Treblinka Concentration Camp, Spring, 1940~

I am shaking-scared.

I don't know what is going to happen to me, but it seems since I have arrived here (by train from Holland), I have been treated very badly.  Even the animals I see seem to get far better treatment ....

I wonder where my family is.  I last saw Father and my big brother Herschel and my sisters Annitchka and Rubina and Mama at the train station before we were roughly separated by the Nazi soldiers.  I wonder if they are okay, much less, alive ...

I sleep in a filthy stall with other people: children, teenagers such as myself (I am 13), even adult women.  I don't see any males here.  We have been separated by sex.  If we are late for roll call or are lax in doing our assigned chores, we are beaten severely; if anybody talks back to the soldiers or even looks at them wrong, they are shot.  I have been here less than a week, but already I have seen people shot or even killed.

It is nothing that I, a mere woman-child, should ever have to witness ...

I try to do the Nazis' bidding, but inside, my mind is a tangle of emotions (mostly anger, fear, or confusion).  I hate them and what they have done; I see nothing good coming out of this.  They promised we would be taken well care of when we arrived; they lie because we have been treated most horridly ever since we arrived.  

I must go; it is time for me to report for roll call and then do my chores.  I wonder what horror will await me today.  Just keep me and my fellow prisoners in your prayers and thoughts and pray that something can be done to end this atrocity .... thanks!

~Berit Goortje, age 13.  

~End of part one!~