Paul was eleven years old when Hitler rose to power. Hitler claimed it was the Jewish people’s fault that Germany was poor in the aftermath of World War I. Jews, he said, had money because they had tricked others into paying more than something was worth and that this hurt the German economy. Jewish people tended to be shop owners and business operators. They were not overcharging, rather, they saved the money they earned and spent it only on necessities. Paul’s father was a book shop owner. Paul was reading in the store when the police came. They took his father.

            Paul’s father had not committed any crime. The only crime Paul’s father committed was being Jewish, the religion he had grown up with. The rest of Paul’s family was soon taken to a concentration camp.

            The camp was a huge rectangular area of land surrounded by two fences with guard towers in several places armed with soldiers. There were small dugouts with shelf like areas for sleeping. These dugouts had no windows or electricity. They were made to house maybe thirty to forty people, but normally over a hundred were crowded in. On the way entering the camp were several army soldiers, crudely branding black numbers onto the forearms of every prisoner. Paul thought, “Is that what I am now?” In the center of the camp was a single well. Food came every few days in the form of stale bread pieces. Paul knew he and his family would not live through this.

            After several months, Paul’s mother fell ill. He knew from his schooling his mother suffered from malnutrition. That was obvious by how small she had grown. Paul worried because any easily cured sickness could kill everyone in these harsh conditions and cramped living spaces. The army must have thought something similar because they started something new.

            Soldiers started taking groups of people everyday and walking them to a ditch dug by the inhabitants of the camp. Paul watched in disbelief as people were told to drop to there knees and look at the ditch, then shot twice in the back of the head. As World War II dragged on, the soldiers stopped shooting people to conserve ammo. Instead, they started large fires in thick concrete boxes called “ovens” and forced people into them. Paul did not notice the soldiers come and grab his mother. When he saw them walking off in the distance he got a sick feeling in his stomach. They were walking towards the ovens.