I will always remember the night they came and took Liztke and her family away.  I heard them breaking into her house and I heard the yelling.  I don't know why they took her; only that my oldest friend was gone, and that the last thing I heard her yell before they put her in a big cloth-sided truck as I watched through the window was, "Run away, Kovye!  They'll come for you next!"  But why would they want to take me away; me, Kovye Terzai, who never did anything bad to anybody?  I had heard that they were taking Jews away to concentration camps, but I guess I didn't really believe it, even after all the other things they've done to us.  I didn't mind having to wear a Star of David armband; my parents had been going to get me a Star of David pin, in silver, before all this started.  But some of the other things they made us do, or said we couldn't do, weren't so nice, like having to carry a passport, and not being able to go to some places.  The armband could also be bad, I guess, since when the others saw it, they would throw things at me, and say things like, "Dirty Jew!" and "Go to where you belong, in the camps!"  Even some people like Little Wanze, who used to be my friends, would join in.  
	The next day, my parents seemed very worried.  I tried to ask Mama what would happen to Liztke, but she always acted preoccupied and wouldn't answer me.  Papa didn't go to work-he hadn't been allowed to teach since a few months ago, when the Nazis passed laws saying that no Jews could teach in a public school.  My little sister, Tzelen, kept coming to me and asking, "What's going on?" with a look on her face that said she was holding back tears, tears of fear.  And I couldn't answer, because I didn't know myself, and she would go off to her room and cry quietly.  
	After that, though, things seemed to quiet down a bit.  Life got back to semi-normal.  Papa started going back to his new job with the city.  A week passed. Then another.  Then, one day, Papa came home from work early, looking as if he'd been in a fight.  He went upstairs to talk with Mama alone for a long time.  Then, they came down and said, "We're leaving."
	"Where will we go?" I asked.
	"We will go to Denmark.  They're helping Jews escape there to Sweden," Papa answered.  
	Sweden!  I vaguely remembered that we had some kind of cousin or uncle in Sweden, and that it was supposed to be a nice place, if a little colder that what we were used to.  "When will we leave?" I asked Papa.
	"We will leave first thing tomorrow morning.  Now we have to start packing."
	Tzelen piped up then, wondering, "Why so soon?"
	Papa and Mama looked at each other then, and Mama looked away.  Papa sighed and said, "I got into a fight with a German today.  It wasn't anything much, but now he'll talk to his superiors and they'll come and take us away like Liztke and her family."
	Tzelen started to cry then, and Mama comforted her.  Papa and I went to start packing.
	That night, there was a knock at the door, a rough knock.  A knock like I had heard only once before, when they took Liztke's family away.  A German voice shouted, "Open up!  This is the police!"  
	Mama and Papa were up in an instant, saying, "Go!  Get out through the back!"  Tzelen and I tried, but it was too late.  The Germans broke the door down, and swarmed in.  Tzelen was screaming now, and I think I was too.  The soldiers grabbed us and dragged us outside.  We all struggled; I kicked one in the shins, and I think Tzelen bit one, who yelled and started swearing in German (at least, I assume that's what it was; I don't know a lot of German).  But it was all fruitless.  
	They dragged us up to that truck, and then, as I made one last desperate attempt to get away, I broke free of the soldier that was holding me and tried to run away.  He yelled, "Achtung!  He's getting away!" and another soldier ran after me and hit me on the head.  Stars exploded behind my eyes, and everything went black.
	When I woke up, I had (as might be expected) a splitting headache.  The truck was bouncing along the night road, and I was jostled against other people.  There were too many, I realized, for it to just be my family.  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I made out at least eight or nine bodies.  Most of them were asleep, but I could see that one of them was watching me a bit listlessly.  As my night vision got better, I could tell that it was a girl.  She was about my age-fifteen-and had a cut on her forehead that was slowly oozing blood, which partially obscured her face.  Carefully, I moved over to her and ripped off a piece of my shirt. 
	"What is your name?" she whispered.
	"Kovye.  Kovye Terzai.  What's yours?"
	"Kovye?!  What are you doing here?  Did they get you too?  What's that cloth for?"  I looked closer at her and realized that it was Sara Zatel, whom I had met the previous year and had become very close friends with.
	"Yes, quite obviously they got me too.  I'm going to bandage your head.  Here-hold still-got it."  I tied the cloth around her head carefully.  "How's that?"
	"Mm.  Better.  Thank you."
	"How'd you get it?" I asked her.
