This soldier came to my school and handed out yellow stars of David to every Jewish girl and boy. We had to wear them. These stars caused us nothing but misery.
I remember holding my brother s hand as we ran for our lives down a street away from the mob of angry children who didn t wear the stars who chased us.
I stopped dead, lifting my brother, Schmuel into my arms, he was nine, I was sixteen. He was light, I was strong. I shouted to these children in Hebrew, the original language of my people. The ran away, shouting that I was a witch and that I had tried to put a spell on them...All I had shouted was :
Leave us alone! We are human just like you! We get scared and go seek comfort. We cry when we fall and seek comfort and like all teenagers I fall in and out of love with movie stars every week!
The soldiers took my family after that. I remember holding my brother s hand. His little finger nails dug into my palm. I didn t notice or care, I was too terrified to even feel it.
I remember the soldiers trying to pull Schmuel away from me while we sobbed hysterically and he dug his nails into my palm even harder, holding on no matter what. They ripped his hand from mine and dragged me off by the hair to get my red curls shaved.
To this day I still have five small crescent moon shaped scars on my palm. They re the only hing I have to remember him by.
Striped uniforms, shaved heads, shouting, work, work and much more work was all we knew now. It was our world. There was no Poland, no sea, no grass only Auschwitz. I had no Schmuel and no father. Only my mother.
One day mother was taken for a shower. Mother never came back.
When the war ended and we were liberated I had nothing. I was the only one of my family left. All of them were killed in the Gas Chambers including my little Schmuel.
After that I barely scraped enough money to move to America. There I met another Holocaust survivor. We wed when he was 24 and I was 21. After 12 years of trying we were blessed with a son, be a divorce followed soon after, my ex-husband couldn t cope with my depression and the fact that I couldn t stand that I was living a life that Schmuel would never have.
I am now 42, my red hair is slowly fading to gray, my freckles have faded away. The holocaust is obvious on my face, every line etched onto it is because of that period in my life.
I am as tall as a 6-foot-tree.
The only person who can now make me smile is my son. He is 9 years old and he has eyes the colour of caramel sweets. Remind you of anyone?