Lying here, listening to the sharp screams, and seeing the blaze of light come and go quickly, I know it is my time. This was always what was supposed to happen. I had thought of the dream, wanted it to become a reality, and somewhat made it possible. But unfortunately, today was the day that the dream had to die. Everyone serves enough time on Earth, and I had gone overtime by a lot. But it was my time to leave, and I guess I took that chance.

~1933~

I race up the steps of the apartment complex. I am skipping steps to run away as fast as I can. But I trip over my own feet and fall flat on my face, hitting my nose on the dirty floor. Dirt and blood smear on my hand as I wipe my face and continued to run. I get to apartment 6C. Unfortunately, we live at the end of the small hallway. I come to a halt, and I realize I have been caught. I am stuck.

“I got you, Rachele!” my brother, Yaakov, yelled after me.

My brother, Yaakov, is eleven-years-old and already taller than me, a thirteen-year-old. However, I have a special feature. Mama, Papa, and Yaakov all have dark hair and brown eyes. No one understands how this happened, but I have blue eyes and blonde hair.

“Rachele? Are you ready to play another round?” he snaps at me.

“No, Yaakov. I am too hungry to run around again. Can we go inside and say hello to Mama?” I plead.

“I guess so,” he answers with a shrug.

Unlocked as always, I swing open the door and smell the freshness of Challah bread baking in the oven. My mouth waters from the meaty smell of brisket broiling in a pot.

“Mama, is supper ready to eat yet? Yaakov made me play with him longer than yesterday and I am starving!” I whined.

“Yes. Now go on and clean up your face. Your Papa will be home in thirty minutes.”

I do as told and run to the bathroom. I turn on the faucet and I scrub my face until the crusted blood falls off with ease. As I turned off the sink, someone taps at the door.

“I will get it, Mama!”

“No, that is quite alright,” she looks through the dust peephole and turns back to me with a blank stare. “Go to your room and take off your necklace,” she whispers.

I finger my gold Star of David that I received for my birthday. “But, Mama. I never take-” I start to speak, but she interrupts me.

“Do as I say, young lady. Now, go to your room, and take off your necklace, do not make me ask you again.”

I run to my room scared for two reasons. One, my mom has never spoken to me that way, and two, who is at the door and why would I have to take off my necklace?

“Open the door! We know you are in there!” a booming voice calls from the hallway.

“I am coming” Mama calls back. “Just let me clean my hands off.”

Right before she opens the door, I sneak out of my room and peek around the corner.

“Hello, how may I-” as she opens the door, her voice trails off and she looks scared and tiny.

Two men stand in the doorway, one is tall and muscular, and the other is short and chubby. But they both share the same grim, sheer look on their faces.

“Step aside, we were ordered to search your house.”

To my surprise, Mama lets them in to roam freely. Only then is it that I realize the big guns they were holding, and the red band with the black swastika on their forearms.

I ran to my bedroom quietly and grabbed the necklace and shoved it in my shoes. I had a feeling I now knew why Mama wanted me to take it off.

“How about over here?” the chubby one said.

I hear the chunky boots clopping down the hallway and then all of a sudden, I see Yaakov’s book from Hebrew school sitting on the dresser, and I panic. Without thinking it through, I run to the window and take the book with me. I open the dirty glass pane and throw the book out the window.

I run back to my bed and grab the nearest book I could find, just in time to watch the door swing open and hit the dresser with a loud thud.

“What do you have in here?” the taller one asked.

He rummaged through some clothes neatly folded before throwing them on the ground, and then looked at me.

“Take off your shoes,” he ordered.

I freeze. All of a sudden I can’t speak. Words won’t come out of my mouth.

“I said to take off your shoes.”

“I am not sure how that would be relative to this search.” Mama jumps in.

“Just take off your shoes. Are you hiding something?”

“Hans, let it be, we are wasting our time in this apartment,” the chunky one intervened.

“Fine, but we will be back soon. And I will not be nice about anything next time,” he grunted and stormed out of the room with his partner on his tail, letting the door slam behind him as he exited into the building's hallway.

