Chapter 1

     Kyla and I were in sitting in our room when there was a knock at the door. Our mother, Delilah, answered the door. Two Gestapo officers sttood there. They told our mother to leave the house. Delilah came back and got Kyla and I before running to our baby sister Aliza's room. They were right behind our mother making sure she wasn't hiding anything. 

           Once we were outside we saw that we weren't the only ones. Our whole street was outside. The Gestapo officers came out of the houses and told us to walk. They took us to a fenced in neighborhood that they called "the ghetto". I recognized the neighborhood immediatley. Gabe, my half jewish friend, lives in this neughborhood with his mother and father. 

            We kept walking past houses that had been deserted for quite some time.We weren't the only ones there many people sat on the streetside watching us walk past. When we got to the house that Gabe used to live in, I ran inside. There were broken picture frames that had pictures of Gabe and his family. I could tell that just like us the Gestapo had kicked him and his family out of their home. 

            The Gestapo shut the gates to "the ghetto" and we were trapped. That night and manyy nights afterwards we stayed in Gabe's old house. The Gestapo would bring more and more people to "the ghetto" each day. By the third day there was over 200 people in the ghetto, in which we lived.  

              We were all starving, we ate as much food that we could find in the house as possible. There were people dead laying on the street side. Their bodies smelling horrid from being there for so long. Sickness started to circulate fast. Nobody had, had a shower in weeks. 

          Finally after about 3 weeks of living in "the ghetto", the Gestapo came and got us. We walked to another fenced in area known again as "the ghetto". There were many dead bodies lining the street of this ghetto. Their stenches even more horrid than the ones where we came from. After walking for a bit I heard a voice that I recognized. "Gabe", I said gianing his attention. We hugged for awhile. When I pulled away I saw the tears in his eyes. "They took everything", he whispered. 

          Without saying a word I pulled the picture, that I had taken from one of the broken picture frames in his home, and handed it to him. He smiled with sadness in his eyes, and nodded thanking me. We dind't talk much more after that. His parents and my parents talked about what was happening. 

             We stayed in this ghetto awhile longer than the last. More and more people died of starvation each day. My little sister Aliza had growen sick, and was getting worse as the days went by. The Gestapo came to get us in the middle of the night. The were shining lights in our eyes and pointing guns at us telling us to move. 

              Walking at this point was hard after going more than 3 weeks with little food, we were all starving. The Gestapo led us to the railroad where we were crammed shoulder to shoulder in cattle cars. The only way you could see the outside is if you were lucky enough to be by the window. Disease spread quickly on the long ride in the cattle cars. 

               "Gabe", I said gaining his attention. "Yes", he said looking over at me, even though he couldn't see me becasue of the blackness. "I'm scared, what do you think is going to happen", I asked him? "I don't know", he whispered before faliing asleep. 

               That night we woke to my mothers sobbing. "My baby", my mom was saying her face in my sister Aliza's chest. "She's gone, why did you have to take my baby", she said crying even louder. Thats when I realized my little sister Aliza was gone. The sickness was to much for her little body to fight off. 

                We mourned her death.  Kyla and I cried each other to sleep. Gabe tried to help but he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what it felt like to lose somebody that close to him.  That next morning the cattle car stopped and we all got out, they took Aliza's body and everyone elses who had died on the way there and put it into a pit that had smoke coming out of it. We were once again packed shoulder to shoulder in another cattle car.