Holocaust In My Eyes

I was in my bedroom writing in my diary when I felt a hard knock on my head. I passed out from the hit. When I woke up, I wasn’t in my house, I was in a cell. There were beds of straw stacked and stacked and stacked, and I was laying in one. I was wearing striped pajamas, and so was everybody else. I was in a panic, when I suddenly saw my mom crying. My mom looked at me and kept walking, I went to follow her but a strange man held me back. He said that it was for the best. I asked the man where she was heading and he paused before he mumbled “The shower.” I shrugged and walked off.

I headed outside to get fresh air when I saw a man who wasn’t in striped pajamas. I approached him and didn’t even get to ask where his pajamas were before he screamed at me to get to work. Another outsider had walked up and shoved a wheel barrel to my stomach. They chuckled as they saw me throw up. I walked away with the wheel barrel, fore I was too weak to run.

Everybody was working on or with something. So, I thought it best to blend in, as much as I could with this agonizing pain in my stomach. I started to distribute nasty mulch to the dead flowerbeds. But, I started to think. Normally, when I started to think bad thoughts, my mother would comfort me. So, I searched for my mother. I could not find her anywhere, but I didn’t have much time to look, that same outsider that chuckled over my vomit screamed at me again.

I got back to work when another man walked up to me and told me to come. I followed him to a room, the room was full of us Jews and there was a constant buzzing in the background. I looked around and realized what was happening. We were getting a-a-a tattoo! The mean men are making us defy our father by putting permanent ink in our body.

It was my turn to defy my father. I sit in the chair for five seconds before the buzzing starts. But, it is coming from both directions, one is coming for my locks of beautiful golden hair and the other straight for my arm. The machine coming towards my hair chopped it all off. I was bald! And, the machine coming towards my arm was more painful than the knock on the head and the barrel to the stomach put together. The tattoo read clearly the words “Occupant 2789.”

I was leaving the room when there was a loud bell ringing, all of the pajama people headed towards the bell. As I saw everybody together, I noticed something peculiar, everybody was Jewish, and there is way less of us now than when we arrived. I started to panic when a non-Jew man in a uniform glanced at me. I stopped panicking and rushed back to my spot in line.

While we were in line, I could smell soup. It smelled delicious, I hadn’t eaten since I had arrived. It was my turn to get my food, they gave me a tiny spoonful and screamed “NEXT!” I sat on the floor and ate the little bit of food. It tasted good, but I wanted more, I walked back in line for seconds when a guard grabbed me by the arm. pulled me aside along with many others to take us to the shower. I was confused, I hadn’t even finished eating and they wanted me to shower. But, I obeyed anyways.

We arrived at a huge shower room that was labeled “Chamber 17.” I was so confused, since when do they label showers like that? I didn’t have anytime to ask my question before they made us strip our clothes off. We had to be in only our naked skin. You would be surprised as to how dirty we are. I have only been here three hours, and you can tell where my clothes started by the outline of dirt.

We were waiting for everybody to get nude, which took ten minutes. Then, the mean people shoved us in a different room, this one had spouts and non-slip floors. I was confused as to why we all had to take one big shower. But, I guess that when you have as many people in one place as we do, you need to have group showers. As the water started to drizzle, I saw my sister, she was in the shower with me. I got beside her and asked her where we were, but she couldn’t hear me, the water started to fall to hard.

The water got thicker and thicker, and seemed less like water. I could hardly breathe. I all of a sudden started to see people pass out, including my sister, I thought for sure that if I got the soldier’s attention, he would stop the shower and help these people. I bolted towards the door, but I could hardly breathe, I fell on the floor. Everything was such a blur, I couldn’t see. I wanted to stand up, but people kept piling on top of me, holding the babies to the top of the shower. Suddenly, everything went white, I couldn’t hear anything, and I got scared. I started to scream when everything seemed to disconnect.