Author's note: This was a creative writing project I had to write for English class, but I'm posting it here as a tribute to those who suffered in the Holocaust. I hope everyone both enjoys and appreciates this story.
Disclaimer: I have no ties to the victims of the Holocaust, only a deep sorrow that they will only ever again be known through history books.
My name is Marti Stroheim. I am 72 years old, and I have a story to tell. I tell this story because I remember, and I want the world to never forget. I am one of the over six million Jews who suffered through the German Holocaust. But I, unlike so many others that I knew, have survived to relive my memories of those horrible days. I admit my memories have dulled over the years, but I will never forget the confusion and fear that possessed me long before I was sent to the camps.
When I was ten years old, I was told that I could no longer attend my childhood school or play with my best friend, Arial. My family and I could no longer attend public events such as plays and movies. I was too young then to understand what my being a Jew had to do with what was happening, but even a child could see that my family was not the only one suffering. In fact, a few months after the new laws were put into effect, many Jewish families were "relocated" to Poland. A hastily written letter from my aunt Krisna, my mother's sister, arrived at our home with the news that my mother's side of the family had been moved to Poland several weeks earlier. That letter was the last time I ever heard from my aunt or cousins.
Immediately after receiving the letter, my parents began planning our family's escape from Germany. Father knew we had the money to afford the visas and transportation, but the farthest we could pay to go to was Cuba. At that time, unfortunately, Cuba and many other countries were denying immigrants entry. My parents resolved to save up their money until they could afford the trip to America. I was frightened by how concerned my parents were over the government's plan to move the Jews. My mama and papa had always been set in their ways, but suddenly they were more than eager to begin anew in a foreign land. I realized then that something was truly wrong. This, along with my parent's wish to leave, filled me with a fear I had never known before; but when Mama and Papa said they would need their children to help them, I quietly agreed to do whatever they asked of me. Over the next two years my family did all that we could to save our money, and at one point Papa estimated that we could afford to leave for America by December of 1941. In September of that year, my family gave up all hope of leaving.
September 6, 1941, is one day that will forever be burned into my mind. It was my thirteenth year, and only a week before I had celebrated my bat mitzvah. Our neighbors had been so nice in helping put it together, and my friend Laura had given me what I thought to be the best gift in the world: a hand-knitted sweater that she and her mother had been working on for months. I was so delighted; I tried to find a reason to wear my new sweater every day. September 6 came, and my bubble of joy was burst. Laura and I had been walking around outside that evening when we realized that it was time for supper. We parted ways, and I went to my house eagerly anticipating the wonderful smell of Mama's cooking. I walked into the house and took a deep breath as I headed to my room, but I could not smell Mama's cooking. I told myself that nothing was wrong and was almost convinced until I turned into the hallway leading to the cildren's rooms. There, at the end of the hallway, stood my mama with a collection of shirts and jackets in her arms. She was looking around frantically, telling Papa and my younger sister Anna to make sure they had all of them, when she spotted me standing frozen at the hall entrance. In a burst of motion, I clutched my sweater to me tightly and turned to try and run from the hall. But there was no escape for my older brother Emille was blocking the doorway.
"I know how much you love it, Marti," he said, "but you must let Mama have it. It's for your own good." I did as he said, and from then on my beautiful sweater was marked with the Star of David. We were branded with our religion for all people to see, and no good German citizen would dare be caught doing business with us. My family was trapped.
Over the next month, I began to see the Nazis for their true purpose. These silent forces that patrolled our neighborhoods at night were not for keeping intruders out but for keeping us in. For the most part, the guards of our neighborhood were young men who kept to themselves and watched us. The only soldier I ever heard speak was a boy not much older than my brother. He was nineteen years old and seemed to have taken a shine to Emille for a few days, but then was abruptly replaced by an older soldier. The month of strained peace came to an end and my neighbors and familt were awakened one morning by the sound of truck engines coming down our street. Before we were awake enough to wonder what was happening, the Nazis were loading us into the trucks. We were all wide awake, though, by the time the trucks stopped in front of a train station. This time, as we unloaded from the trucks and boarded the trains, the Nazis separated us. The Nazi officers made the men get off first and put them on one train, then made the women and children board a different train. I knew not to speak, for I had already seen several hysterical women struck down by the butt of a Nazi rifle, but in my heart I wept and prayed as the train carrying my brother and father slowly pulled away. When the women's train lurched forward, I slid down the wall of the car and huddled in with my mother and sister. Through silent tears we steeled ourselves for whatever awaited us at the end of the tracks.
We traveled for three days and two nights with little food and water and no bathroom. Everyone was so grateful when the long ride came to and end that, at first, no one cared about being ordered to line up as we got off the train and then being marched into the camp. This sense of relief did not last long; soon after arriving we were ordered to strip and change into uniforms that were tattered and filthy. Our regular clothes were taken from us and were not seen again. We were immediately put to work, and there is very little else I remember from my time spent at this camp. I do not remmeber the camp's name or what work had been assigned to my mother and sister. Nor do I remember what happened to my friend Laura when she was caught stealing extra rations for an elderly woman who had come down with sudden illness. All I remember is that for one long year I spent my days cleaning by hand the clothes and Nazi officers. The putrid smell of chemical fumes comes back to me with every breath I take. Sometimes it seemed like that year would never end. Now, when I look back on what happened next, I wish it never had.
