Moshe Fiszman

Every Jew had to wear one of these. 

It was meant to be a mark of shame. 

To be caught without the yellow star could mean death. 

It was 1942.

The thirty thousand Jews of the Radom Ghetto had been ordered to report to the city square. 

We were given thirty minutes. 

Men, women, children, babies -everyone had to report. 

We could hear shooting. 

Some families were too slow. 

The Ukrainians threw grenades into their homes. 

They were drunk and were killing indiscriminately. 

At the city square I was selected to go to the right. My family was sent to the left. 

There was no chance to say goodbye. 

How was I to know I would never see them again?

They were taken to the trains and forced into cattle trucks...

...with no food, no water. Nothing.

Three days later I was told by a Pole that they had been taken to Treblinka. 

The trucks returned empty. There was talk of the smell of burning flesh. 

Do I believe in God? That is difficult. 

We who gave the world the One true God and the Ten Commandments...

...we should be destroyed? 

Why?