	"When they came to get us, I broke free by kicking the officer in the-" she blushed "-well, you know.  They ran after me and one cut me with a knife."
	I chuckled, then sobered.  "Do you know where they're taking us?"
	"I'm not sure, but I heard the soldiers talking in German, and they mentioned Auschwitz."
	"What's that?"
	"Haven't you heard about it?  It's a death camp for Jews.  They take you there and you don't come out.  I think we ought to try to get away."
	"But they've got guns!  They'll just shoot you if they see you running."
	"I know.  I haven't quite worked that part out yet."
	After that, Sara closed her eyes and within a few moments was asleep.  I sighed, got comfortable, or at least as comfortable as I could be, and fell asleep myself.
	We were awakened by loud shouts.  The back of the truck was open, so we got out.  We were at a train station, and at the platform we saw several cattle cars which Jews were being prodded onto.  I saw Papa arguing with a Nazi soldier, refusing to get on the train.  The soldier got angry and started waving his gun menacingly, but Papa backed down and got into the car, shoulders slumped.  I went toward that car, and Sara followed me, but the Nazis said, "No!  You, in that car!" and shoved us into the next one along.  I was angry, and worried for Papa and Mama and Tzelen, but I knew that arguing with them wasn't a good idea.  
	"It'll be OK," Sara said.  "At least they didn't separate us."  She took my hand and squeezed it.  Then we were in the car, the soldiers were shutting the door, and there wasn't time or room for anything else.  
	It didn't take me long to realize I was hungry.  Sara, too, hadn't eaten in a long while.  As our eyes became once more accustomed to the dim light, we saw that this car was packed with people-every one of them with a Star of David armband.  Many of them were asleep, but the rest just stood or-in the rare cases where there was room-sat listlessly.  It looked like they hadn't eaten in even longer.  After a while, I found that I needed to relieve myself.  The others in the car were avoiding one small corner, from which was issuing somewhat of a stench, so I squeezed through and did my business there, then made my way back to Sara's side.  
	"At some point, they'll have to stop," she said.  "These things can't run forever, and they didn't refuel at that station.  I think when they stop to refuel, we should make a break for it."
	"They'll still shoot you," I whispered back.  "What's the point of trying to get away when you'll only get shot?"
	"It's not that easy to hit a moving target.  I'm hoping that will give me my chance."
	"They may not even stop.  For all we know, they carry extra fuel reserves with them."
	"Perhaps, but if they do, I'll be ready."
	After a couple of hours, during which we became increasingly nauseated by the smell from the corner, the train did indeed stop.  However, before Sara could actually nerve herself to escape, a Nazi opened the car door and shepherded more Jews in.  Sara and I managed to remain close to the door, but it was now much more packed, and no one was able to sit down.  After a few more minutes, the door was closed again and the train started.  
	Time passed.  A baby woke up and began to cry, its mother unable to comfort it.  The stink from the corner became almost unbearable.  Finally, the train stopped again.  This time, the guard didn't come back to open the door.  Sara smiled at me in the dark.  "This is it," she said.  "Help me open the door."
	The door was latched from the outside, but it was also rusty and the latch easily broke.  We silently exulted as the door came open.  There was much startlement in the car as the other occupants realized what was happening.  This turned to joy and the entire contents of the cattle car spilled out onto a grassy field.  As I had predicted, soldiers noticed and began shooting.  "Hurry!" called Sara, running in the midst of a group of other Jews.  "We can make it out of their range!"  But then I felt a sharp pain in my leg.  I looked down and saw blood where a bullet had grazed it.  It was too painful to run, and I knew that if I tried I would surely get shot.
	"Go!" I shouted to Sara, who faltered on seeing me wounded.  "Get away!  I'll find you eventually!  As God is my witness, I'll find you!"
	As she ran away, I thought I heard her call back, "I will wait!  I believe in you!"
	I managed to scramble back into the car, where a couple of others, too weak from hunger or maltreatment to attempt to escape still lingered.  I quickly arranged myself to look like one of them, hiding the injury on my leg.  Peering out the door, I saw that Sara and a few others had made it safely away, and were even now disappearing into a region of trees above which the sun was setting.  Sara paused, looked back, and made a gesture that I could not make out then, but later decided was a blown kiss.  The bodies of those who had not made it to safety lay bleeding on the ground.  Then another guard came back to our car, grumbling in his native tongue, and closed the door.  I heard some rattling and guessed that he must be putting on a new lock.  After that, the train rattled into motion again.  I tore another piece of cloth off my shirt, tied it around my leg, and then cried myself to sleep.
