Chapter 1 - The Beginning

     'Oh God No!!! Not me please. What did I do to deserve this? What misery!". Twenty year old Leah thought for herself. She took a small sharp edged wood splinter hidden under her louse ridden blanket and pierced her long scaly finger. Nothing came out at her first and second try, and then she tried harder. This time a tiny amount of blood oozed out of her finger. She pressed her finger harder so the blood could come out in a gush. She applied the blood in her lips and her bonny face, so it look lovely and fresh. The German soldier barked out at the inmates, "Any one here sick? Any dead bodies?". No one moved. The soldier came to everyone's sleeping barracks, looked at the haggard faces and picked up a few of them who looked particularly ill. He reached Leah's bed, glanced towards her once, and moved on to other beds. The chosen ones are marched outside the barracks, and then no one heard of them ever. 

    The year was 1937. The 15 year old Leah, with her Dada and Mama, her younger brother, her grandparents were about to celebrate Leah's fifteenth birthday. Everyone was happy, and oh, how well she had performed in her ballet competition in the school. Everyone was praising her talent and here parents were so proud. Her grandparents used to tell them the stories of the fairy queen who once descended to earth, and who thought it to be a magical world full of love and warmth. Her father, whom she called Dada, was a proprietor of a large merchandise and grocery store in the main open city of Warsaw. Their neighbors are all a mixture of Jewish, Polish and sometimes well to do people of Austrian descendants, who celebrated all their festivals and family gatherings together. Her Mama, a small gentle woman with a face of an angel, as if the same fairy the grand parents tell her the story of, was busy in all the household chores, keeping the delicate balance between her husband and the children, along with her parents. 

    Now, if rumors were to be believed, they were hearing very bad news indeed, that morning. The Germans are in Blitzkrieg, engulfing half of their lands in Poland, and would reach the capital city in a few days. Her father particularly was quite nervous. After all, a few days before, his store front was vandalized by some miscreants, speaking German, and shouting 'Jewish pigs, out of Poland!'. Many of the neighboring Jewish stores were also looted and Jewish people were manhandled. A nearby Synagogue was blazed in fire and the holy Torah was burnt to ashes. The Rabbi was beaten till he lost his consciousness. 

    Leah sensed the tense air drowsing her parents and their friends too. All  the children were hustled on to a different room when the parents meet up for something urgently. She could sense that something is not right, but couldn't make out what it is! She couldn't, for example, fathom why she was not allowed to go to school now where she had so many friends. She couldn't go to her ballet classes either, where she was performing so well. One fine day, her teacher informed her not to come to the classes anymore, and she was heartbroken. The school she was attending was closed indefinitely; and there she is, at her home with her brother and the kids of their parents friends, gazing each other and clueless as she was. How she wished she could get the old days back, when she would wake up in the morning, have breakfast with her parents and her brother and the grand parents , her Mama busy packing her lunch and snacks for the school. She would then walk past the bakery where uncle Norah would give her a piece of assortment from his Bakery nearly everyday. She would then reach her school, where she meets her fellow students, her best friend Sakiah and her favorite Arts teacher Haviv. After the school she would walk past the same Bakery of Uncle Norah, the sweet aroma of the baked bread and pastries and sweets floating around in the area. 

    And then one day, all rumors ended! It was all true. Poland fell to Germany, and Warsaw was converted to something Leah would never forget in her whole life... 

(C) Vipin.