes. My mother was no longer moving and no matter what I did she would not respond or wake up. Death had seeped in like water into the ground after it rains. I cried but did not let anyone see because I had to be a strong man for my family.
The deportations came a few days after my mother's death in the early hours of the morning. We were awoken quickly by the German guards and forced out of our homes with the others soon after that. We had little time to grab the most important things to us. I brought a chain with me that my mother had given to me when I was just a little boy. Soon we were marched out of the ghetto and to a nearby railroad. Once crammed in there with almost one hundred other people including my father we were on our way to an unknown destination. We hoped for work and better conditions due to our lack of knowledge of what was happening to other people just like us.
My three younger sisters and two younger brothers did not accompany us. Resistance fighters had taken them out of the ghetto the night before and promised they would be safe in Christian households where they would grow up. One of these siblings was my two year old sister, Adi, who would never remember her mother, father, or any of us if we did not survive. We fought to keep my siblings because we did not know of the dangers where we were going. The resistance fighters still took my siblings when we were sleeping that night, which I had been told after the Holocaust was over. The younger of the two brothers, Adna, had been the luckiest of all of us because although he did not get to see us he did not deal with the Holocaust. All of us had tried to be accepted to another country before the Holocaust began. This country was the United States, but all of us had been rejected except Adna, who was nine at the time. We found a family over there to take care of him and raise him as if he were their own but to let him come back into our family after it was all over. I learned why my parents had tried to get us out during the Holocaust. I had never seen it coming, I thought we were just going to be getting good jobs or something, anything besides the Holocaust.
Since I had not known what had occurred with my siblings I feared the worse as I woke up and even after we were forced on the cattle cars. It was really hot inside the cattle cars as if a child was above us treating us like ants as he shined a magnifying glass on us. We were not given food but did not know how long or short the journey we were taking was. We were given buckets and told that was where we could go to the bathroom. I did not understand how we would get there when we were this packed in though. We stood there the entire time since we had no choice. The ride took a few days and over them several people died due to heat, lack of oxygen, or starvation.
