It was all still a blur to me. Hours upon hours were spent in a cramped, musty boxcar filled to the brim with decaying souls. Life is Auschwitz was difficult, there was no forgiveness, from anyone. I heard by word of mouth from a chain of prisoners that my parents had been gassed upon their arrival. We were separated in seconds with no goodbyes. I cried every day after for weeks. Life was near meaningless for me now. Despite not feeding us adequately, we were used for harcad labor and other war related jobs. Luckily, I got one of the easier jobs. I was put to work in an electrical components factory, sorting parts. During my work I liked to look up through the dingy windows and gaze at the light gray sky. It never seemed to change. I spent months of my life like this. My life was not easy but by behaving and working hard, the Kapos came to appreciate me. They cared enough to direct their brutality towards other prisoners instead of me. I saw group after group come through this...
By 1943, my father and I had ended up in the Southeastern territory of Nice, France. However, during this time Nice was under Italian control. This was a great help because Italians were not interested in persecuting Jews. Life had just begun to turn itself around. I was finally learning a little bit of French and adjusting to my new life which, now included a new stepmom. She was Jewish as well. Nice had become a Jewish refuge in France with over 5,000 Jews. We had adapted to more open lifestyle, using our real names to book hotels, openly congregating in the streets, having a home that was safe. All of that was lovely until the Germans found out the Italians had signed the armistice and, they began to raid the hotels in Nice. Germans began deporting more than 1,500 Jews from Nice and I was one of them. When we were loaded onto the trains, we were told we were going to Auschwitz but no one knew of the gas chambers there. Once we had arrived in...