“Get back to work!” said a tall, big bellied man. He clearly hadn’t bathed in weeks. I snapped my head up quickly and gave the man an angry stare; “But my sister, she’s in pain.” He didn’t seem to hear me, or at least he showed no sign of it through his large charcoal eyes. “Get back to work!” He spat. I was finding it hard to look at him now. There was only hatred in his eyes. I lowered my head, helped my 7 year old sister up from the murky water and returned a cold emotionless gaze to the German officer. I soon saw the mistake that I had made.

After returning to our tents that night my sister collapsed, I didn’t think that she was going to get up. “Please, please don’t give up. Don’t leave me here alone.” I whispered between tears. But as she lay there limp, I let out a soft stifle. A big mistake. Two officers came into the small space that my sister and I occupied and they took her from me. I was beaten that night and told that I was nothing, that I was just a lying, thieving, gypsie. My heart sank. Not because I was in severe pain, but because I never saw my sister again.
Many things happened to me as a child. And the penalty for being a gypsy was one. Now that I am older I look back and I am grateful that I survived. Did I grieve for the others? Yes, I grieved not only because others died but my family did as well. They were brutally murdered, my mother shot in the face 13 times, my father killed for protecting us, and my sister. My dear sister, she was never seen again.
It wasn’t only the Jewish people that suffered during the Holocaust. I am living proof of that. The Gypsies were targeted and expected to be eliminated as well as the Jews. I will never forget the way the ringing of my sister’s screams when they took her away, the way that my mother’s body jolted against the wind trying to defy gravity, or the way that my father’s head hung low as he marched away with the other men. They too were forever saying goodbye it their families.
Don’t take what you have for granite, in an instant it can be ripped