I wish I could be with Papa and Mama, but I know this isn't possible.  It is because of the war:  a war that has threatened every area of our lives; now instead of helping out at the store, we are in hiding.

It's because we are Jewish, and bad men are determined to destroy us in any way they can, even resorting to violence and murder.

The other day, tall men in important-looking Nazi dress stormed into our house, taking Mama and Papa with them.  We saw them get hit with clubs and knocked to the floor; all thw while, the bad men were screaming in German.  We were scared; we didn't know what was going on.  Then the bad men led them out the door; we haven't seen them since.

My younger brothers Joachim and Isaak and myself (my name is Annechka) hid in a back room, where we watched the bad men treat our parents cruelly; it was all we could do to keep from crying out or yelling; we knew if we did, we'd probably get shot -- or worse.

Now we are in hiding.  I can't tell you where, for fear that our location will be found out; then we'd be in the same mess that Mama and Papa are in.  I am very worried; I am sure that the bad Nazi men will do something terrible to them.  I don't know all that is going on, but what I do know is it isn't at all good. 

A man named Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, hates the Jews; he thinks we are nothing more than rats, and he wants to do away with "our kind" in any way.  I have seen families ripped apart (like ours, when the men took Mama and Papa away), and I and my little brothers have seen people being kicked, beaten, even shot or stabbed.  It is a very bad time to be Jewish; it makes me ashamed.

To make matters worse, all the Jewish people have to wear yellow stars on our clothes; we run the risk of being beaten, stabbed, or even killed, or taken away to parts unknown.  So we stay in our "hiding places" and pray that we don't get discovered, or very bad things could happen to us.

There's talk about "extermination camps", where people are put to work, and then if they don't, they are put to death in ways I can't even begin to imagine.  I wonder if Mama and Papa are at one of these camps; to think of them possibly getting killed is more than my heart could ever bear!  I wonder if it is because we are Jewish.

And not only Jewish people are being treated so harshly:  people who are disabled, people who are Gypsies, or people who don't fit the Nazi "ideal" are also being treated cruelly.  If they don't appeal to what the Nazis think, then they are in terrible danger as well.

I wonder what is going to happen to us, but most of all, I wonder what is going to happen to Mama and Papa.  I wish we could see them again; I wish we could go somewhere without running in fear!  I wish the damn Nazis would leave; I wish we could go back to the lives we had before the Nazis came!!

*to be continued.*