“Mama,” I start “Who was that, what do they want, and why did I have to take my necklace off?”

“It is a complicated issue, but I will tell you to my best ability.”

“Okay.”

“We used to live happily and safe as a Jewish family. There is a very bad man by the name of Adolf Hitler who is going to change all that for us this year. He has been sending Nazis to find Jews and send them to concentration camps. These camps are not fun or helpful. These camps are for killing people in large masses. That was the short story. Do you have any questions, Rachele?”

Questions filled my head, but I felt that none were relevant and that Mama would not feel like answering every single one. So, I answer no.

That night, I go to bed without eating, thinking of what had just occurred and played it over and over again in my head. Papa did not come home tonight, but Mama says that he is just staying at work because it was too late and dark to walk home.

“Good night, Rachele.”

“Good night, Mama. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As I lay down in my bed, I couldn’t help but think what all this commotion would bring. My only hope was that this man would not make it worse, and it would only last for a long time. I hoped it would get better. But that would never be the case from here on.

~1937~

If it weren’t for my loyal Christian friend, Marie, my family would most likely be dead. Her Mama and Papa are both helping our family hide from the Nazis taking Jews to the camps and killing them off. I have known Marie since four years ago when this whole catastrophe began. She was the one who provided us a home when we got kicked out by the anti-Jewish landlord. He threatened to send the Nazis, but he never got around to doing that. Four years ago, as well as this starting, Mama said that Papa hadn’t come home because it was too dark for him to walk alone. I had late found out after him not coming home for another three weeks that he had been captured, sent off to one of the local camps, and shot dead. After that, it was me, Yaakov and Mama, to fend for ourselves. We could not do that, so Marie and her parents took us in and hid us in their apartment.

“Hey, Rachele, are you okay? You’ve been staring off out that window for quite some time now.” Marie spoke to me softly, as if I were a sleeping kitten.

“Yes. I was just thinking of what it would be like to live in America. I would be safe from harm and you would not get in trouble for keeping Jews in your apartment.”

“Then why don’t you talk about running away?” she asked with a puzzled look.

“I could never. Mama has been sick for two years and Yaakov would stay behind if there weren’t enough room in the bottom of the boat.” I fight back.

“Look, Rachele, I know you love them and would never leave them behind, but I meant just you. You run away and let them fend for themselves. They aren’t completely alone. They have my Mama and Papa.”

“What about you?”

“I’m no help anyways.”

“If you weren’t nice enough to be friends with a Jew at this time, then you would never have taken us in.”

“That’s not what I mean, but that is beside the point. You should speak to your Mama about it and see what she says. After all, you are the only one that could get away with it.”

“Oh really. And why is that?” I already knew, though.

“You look more like a German than a German man himself!” she shouted.

It was true. Mama and Yaakov would never make it past one Nazi without being questioned. But because I can look and speak the part, I could make it all the way to America without a scratch.

“It will be something to consider,” I spoke out after a long and bothering silence.

“Okay. Just consult with me before you do anything major.”

Later that day, I sought out Mama’s opinion on running away.

“Are you out of your mind? Did you think of this idea or your friend Marie?” Mama didn’t really like Marie, but her parents were easy to deal with.

“No. I thought of it myself.” I lied “I look like a German girl.”

“I will tell you my final answer, and until I die, you will not have one word come out of my mouth changed in any way. The answer is no.” And that was all there was to say.

Because Mama was very ill, there was not much time left. And on her last day, she had changed her mind.

“Rachele,” she whispered in a raspy voice “I want you to know that I fully support you running away and finding a better life in America. I am not afraid for you. But I want you to know that Yaakov might be taken away. Unless you find a way to turn his hair blonde, there is no hope for him. But here is what I want you to do. Tell your friend you need a plan, she knows what to do because I have already spoken to her parents about this day. Yaakov understands he will have to wait here until this is over to immigrate over to America to meet up with you again. However long it takes, I want you to know he will be joining you very soon. Do you understand all this, Rachele?”