A year had come and gone, and in 1941 the Nazis began rounding up the Jews and putting them on trains headed for a much larger concentration camp. On the way to this new place, I started to notice that Mama was not in the best of health. I kept this observation to myself because if Mama had wanted to talk about it, she would have said something first. I hoped that whatever illness had gripped my mama would go away soon because I was afraid of what would happen to her when we reached the camp. She did not get any better, and when we arrived at our destination and were herded into camp, Mama was put in a different line than the one Anna and I were in. I had not known then what the lines meant but shortly after being sent to our bunkers that night, a woman told me that the line my mama was put in was the line of those marked for death. I did not tell Anna this, but when we slept that night I held my sister as close as possible and let my tears fall soundlessly to the ground. I knew that very night that this new place we were sent to would only get worse, and knowing this made me no more willing to face life at the camp named Auschwitz.
After discovering that my mama was marked for death, I let myself fall into an emotionless daze. For weeks, I would wake up and go through my day with no concern over what was happening around me or even about the work I was told to do. If the Nazis wanted to make room by digging up corpses and burning them, then it was fine by me. As long as I got food at least once a day and had a place to sleep at night, I didn't care about what else happened. The only thing that kept from becoming an empty shell was the night Anna came crying to me. saying that she had been talking to one of the men through the fence. She said the man had known Papa and Emille and that the man had seen their deaths only eight weeks before we had arrived. I comforted Anna the only way I knew how and told her that the man might have been lying to try and frighten her, but I knew deep down inside that the stranger's words had been true. The only ones left from our family of five were Anna and myslef. This realization brought me back from my numb state, but it offered little help when it came to facing the pain of day-to-day life.
Every day I bore witness to inhuman cruelties. The Nazis would beat us like animals and call us worse. Then, when I was fifteen years of age, a cursed blessing descended upon the camp. After being enlarged to hold several more prisoners, the now renamed Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was in need of more soldiers and guards. Several days after the soldiers arrived, I looked up from the ditch I was digging to see a face I knew well. His eyes were aged from war and the atrocities he had witnessed, but they were still the same silver-blue eyes that I had seen in the face of only one other person: my dearest friend Arial. This young man whose tortured soul dimmed his once bright eyes was none other than Arial's brother, Gerard. It seemed at first that he had not recognized me, but later that day he had pulled me aside to talk to me. For the next several days, he would steal some time here and there to spend talking with me. He told me how his father had pressured him into joining the Nazi army after discovering that the supposedly superior Aryan race had blonde hair and blue eyes, which was a perfect description for both Gerard and Arial. When I asked what happened to Arial, he had hesitated to answer but finally told me that she had been arrested for "defiling her race" after she was caught sneaking out to spend time with a young Jewish man who had yet to be put in the camps. He did not tell me what happened to Arial after she was arrested, and I did not ask. We were both silent for a moment, and then I told Gerard what I knew of my own family. He had given a deep sigh before saying anything else.
"I suppose it is worse to have only rumors to go by, but sometimes not knowing can be better. It gives people hope," he had said. I had nodded and was about to respond when he spoke again. "I am truly sorry for all that has happened to your family, Marti, and I promise you that from now on I will protect you and Anna. No matter what the cost, I will keep you safe." Tears came to my eyes at his kind words, but before I could respond the bell sounded for all prisoners to return to their bunkers. That night I had a rathe decent sleep as Gerard's vow ran through my head.
Gerard tried to spend as much time with me as often as he could manage, but as the year went on we saw less and less of each other. One day when we were able to talk, he told me that the Nazis were getting nervous about all the evidence of the murders they had committed and that they were planning something big to help solve the problem. He promised to let me know as soon as he knew what was happening, and he kept his promise. The night of August 22, 1944, Anna and I were awoken from our sleep by a silent, yet frantic Gerard. He led us out to a cellar below an abandoned building and told us to hide there until he came for us. It was well into the next evening when he returned, and also brought news that the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers were being destroyed. That night he was able to sneak us back into a bunker. Amazingly, we were never caught. He continued to take care of us in any way he could, whether it be by giving us extra rations or by hiding us when the Nazis were threatening to kill all the Jews in the camp. The on January 27, 1945, the camp was attacked by Soviet troops. Anna and I were among the 5,000 still alive.
Anna and I left for the United States as soon as we were approved for visas. Somehow, though I'll never be sure how he did it, Gerard was able to find his way to us. He told us that he had given a testimony of the crimes he had seen committed by the Nazis and was given his freedom after signing an agreement that his testimony could be used in court. We live happily now in America, but we will never forget the evils we saw during the Holocaust. I can only hope that this terror can never happen again. This is the reason I tell my story. Please, don't ever forget.