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Night by Elie Wiesel.

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Everyone has a purpose whether they know it or not.

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When I was a kid I believed that I was on this earth to study

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Kabbalah and Jewish law.

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Now years later I know that I was meant to bear witness to a handful

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of years which altered the worldand my lifeforever.

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My family and I lived in Sighet Transylvania.

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We werent exactly strangers to evil.

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Still we didnt sense any danger when local police carted away all the foreign Jews.

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Dont get me wrong it was a major bummer but we figured that they'd probably

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land on their feet in some other country But then my old friend Moishe returned

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saying that the deported Jews were actually sent to Poland and executed by the Gestapo.

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All the townsfolk figured he was taking crazy pills but we wised up fast when

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Germans moved in and started taking over our lives...and our stuff.

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The Gestapo moved all of us into a ghetto with barbed wire and the news

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spread that we were being shipped off to some unknown place.

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Shipped is a good choice of words for what happened.

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We were treated more like freight than human beings packed tight like Tetris blocks and

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sent out on the railroad for days without toilets or room to lie down.

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Everybody was in full-scale panic mode but the worst case was Mrs.

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Schacter who wouldn't stop screaming about a nonexistent fire.

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Finally we landed at Birkenau and we saw flames coming from the crematoriums. Mrs.

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Schachter was right to scream.

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I somehow managed to stay with my dad when Nazi guards separated the men and women.

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I didn't realize then that this was the last time I would ever see my

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mother and little sister Tziporah .

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An inmate told my dad and me to lie about our ages so we would

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be selected for the work camps.

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Others weren't so fortunate.

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Our first days in Birkenau included beatings naked inspection head shaving and a tattoo with

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our new names.

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The boy named Eliezer was now A-7713.

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Whatever I was called I knew I had one true purpose...

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to keep myself and my father alive.

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Survival was even harder in our new camp Buna .

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Father couldnt stay out of trouble...I

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even had to give up my gold tooth to save him from beatings.

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It seems unbelievable but I began to blame my own father for getting into trouble

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with the camp bosses for not being stronger and faster.

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How could the God that I had loved my entire life allow such things to

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occur How could the world allow it With the Russian army knocking on their doorstep

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our German captors retreated through the snow dragging us on a death march.

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Prisoners on either side of me were dropping from exhaustion and hypothermia...if

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they weren't shot first for slowing down.

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My father and I kept each other alive but some men survived by abandoning or

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trampling their companions.

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I saw a son kill his own father for a crust of bread and I

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prayed that I would never commit such an act.

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When our handful of survivors arrived at Buchenwald my father was fading fast.

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I tried to take care of him but I couldnt help but resent it.

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I could barely keep myself going One night Father began begging me for a glass

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of water even though an officer beat him.

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I stayed in my bunk afraid that I would be beaten too.

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When I woke up he was gone from his bed.

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I like to think that he was dead before they threw his body into the fire.

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But I know that it wouldn't have changed anything.

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There's not a lot to say other than that.

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Allied forces were on the move and underground resistance fighters took over the camp in

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time to meet the American tanks.

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Now I had food hospital care and my stolen freedom back.

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But it sure felt like I had nothing at all...

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Sample images for WWII scene-setting in first panel http//static.neatorama.com/images/2007-09/world-war-2.jpg http//img.defencetalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/12th-bomb-group-world-warII.jpg http//isurvived.org/Pictures_iSurvived-4/birkenau-line2gasing.GIF

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These are graphic. http//i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/04/06/article-1373571-0B7E710500000578-939_638x427.jpg http//furtherglory.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dachaumorgue1945.jpg NOTE end of file

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