I walk towards the truck that sits in front of me, petrified, with my brother by my side. I look through the empty streets. These dark, dank streets that I have been down so many times. But walking them now has only made me forget their paths more and more. We are heading to a so called “relocation camp”. But that is not what my neighbors told me. They say that the German relocation camps are actually places where many people go to die. They call them death camps.

“How bad do you think it will be there?” I look at my brother Jep.

“It should not be too bad, Jaron. These camps are just a small piece of our puzzle, little brother. While people say that the camps are death, there still are people that are alive.” A soldier, in a green uniform and black boots, fiercely pushes us to keep going. We were no longer being lead to the truck in front of us but the one that was to the right.

“What camp do you think we will be taken to?” I think of all the camps I have heard of. “There are so many they could take us to. There’s Auschwitz, Birkenau, Plaszów, Trzebinia, Buchenwald, or Dachau, which one?”

“The place you are being defected to is Auschwitz,” the officer sneered through his thick accent. “Where the only way you will leave is by smoke in the air.” He laughed pitilessly as if it were a joke. What could have driven these men to such madness to believe that the killing of innocent people was funny?

But through my questions I feared the man’s retort. The idea of death almost killed me in itself. I felt its icy-cold grip on my life for the first time, and it frightened me. I was no longer able to be free without a care. Because I knew now that death lingered around me everywhere I went. The thought of it was almost more than I could bear.

My brother, Jep, though, was far from fear; he was filled with anger and hatred already. Jep had never been friends with peace. He always seemed to have such a bad temper. And in the end it always got him into trouble. When he got mad it was scary. The way he showed his hatred was so unhuman; I could barely believe he was my brother. But I only thought this because I was so cool and calm all the time. I wasn’t at all like my brother in his rage.

“I ought to just teach that German that we can fight too!” Jep quietly protested. “These men think that they know everything. Someday, someone, somewhere, there will be a person to teach them what they think they know.”

“Shh… please Jep, if you are caught threatening the Germans they will just kill you here and now. Then there will be no hope of escape from their camps, for you will never make the trip there if you keep on this way.” My brother’s temper will surely be the death of us, not the machine guns of the Nazis.

“Wise words little brother, I shall try to keep my comments to myself,” Jep looks on and puts a hand on my shoulder then looks back, “When did you become so very wise? You speak as if you were father. When did you grow to be such a man?”

I do not answer. Father was the first to be plucked from of our lives when Hitler came to power. And I never knew my mother, for she died during childbirth. We have not spoken of mother ever since. I have wondered for so long what my mother looked like, what she sounded like, where she came from, and who she was in general. But I fear that these questions will never be answered.

The officer pushed us into the truck where more fierce looking officers greeted us with terrible sneers and clubs. I had never felt so disrespected in my life. These men did not see us as people, they saw us as animals. No, worse than animals, we were the lifeless dirt that they constantly stepped on. We were nothing in their eyes. We were so low to them that I felt terrified by their superiority to us. Maybe we were just better dead than to live through their tortures.
…

We arrive at Auschwitz. But instead of getting to ride all the way into the camp, the German officers forced us to get out and walk two miles to the camp, while they rode in the truck and laughed at us. “Jep, do you think that we are lower than these men?” I look at the teasing officers.

“Of course not, these men are the same as us. We are all human, except for the people who laugh at the stroke of death, that is,” he utters under his breath. “Why would you think they were higher than us, Jaron?”

“I just thought that maybe we did do something to them to make us traitors. So I thought that if we did, in fact, do such a thing to them then maybe they did have a reason to hate us and be higher up than us,” I whimper, being under the pressure of Jep’s question.

“We never did anything to them, Jaron! They simply hate us just to hate us; there is no other reason for their hatred against us! We are to be killed for the Germans own pleasure!” he violently spits at me. I say nothing there is no reason to make Jep any angrier than he already is.

As we walk into the camp I see death for the first time. Death lingered in the eyes of the other prisoners. Death wallowed in the sewage filled streets. Death awaited me in the chamber in front of me. It beckoned to me as we walked. It called my name, filling my whole soul with fear. I had never been so afraid of death. I had never even thought about death until now.

“Jephora, I see the Malak al-Maut,” I look at him stricken with fear. “He lingers all around us!”

“It will be alright, do not fear the Malak al-Maut, for he will give us a pass out of these tortures. He will deliver us home to mama and papa, and everything will be all right.”

The lower officers walk us to the general of Auschwitz. “Which ones are these?” the general asks one of the other officers.

“These are the new ones, sir. Fresh from the streets,” replies the officer.

The general walked around our group and looked over everyone. He cold-heartedly sneered at us. I could tell that he saw that we were already weak from the lack of food in our own city. “Send them up,” he declared smoothly. “They are not what I need. They are already too weak. Next time bring me stronger.” Then he walked away.
…

The next thing I know I am trapped with the rest of my group. Trapped. I was stuck here in this room of torture. Was this the end? People stood around me looking down. Dismay was our only companion now.

“How long do you think it will take, Jep?” I looked at him, pierced with fear.

“I’m not sure. Not too long now though. I can assure you that,” he nods to the ceiling.

No happy, hopeful thoughts remained. The only thing I could think of was the death that marched towards me. “It seems like we have been waiting in here for years,” I whisper.

“I know. But it hasn’t been years. Remember, be steadfast my little brother. We shall go together.”

Jep had nothing else to say, but neither did I. An aroma of gas filled the air. This was it, I thought. Death. Screams then silence. Sweet, sweet silence.