	The next day was awful.  The smell had gotten even worse overnight and I was now extremely hungry, not having eaten since dinner two days ago.  I couldn't tell you just how long it was, but after some time, we stopped once more.  This time, when the guard opened the door, he yelled at us to get out.  Astonished, I did so.  When I hit the ground painfully, I saw the reason.  We had reached the camp.  Above the gate was a sign saying "Work will make you free," or something like that.  I didn't pay a lot of attention to that; I was looking for my family.  I saw the car I thought they had been in, but everyone had already been emptied from it and I couldn't see my parents or Tzelen anywhere.  The guards were prodding us all in the direction of the camp, meanwhile, and I reluctantly went.  As I reached the gate, I saw that the line split in two, one with mainly women, children, and old people in it on my left, and another with boys from about my age to my father's age on my right.  I thought I saw my mother and sister going into a building on the left, but I wasn't sure.
	When I got to the place where the lines were splitting, there were men there asking us how old we were.  When I answered that I was fifteen, he sent me into the line to the right.  I heard him telling a girl behind me, who was thirteen, to go to the left into the showers.  I felt slightly resentful, wondering why we didn't get to take showers.  Later, however, I was glad I didn't get sent to the "showers."
	One of my last really clear memories of the camp was getting my number.  I remember being taken into a smaller room within the building the line on the right went into.  In the room was a large Nazi with an odd-looking tool.  He made me sit down in a chair, then he took my arm and, with his tool, tattooed into the flesh of my arm, a number: 351291-J.  It was extremely painful, and it is still there, so that any time anyone tells me "Oh, no; the Holocaust never happened; it was all a hoax," I can pull up my sleeve and show them their "hoax."  After that, my memories have always been somewhat blurred.  I have talked to others who survived the Holocaust, and they have usually said one of two things: that the memories will forever be burned into their brains, or that it all runs together into a haze of pain, hunger, and despair.  
	I remember some things clearly, though.  At the beginning, my memories are less hazy, and I can remember the first meal I had at the death camp.  It was a kind of thin soup, and it smelled rancid.  However, by this time I hadn't eaten in maybe three or four days, so I would eat anything I could get.  The soup did me more harm than good.  It was old and it had food poisoning in it, the kind that gives you the flux-violently.  Also, they wouldn't let me wash myself off for five days after that.  Thankfully, on the second day it rained-heavily-or I would have been living in my own filth for the whole five days.  
	I can also remember finding my father at last.  He was very weak, and he told me that my mother and sister were dead-a fact that I had already guessed, not having seen them since the first day.  He told me that they had beaten him when he tried to get away, and that he was lucky they hadn't killed him.  A few weeks later, he hadn't gotten any better, and I talked to him again.  He said to me, "Kovye, my son, I am dying.  I know this for certain.  There is nothing you or I can do about it.  But with my last breath I will defy them!  I have not let them break my spirit, and so I die free.  You must promise me, Kovye, promise me you will not let them break you either.  Fight them to the last!"
	"I will, Abba," I replied, tears running down my cheeks.  "I will."  
	I remember that with his dying breath, he cursed the Nazis, and most especially their leader, Hitler.  He died free.  
	After that, things faded together again, and details disappeared.  I remember pain: pain from hunger, pain from the fists of the Nazis, pain from the heavy work they made me do, but most of all, pain from the knowledge that I was now alone here, without a friend or anyone to turn to.  
	Time passed; I'm not sure how much.  It was hard to tell in the dreary muckpile that was Auschwitz.  Many Jews and other peoples Hitler disliked entered the camp-and many others left, feet first.  However, that was when I heard the first rumors that some were going to try to leave without dying first.  I managed to get myself into this little rebellious group.  Most of those who knew about the movement-who weren't many-didn't want anything to do with it, believing it to be too dangerous.   But I thought it was worth it.  Indeed, I thought at that point that the only other thing that was really worth doing was defying the Nazis by taking up a stone and killing one with it before they killed me.  There were just two things that kept me going-my promise to my father, and the thought that out there, somewhere, was Sara Zatel, who was waiting for me to come back to her.  
