The Days I Remember

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.  -Leroy Satchel Paige

I woke up and out to people crying and yelling for food and children for their parents. Soldiers came in and told us to be quite. They brought their guns pointing at all of us. Knowing that it was the last warning we all shut up and got up. To make sure that we knew they weren’t joking around they took the nearest person to them which happen to be a girl my age and threw her to the ground outside of our barrack.

There was a huge bang, a gun went off and we knew what had happen. The Solider glared at us and walked out of the barrack. I felt this over whelming urge to go out there and tell the soldiers something but I knew it wasn’t a great idea. So I sat there in shock trying to calm Emma down.

Emma who was now awake looked at me with her blue eyes which seemed to be turning to a dull gray. As if the life was getting sucked out of her. I knew if we were going to make it through this we would have to stick together no matter what happen.

Maybe just maybe something good will happen. Someone or something will put a stop to this. Maybe just maybe we could just stop or say no. We will fight for or lives. Even if there is no hope left for us we will fight. I will fight for my sister and my dead parents. They will be proud of me and my sister. I would make the proud, or have feeling knowing they would be proud.

We both got out of the bed and walked out of the barrack. The sun was shining, giving us at least some hope in the darkness of time.

"Mother and Father are watching over us" said Emma in a quiet voice. I took her hand and gave her a smile.

"Yes, Emma they are watching over us right now and they want us to get through. We will get through this." I said with a smile.

That was probably going to be my last smile for a long time.

Emma nodded as we made our way to roll call. Looking at numbers and said here when our number was called. Men and women line up in rows.  The men were yelled at by the Soldiers to follow them to who knows where while the women followed other soldiers to what look like laundry and food.

They spilt us up two groups. Emma was with me and we had to peel buckets and buckets of potatoes as the other had to do laundry. We would most likely be here for hours. Luckily it wasn’t that cold, the sun was out so at least we would be somewhat warm. I had to quickly teach Emma on how to peel potato as I saw When I the soldiers picking up a children and throwing them to the ground because they didn’t know how.

 The young girl who was terrified look at the solider wanting to run away. She was about 8 years old with dirty blonde hair. She had the roundest blue eyes that would make your heart melt. She was skinny to the bone and looked like she wanted to curl up in a ball. The Solider pulled out his gun and shot the poor girl who seemed to be Emma’s age.

The solider gave us all a look and then told us the killing of the young child was only the beginning if we didn’t do what they said.  He then yelled at us to get back to work and to not talk. Group of soldiers were to watch over us to make sure we didn’t try anything. I tried to give Emma words of encouragement but couldn’t say anything as I was still in shock.

All I could see was the lifeless body of the poor young girl as the soldiers drag the body away. I watched them as they throw it onto a pile which I didn’t realize till now. I quickly looked away from the horrible image. There was large group of dead bodies pilled on each other. Young and old people were killed and thrown there as if they were garbage. I felt like I was going to throw up but calm myself. I knew this if I didn’t do what the soldiers wanted me to do and Emma would be dead.

I wasn’t going to let that happen of course and I would try my best to fight for what was right. I knew right now there was nothing I could do but I would figure out something. I wasn’t going to stand there and watch them hurt people. How they treated us was just plain wrong and it had to be stopped.

Peeling potatoes wasn’t fund to tell you the truth. Wait I shouldn’t complain this could because I knew or had feeling that people were going to grow throw worse than what I was doing or what Emma was doing. There’s always someone that has it worse.

I don’t know how long it was about seemed like forever. Just peeling potatoes with Emma. We should normally already have breakfast but I knew were would eat much now. It was middle of the day or seemed like the middle day when we go to eat whatever we were going to eat.

We lined up in orderly fashion everyone did, and got our cups. The soldiers stood in guard watching us carefully as if they were waiting for one of us to do something. Each soldiers hand was ready to pull a gun as if they were waiting of excuse to kill us. This, I had to admit scared me a little bit.  We filled it to the top knowing this was most likely al we were going to eat. Thankfully we got to sit on the ground, force all morning to stand. I ate quickly talking to Emma and few others in hush voices. This and at night was the only time we really got to talk and we had to be carefully on what we talked about.

“Do you think we will ever get out of here” mumbled Emma quietly looking at her food. She hadn’t touch it yet. She was scared and still in shock most likely but she needs her strength and even though they gave us a little food, any food really would help.

“Emma, eat your food. You need it please” I told my sister giving her a very worried look and pleading one.

Do you ever wonder what the moon and stars look like when you’re not in city? With no lights or sounds just the sky? Well we had that actually. Sure we were at work camp for view but through the whole in the barrack, I could get a pretty good view of all the stars. It was actually beautiful. It was only the third day and I was tried but I couldn’t sleep. I was glad Emma was sleeping at least.

But you see what you take for granted. The Stars in the Sky and the Moon look so amazing and I never notice.  It’s only been three days but I’m thankful for what I have, even if I don’t have nothing besides my sister and of course myself. And through we were at this place that was terrible and we could see death everywhere, I was at least thankful I was alive.

Finding stuff to be thankful was the only thing keeping me going besides my sister. And if I survived this, I would try to make sure this would never happen to anyone else ever again. If I learned one thing so far. Even though I don’t like the soldiers or Hitler I don’t wish this on anybody including them.