A German-Jew Holocaust

Chapter 3: The Arrival

~Chapter 3: The Arrival~

We rode on the train, in the little box car, crammed together, for what felt like two weeks. Inside, it smelled absolutely horrible, due to the dead bodies, urine and feces. When we finally came to a stop and the door opened, I took a deep breath of fresh air. It smelled like there was something burning in the air. The smell made me cringe, it was almost worse than the smell of the box car. When I stepped out of the box car, there was a gate with a sign that read "Arbeit Macht Frei!" or "Work Sets You Free!" On either side of the gate were two Nazi soldiers. When I looked up, engraved into the gate was "Auschwitz." I had heard stories about Auschwitz from Sofie's dad. He had told me that it was one of the worst places to be.

Once inside, I saw that the camp was a very dull place. There were people walking with no life in their eyes and soldiers right behind them telling them to, "speed it up," or hitting them. I saw what the burning was coming from. There was a rather small building with smoke coming out of it. People were carrying bodies to that building. I came to a quick stop when I saw a woman carrying a baby into the building. She was sobbing and begging the soldier outside the building to not make her do it. I felt a light push on my shoulder from my mother and I began to walk in horror.

We were seperated into two different lines, my family stayed together. The we were seperated into two more lines, men and women. Then we were taken to two different buildings. In the building that my mother and I were taken to, they stripped us of all our clothing and we were shaven from head to toe. I cried when I saw my long, dark hair falling to the ground. Once we were finished being shaved, we were then taken to a fairly large room that was all tile and very cold. When we all got into the room, I made sure to stay close to my mother, the door was shut and some sort of gas started to spray from the walls; as this was happening I found it very hard to breathe. Once that was over, we were taken back to the room that we had been shaven in and given clothing that was either too big or too small. I traded with a woman who had clothes that were more of my size and the clothes I had recieved seemed to be a better fit for her.

When we were finished dressing we were taken to another building that was very hot inside. It was within this building that the number 47392 was forever burned into my flesh. The pain of the hot iron made me cry out in pain. During this time, I wondered how my brother and father were taking things. Then I had the most dreadful thought; would I ever see them again?

When everyone had gotten their "tattoos', we were taken to the barracks, where we would be sleeping. When we got there, we met our barrack keeper who gave us the basic rules of the camp.

"You will wake up at 4 am, find your shoes, and make your beds perfectly. I will not be the one you will see in the mornings. I will oversee this barrack after lunch. After you finish making your bed, you will go wash up. You mush be fast while washing up because you will only have a few minutes to wash. Once you have finished washing, you will go to breakfast. After you've eaten, you will attend morning roll call. During roll call, you need to be standing in lines of 10. After roll call, you will start your chores. You will have roll call again before lunch, then it's back to chores. Then, there will be one final roll call before dinner. After dinner you will come back here and be in your beds by 10 o'clock."

This soldier had a different look to him than all the other soldiers. He looked to be younger, close to my age. He also seemed not to want to be giving the orders he was giving, it was like he was being forced to do what he was doing.

He led us into the barrack; I noticed that their were two rows of three tier bunks, which were very small. If all of us were going to sleep in here, we would have to all share our bunks with more than one person. Maybe sleeping on one another.