I was on the verge of tears. The fun-loving, sweet-hearted Mama I had known for only a short portion of my life was dying, and there was no way to help her.

“Do you understand, Rachele?” she asked again.

“Yes, Mama. I understand.”

“I am sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

“I love you so much, Mama.”

“I love you too, Rachele. I love you too.”

The next morning, she had passed away in her sleep, and I and Yaakov were on our own.

“Marie, what is the plan?” I ask after all had been settled and everyone was calm.

“You’ll have to ask my parents about where to go, but I can tell you the details.”

“Okay.”

“You are going to leave at night with a few pieces of food that cannot go stale easily, a single change of clothing, your necklace, and your pride. You will walk wherever my Mama or Papa tell you to and you will not be escorted by them. Midway through the travel, a woman my parents trust and know very well by the name of Irena Sendler will bring you to the place you will depart from. You will lie in a small cupboard under a wooden boat and sail to Norway, where you will find a boat filled with other Jews like you. This boat, specifically, doesn’t require any tickets, just a password which will be in Hebrew. My Mama said it went something along the lines of מגן דוד.” I understood her poor Hebrew and translated it to Star of David.

She continued, “It will arrive in New York City in a three to four-day trip. From then, you will take a car that will take around six hours to arrive in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is where you will feel the safest. That is all I know about your traveling other than the fact that your brother will stay here with until it is safe for him to travel to Pittsburgh to meet up with you.”

“Marie. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive. If it weren’t for your idea, I would have never thought of running away. You are the best friend anybody could ask for and I could never have gotten through all the tough years without you. Thank you so much for doing this. It means so much to me that I can get settled in America and then have a better life for Yaakov when he moves to America.”

“Go run and talk to my parents about the destination you will meet Irena at and then come back to say goodbye to me because I am going to miss you.” As I ran away, I heard her starting to cry.

At nightfall, I left. Meeting up with Irena, I saw her passion of taking care of us and making sure we were safe. Getting on the boat was difficult with 5 people crammed into the bottom. But when we made it to Norway, I felt a wave of relief that I was finally safe. A man stopped me right in my tracks, and I froze, frightened by his sudden movements.

“What is the passcode?” he barked.

“מגן דוד” I spoke with confidence.

The man motioned for me to step onto the bridge connecting the loading dock and the huge boat that must have almost been fully loaded with Jews from all over fleeing Hitler and his Nazi’s.

Getting on the boat to go to New York, I missed everyone, but what made me happy was that I know I would find a better life for Yaakov and me.

The boat ride wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be, but the drive there was worse than being crammed in the bottom of a boat for what had to be two to three days. But when I had finally arrived in Pittsburgh, I already knew where I was going to stay. Marie’s Papa had worked hard to find me a home that I could share with many others. They found one in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. It was very safe to live in and welcoming. I guess my life here wouldn’t be so bad after all.

~2018~

Eighty-one years ago, I moved from Germany to Pittsburgh and fled Nazis and death at the ages of thirteen to fifteen. As scary as it was, I found a better life here than I ever had in Nazi-invaded Germany. Although I had escaped the Nazis and death and any other inconvenience that could have happened while I still lived in Germany, the time had to come one day or another.

On that day, I decided to pay my weekly visit to the local synagogue. I wanted to take the time to think about all I had done in my life like I usually do. Around the usual amount of people were sitting down and thinking or praying, so I decided to join them. Around five minutes after I sat down, a man bursts in the synagogue with an assault rifle shouting rude slurs. I was alarmed, and so was everyone, running around and frantic. He opened fire and started waving his gun around. One bullet happened to hit me. I fell over and lay there for a while. I was no longer alarmed, I knew it would happen this way, and I always knew this is how I would have to say goodbye. So, lying here in this synagogue, thinking about Yaakov, my Mama, Papa, Marie, and her parents, I knew my time was up, and that I had spent it well on this Earth.