Their War

Belle: 9/1/1941

The Star of David is sown to my clothes. There is no hiding the fact that I am I Jew. Why do they discriminate us and leave us for dead? Why must we be kicked to the curb and beaten?  It has been two whole years since the beginning of this vile war. It has thrown us Jews, gypsies and disabled out of our properties and onto the streets where we are treated like dirt. We are one of the lucky families who still have a one bedroom flat. I live with my brother Ron, my mother and father and our grandpa. It is a difficult lifestyle but we live as best as we can.

Hitler had vowed to make Germany great again but all he has done is worsen our conditions. He has taken our neighbours somewhere and they never came back. It is as if he is killing us off, leaving only his model society. Just as I was thinking about that the door burst from its hinges and I was shoved into a closet along with my brother. We could barely  see what was happening through the keyhole. What I could see has scared me for the rest of my life. The Nazi soldiers rushed in and grabbed my parents and grandpa. My father tried to resist so to punish him they abused my mother with a whip, leaving red marks lashed across her face. Her screams of agony still repeat in my brain. He then stopped but the soldiers did not. One of them took out a gun. I closed my eyes and I heard the bullet hit. There was a scream and cries. The door then was slammed and we nervously pushed open the closet door and saw the unthinkable.

The first thing I saw was the scarlet blood all over the floor and her body sprawled. My mother lay with her mouth open and hands covering her heart. The silence hurt as tears stung Ron and I. "What have they done!" I cried stroking my mothers lifeless face, like she used to do to me when I got scared.  They needed to leave and quickly. If they came back they would find the children. Surely they would realise that they never took the children! As if Ron was reading my mind he whispered "We need to go"

I grabbed my father old, tattered leather briefcase and threw my possessions inside with my grandpas gun, a picture of my parents and clothes. Ron had took grandpas case with all his belongings stuffed in it. We were about to go out the door when I heard the voices coming from the corridor yelling "The kids must be in here!" The  only option was to jump from the window. I heaved the window open and looked bellow. There was a parasol and a rickshaw below us . It was was our only hope. As the door was broken down we tumbled out the window with our bags, landing on the parasol and hopping into the rickshaw and cycled away before the Nazis could process what had happened.

We cycled for hours until we were sure we were safe. Ron built us a little hut on the edge of a forest. Then I heard the little boys voice saying hello.