“1939”

"Laura, quick, under the bed!" Maurice whispered. She was trying to squeeze her children under the bed. The Nazi soldiers were forcing people out of their houses and taking them to concentration camps.

"Where's Hans?" Maurice asked Laura, her first child who was eight years old. She started to get even more worried as she glanced around hurriedly.

"I don't know, Mama. I saw him in the kitchen about twenty minutes ago." Laura replied her mother.

'That was before I even came into the house', Maurice thought. She ran towards the living room window and opened the curtains slightly. There were many soldiers moving people into trucks. The truck nearest to her house was full of children. She scanned them quickly and saw Hans, her second child sitting at the back of the truck.

She panicked immediately and ran back to the bedroom. "Laura, Emil, stay under the bed and don't come out till I tell you to."

"But Mam-", Laura was cut off as her mother quickly disappeared again.

Maurice was already outside the house. "Hans! Hans!!" She screamed out as she ran towards the truck to get him. The driver had just entered into the driver's seat.

"Mama, Mama, Mama", Hans was wailing along with other children in the truck.

Two soldiers turned their heads towards them. "Another Jew, seize her. Quickly!!"
Before Maurice knew could look elsewhere, she felt herself being carried roughly into another truck that contained women. "No!"

The truck was driven away and the one Hans was in followed behind. She couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into tears weeping and wailing. She couldn't be separated from her family like this. She had to escape somehow. As if wasn't enough that her husband was killed just yesterday in one of the concentration camps. She immediately remembered Laura and Emil she left at home. Her heart shattered and she cried even more.

When they got to the concentration camp, she saw gas chambers everywhere before she realized that this wasn't a concentration camp but instead an extermination camp. There were dead bodies everywhere. The women were sobbing as they were taken into one of the gas chambers.

Maurice whispered a prayer as they were slowly killed by the poisonous gas. In the next one hour, they were all confirmed dead.

Laura and Emil hid under the bed terrified and starved for four days straight before Jewish houses in that area were ransacked. They too were killed a few weeks later at a concentration camp. It was 1939. Everyone thought the war would last a few months, but did Hitler stop there?