Jack heard the rumble of trucks at five A.M., just at the moment soldiers beat on the door of the house. He was instantly awake, his heart pounding wildly. It was still dark. What could they want?
“Everybody out! All Jews out!” he heard them shout. Soldiers burst through the front door. They swarmed through the house, their boots stomping on the wooden floors and stairs. Mama was already up and pulling on her clothes when a soldier jerked open the bedroom door. “Out, Jews!” he said roughly. “Five minutes! Out!” The soldier crossed the hall to open another door.
“Jack, Jakob,” his mother said urgently, “put on all your clothes. Hurry very quickly.”
Jack could hear the fear in her voice. Somewhere in the house, someone screamed. He heard the soldiers shout angrily. They came through the hallway again, this time pushing an old couple in front of them. The man was trying to calm the woman, telling her she must be quiet, but her screams had turned to wailing. “They are going to kill us!” she cried. “I know they are going to kill us!”
A soldier stopped by their door, pointing his gun directly at Jakob. “Out!” he shouted. Almost dressed, Jack reached for his jacket, making sure the letter was in the pocket, then grabbed Jakob’s hand and followed Mama through the door. He was afraid the soldier would hit her. Or Jakob. He did not care if he got hit, but Please, he thought, do not hit them.
Outside, in the dim first rays of light, soldiers were ordering people to begin walking to the village square. One man started to run and was shot in the back. A woman fell on the ground, shrieking. Another shot. Jack heard his mother gasp. He hoped Jakob had not seen.
People who had been asleep only fifteen minutes earlier stumbled along the streets. Many were sobbing. Others looked numb with shock. A few prayed out loud. Soldiers barked orders, keeping everyone together.
Jack and his mother and brother held tightly to one another as they were pushed forward. In the confusion, family members became separated. People frantically searched for one another, screaming out names. Babies wailed and children sobbed. The ghetto emptied, and the square quickly filled with people. Jack knew his uncle and his family were somewhere in the crowd.
It was so simple to do this, he thought, because we were all together. Will they shoot all of us?
Someone broke free of the crowd and ran past the soldiers. Several shots rang out. Cries of horror rose from the crowd. The soldiers pointed their guns menacingly, daring anyone else to try to escape.
“What is happening?” people asked in terror. “Tell us what is happening!”
“They are rounding us all up,” a man standing next to Jack’s mother said. “They are going to deport us.”
Jakob’s eyes grew large. “What does that mean?” he whispered to Jack.
“It means they settle you somewhere else. Give you a new home,” Jack lied. He tried not to think of the stories he had heard lately of mass killings; of men, women, and children being forced to dig their own graves and then being shot and thrown into them.
“But Papa will not know where we are,” Jakob said.
Jack tried to reassure him. “You know our papa. He will find us.”
“Whatever happens, do not let go of each other’s hands,” Mama said over and over. “We must stay together.”
The sun rose with the promise of bright warm weather. It was June 14, 1942. Soldiers surrounded them. Though hours passed, no one was allowed to move or go to the bathroom. Everyone was hungry and thirsty. Children cried. Jack wished they could just sit down. His mother was wearing high heels, but she did not complain. Worry etched deep lines in her face. An elderly woman fainted, and before people around her could help her get up, a soldier rushed over and hit her hard with his gun. She lay on the ground, moaning. A shot. Stunned silence was followed by shrieks and cries from the crowd.
Noon came, and then late afternoon. Still they stood. Then, finally, the soldiers began ordering people to line up. Jack and his mother grabbed Jakob’s hands. Some of the old people could barely walk after standing for so long. Soldiers were quick to use their gun butts to keep order, striking out at anyone who did not stay in line.
Then they began to move through the streets, every Jewish man, woman, and child from the village, nine hundred people in all. Jack could see faces behind closed curtains, watching. A group of village men stood by a church. He recognized one of his uncle’s neighbors, a man who had grown up with Jack’s mother and his uncle. “Dirty Jews!” one of the men sneered, spitting on the ground.
Jack touched the letter in his coat pocket, the one with the Nazi stamp on it. Could it somehow help? But help with what? “They are going to shoot us all,” a woman said over and over, sobbing. “Where are they taking us?”
Ahead loomed the high brick walls of the local brewery. Inside, Jack knew, was a large grassy area and the buildings where beer was made.
At the gate, everything was chaos. Jack tried to see what was happening. As people were pushed forward by the soldiers, a Nazi officer signaled them to go right or left. Children screamed as they were pulled from their parents. The air was filled with the din of wailing babies and frantic adults, cut by the angry shouts of soldiers.
“We must stay together,” Mama said urgently, her eyes wide with fear.
What did going left or right mean? Which was better? It looked like the stronger people—those who could work—were going to the right. Jack could not tell. They were hustled forward, Mama and Jack holding tightly to Jakob’s hands. Suddenly, it was their turn. Jack thought his heart would thump right out of his chest.
The officer glanced at the three of them and signaled to the left. Rough hands pushed them out of the way.
Summoning all his courage, in one desperate moment, Jack pulled out the letter with the Nazi stamp and thrust it at the officer. “I am an electrician’s helper. My mother and brother and I can work.” His hands and voice shook. He kept his eyes down, not daring to make eye contact.
The officer skimmed the letter and tossed it aside. He nodded to a soldier. Jack was jerked to the right and pushed into a group of what he now realized was only men. No women and children, no old folks. Horrified, he tried to cross back, but a soldier blocked Jack’s way, his gun pointing directly at him. Another soldier pushed him. He could no longer see his mother and brother in the crowd.
His knees buckled. He had promised his father he would take care of them.
“It was the worst moment of my life,” Jack said. “It never entered my mind they would take me away from them.”
On Jack’s side were about one hundred males. Jack was the youngest. Everyone else, including his mother, his brother, and his uncle and his family, was on the other side.
Trucks pulled up to the gate. Jack and the others were pushed aboard by the soldiers, who were shouting at them to move forward and to stay silent. Jack was in the middle and could no longer see anyone.
As the trucks pulled out, Jack tried not to panic. Would Mama and Jakob be okay? How would they get along without him? Would he be able to find them?
The trucks rumbled through the village and out into the countryside. In the back of Jack’s truck, the terrified men were silent. Jack had no idea where they were going. “But I reasoned that if they were going to shoot us, they would already have done it. They did not have to take us on a truck. Maybe they had a job for us to do and then they would bring us back to our families. I tried to believe that.”
When the trucks stopped several hours later, it was already dark. They had driven through heavy iron gates into an open area inside a compound of buildings. Around them were concrete posts strung with electrified barbed wire. Bright searchlights shone down from the guard towers. In the shadows, Jack saw bedraggled men in blue-and-gray-striped uniforms, hurrying from one building to the next. What place was this?
“The tailgates of the trucks were lowered and the guards ordered us to jump down,” Jack said. “They began to beat us with rubber truncheons, screaming at us as we stumbled in the glaring light. I tried to protect my head and face as I moved in the direction they pushed us.
“They wanted to terrorize us so we would do what we were told. It worked. From that moment on, I was always afraid.”