	Once, the guards discovered one of our meetings, broke us up, and beat us.  I was lucky-they killed Abram Shatza, "as an example."  We didn't give up, though, and finally, one day, the five of us who remained had our escape planned.  We had heard that a large shipment of Jews and Gypsies was coming in soon, and that would mean that security would be more concentrated by the main gate.  One of us-I never found out his name, but his number was 1311891-J-had made a hole under the electrified fence on the opposite side of the compound that was just big enough to fit a starved body through.  And the leader of the little group, whose name I also didn't know, but who called himself Moses, had managed, I don't know how, to get us five knives to defend ourselves with.  
	The day came.  We were ready.  The train reached the camp and the guards redistributed themselves-and by sheerest chance, there was a large gap in the guards by our hole.  We slipped away from our tasks, carefully, with a few other Jews who knew about our plan, but didn't want to actually risk trying it, covering for us.  Four of us, including 1311891-J, were at the hole, when a cry went up.  We had been exposed.  I can only assume that the man who was supposed to be covering for Moses didn't, and told the guards that he was trying to escape.  Fortunately, we were bright enough to run for it.  I was second under the fence, with 1311891-J right behind me.  The man behind him, however, ran into the fence as he tried to get under it and got electrocuted.  There was no help for it, though.  We ran.  
	Again, things are hazy for me here.  I remember vaguely that we split up, and that I had an idea that north was safe, because somewhere in the north was Denmark.  But there was also some odd force pulling me west, so west I went.  It wasn't very fun, make no mistake about that.  I got little more food than I had at Auschwitz, and that only because I had the good fortune to be travelling through some forests in summer.  I managed to steal new clothes and I made sure to cover my tattoo.  Other than that, though, I just moved by night, finding a place to hide and sleep by day.  I was discovered more than once, and I remember one time I even had to kill a man-a Nazi, so it wasn't too hard, but after I stopped running, I remember that I looked at the bloody knife in my hands, gleaming under the full moon, then I threw up everything that was in my stomach and began to sob.  
	Many days passed.  The odd pull to the west was gone, and so I had turned north in search of Denmark.  A few days later, my life would change drastically for the third time.  I was travelling northwards, skirting a village, when I thought I heard a voice whispering my number.  I turned, and there I saw, of all people, Moses!  He came up to me and said, "Glad you made it, kid!  If you want to get safe for good, I can help you."  It turned out that his cover hadn't betrayed him; it was someone else who had seen him that had raised the alarm.  He had kept out of sight, pulled the body of the poor unfortunate who was electrocuted out of the way, and slipped out himself.  After that, he had followed me till he got to familiar ground, then gone on ahead to prepare the way for me.  Apparently, I was already in Denmark, and "Moses" was the leader of a group of people here who helped Jews get to safety in Sweden.  
	So the next night, we started travelling together, and he led me back east a ways.  After a few more nights, we reached the sea.  There, a wonderful surprise was waiting for me.  
	The Jew-smugglers had a large cave whose main entrance was underwater at high tide.  In that cave, they kept several boats and the few people who remained there at all times.  When we got there, the tide was coming close to full and we got soaked to the waist entering the cave.  However, it sloped upwards and there was a welcoming party of gruff voices and unshaved faces.  They seemed glad that one more Jew was safely out of Hitler's hands.  
	As they were telling me I would have to stay till the tide was out and I was introducing myself, there was another voice from around a bend in the cave.  It was a female voice, incredulously crying, "Kovye?!  Kovye Terzai, is that you?!!"  As she came into the circle of firelight, I could see that she seemed thinner, and her eyes seemed much older, but it was definitely my old, dear friend Sara Zatel.
	"Sara!" I exclaimed as she ran across to me, hugging me and crying into my chest.
	"I knew you would come," she sobbed, looking up at me out of teary eyes.
	"I said I'd find you," I said, and I realized that I was also crying.  "And I did.  And you waited."
	Then there was much congratulating and slapping on the back and remarks to the effect of, "I'd escape too if I had that waiting for me!"  After that, we each told our stories, or as much as we could of them.  
	After she had escaped from the death train, she and the seven others that had made it also had the idea to go north to Denmark.  Three of them had been caught and killed or sent back to the camps, they never found out which, but the others pressed on and at last reached the very sea-cave in which we were sitting.  The other three had crossed to Sweden, but Sara had stayed and waited, just as she had promised.  It had been hard, waiting for me those two years, but finally we were together again.  
	The next day, when the tide was low, Sara, Moses and I got in a boat and set off for Sweden.  It took a while, but at least we had better food than I had had in years, and there was less chance of being spotted and killed.  At long last, we reached the other side, where there were many other men and women waiting to welcome us to freedom.