A Fight To Survive

Ezra Shanto

You awaken to the sound of marching feet. Pitter patter becoming thunder on a clear morning in Krakow, Poland. You hear shouting soon after. You think nothing of it; merely your sisters and brothers fighting again. You close your eyes. You have nothing to worry about, merely a twelve year old boy named Issac Dunin. You open them again because you hear your father yelling.
"Hurry get your things!" he bellows
Suddenly he bursts into your room. His face is terror and his body an earthquake. You quickly realize this is no longer a drill or some sort of small fight. It's happening.
"Isaac!" he cries, short of breath. "Time to move, they have come."
"Who has?" You asked, baited breath. You have never feared words. They have been your friends since you can remember. They lied for you and they died for you.
"The Nazis."
You move quickly after, grabbing a small bag that you can stuff things into. You grab clothes, you grab shoes but you leave behind books, toys anything of your childhood. Your father corrals you downstairs and repeats to each of you: "If they get you alone, do anything you can to get free. Lie, cheat, work. Don't show fear and never ever admit you are a Jew even if they call you one."
You are soon pulled into the streets. The Nazis take everyone from the town. They had been told it has always been a Jewish filled town so they spare no one, at least that what it felt like in that haze of sweat and crippled bodies. They immediately kill some people as you watch. Say they are too weak to work, too old, too sick. You are put on a train. Cattle. Rats. You think: we are like rats. We fear predators and thrive in the dark. How can anyone live like this? Why are they doing this to us? Will I make it out alive?
You arrive at the camp and this is when you first realized this is where you're going to have to fight to stay alive. Your mother and father are quickly taken from you. You are alone. No one to tell you what to do, no one to help. Only your father's words in your ear. You are an island.
You decide to take a look around before any of the Nazis notice.
You quickly report to an officer and ask what there is to be done.