Sixteen: Escaping Auschwitz
As the woman swaggered away the malicious guards with hard empty faces gave the order to, "Stop! Form lines of ten!" Their demand slowly dissolved into chaos. Some inmates didn't understand and others who looked as though they had been driven mad simply walked around in circles with their heads bowed mumbling. One of the prisoners ran from person to person asking, "Did you see the chimneys? And the smell, don't you know anything? You will be burned!" In the mist of the fiasco Anna merely stood still as if she had been frozen into place. She felt as if she were in some hellish nightmare attempting to wake up. The fearsome guards once again snared through clenched teeth, "Form lines of ten!" And the women assembled and were marched into a lengthy bleak cement block room. Inside of the room different male guards with shifty eyes instructed the inmates to, "Strip naked! Hurry up! Hurry up!" Anna trembled in…show more content… The guards ordered all of the prisoners to choose one and go to sleep. In the darkness Anna sat down on the straw and clutched to her Star of David weeping bitterly. She considered Willy's star and wished that he had it to shield him. She also thought about how she, Willy, and Joseph had parted without glancing back. If only she would have spun around, and took one last look. Perhaps then her distress wouldn't be so extreme? In the dark she haunted by the echoes of her sweet little brothers laughter and Joseph's vibrant passion and for the first time in her life she got down on her knees and prayed for God's mercy. Then she remembered one of the verses that Miss Muller and had taught her and she slowly, silently recited it, "You are my refuge; You preserve me from adversity." And at last overcome by fatigue, she fell