“Mama, go back inside,” I shouted ather.
“Let my children go!” she shouted. “Those are my babies. I put them on this earth, and you cannot take them away from me. They’remine!”
“They are not children or babies,” one of the Nazissaid.
“Let them go, you monsters!” she shouted louder as she tried to jump on the man pulling me. She clawed at his back, pounding her fists against him, but did little, if any, damage. “Run, Amelia. Run!” Mama toldme.
The Nazi soldier didn’t loosen his grip on me for a second. I could have pulled as hard as I wanted to, but he had me trapped. “I can’t get away,Mama.”
Another Nazi took hold of Mama and dragged her away. I watched over my shoulder as she was pushed down to her knees while cradling her hands around the back of herhead.
I prayed to God, begging him not to let them hurther.
“Amelia, turn around and go!” she cried out. I had never heard Mama cry before then, not once in my entirelife.
I cried softly to myself, begging them not to touch her. I kept saying, “No,” over and over, but none of them heard me. No onecared.
The world froze around me and a cold sweat coated my skin as that Nazi screamed a line of obscenities at Mama before pulling out his gun. I watched as he aimed it at the back of her head, and again, I prayed he was just trying to torture and scare her, but the sound of a loud click changed that thought. “Mama!” I screamed. “I love you, Mama. Please, don’t hurther!”
“Amelia,” she sobbed, looking up at me. “Fight and be strong. Forme.”
“Mama, no,” I whimpered as the blast from the gun thumped against the inside and outside of my chest. I tried to escape the hands pushing me along, but when I saw Mama fall, crumpling to the ground like a rag doll, I froze in place—I felt paralyzed. “Mama, please don't leave me!” It didn’t matter how much I begged. My voice wasn’t heard, and if it was, it was ineffective and toolate.
Brokenhearted and shattered, I was shoved into the back of a line of other Jews who were also being shuttled down the cobblestonestreet.
I stumbled backwards, watching as blood sprayed from the side of Mama's head, painting the old cobblestones burgundy as her life poured out of her and trickled down thestreet.
I cried silently among the gasps of surrounding bystanders. I thought maybe I had imagined it, but no matter how many times I blinked, the scene was still in front ofme.
She was gone and there was nothing left ofher.
Tears filled my eyes as agony shuddered through my chest. I just watched Mama die—she was murdered. I tried to swallow but my throat was drier thansandpaper.
She was just trying to protect us, but without mercy or a chance for real goodbyes, they took her from me. There was no sense of humanity among the soldiers. Just as we had heard thousands of times before: as far as Hitler and his army were concerned…Jews werenothing.
As we were herded like sheep, I leaned to the side, looking for Papa and Jakob. I caught Papa’s gaze as he was muttering words to himself. I assumed he was praying and reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish for Mama, but it was only a brief second before he was pushed around the corner. His eyes looked empty as if all the life had been sucked out ofhim.
Mama and Papa had been married for twenty-two years. They were as happy as two people could be together, and in the timeframe of a few minutes, our family had been torn apart, and Mama was dead. While realization consumed me, a hollow feeling in my chest engulfed my entire body, I pulled at the collar of my dress beneath my coat, tearing the material in an expression of my grief. Since I had never lost someone close to me, I’d never had cause to do so before, but as I felt the threads tear, I immediately understood the purpose and meaning behind the Jewish tradition. It was like a reflection of what was happening inside me—I felt my heart shredding to pieces just like the cloth, as if it were made from nothing more than a thin piece ofpaper.
Adding to my devastation, the fear of where they were taking us bled through me as I continued to pray it was all anightmare.
A hand squeezed my shoulder, and a woman's voice whispered into my ear. It was as if that woman were placed in that spot at that moment just to tell me exactly what I needed to hear. “You need to stay alive. You must stop crying. I understand your pain, but your mama would want you to be strong now. Do it forher.”
The woman kept her hand on my shoulder as we continued to shuffle behind the line of others. It gave me little comfort, but at least I wasn’talone.
I knew I wasn't the only one who wanted to know where we were going. Despite being told that there would be shelter for us once the Nazis took over our homes, no one knew where the shelterwas.
When the line stopped moving, I was no longer able to see anything happening in front of, or behind me. The sun had set, and the streetlights weren't bright enough to offer muchvisibility.
I needed to be with Papa and Jakob, and I wanted to stop shaking both from the cold and the utter horror I had witnessed. I couldn't stop thinking about Mama and the fact that she was probably still sprawled out in the middle of the street in front of our family's home, lifeless andalone.
There was a time when we had everything, or so it seemed, but in the blink of an eye, everything changed. Nothing would ever be normal again. Carefree, happy days had already been taken from us several months earlier, but I knew then that the hope of finding those times again were gone forever. I needed Mama; she was my best friend, the closest person in my life, and the one who was always there for me—even during her last moments. I did everything I could to hold back the tears. The pain was unbearable as I kept visualizing that scene of Mama’s murder repeatedly playing out in my mind. What was she thinking right before that man shot her? Did she know she was going to die? Did she suffer, or had she died instantly? I prayed she didn’t live long enough to feel the agonizing pain. I prayed she went to heaven peacefully and quickly. Then, there was a part of me was envious of her because she didn’t have to go on with a broken heart like the rest of uswould.
I closed my eyes to block out my surroundings, but all I could see behind my eyelids were blurry pools of blood and splattered red blotches painting a landscape of death. There was no way to escape. I wanted to drop to the ground and scream and cry, but I was too scared. It was so hard to hold it all in, and accompanying my pain was a mortal fear beyondwords.
The woman who stood behind me tugged at my shoulder that she was still holding onto, forcing me to turn around and face her. She was young, maybe just a few years older than I was, but she was pregnant and cradling her belly with her free hand. “Are you okay?” the womanasked.
“No,” I whispered. No one was okay. We were all freezing, waiting for whatever the soldiers had in store forus.
