Samuel Bak (Victim)

The Nazi's showed up a few days ago, rounding up all the Jews in Vilna and forcing them into segregated portions of the town they call "ghettos".  They fenced us off with barbed wire like animals and forced us to wear patches that made it easy to recognize us as Jews.  After a few days, the Nazi's took a bunch of Jews, including both my grandfathers into the Ponari forest and shot them.  They took both of my grandmothers on the following Yom Kippur holiday and I assume they suffered the same fate as their husbands.  At that moment, it was only me, my mother, and my father.  After some time passed, we began to become accustomed to the ghetto lifestyle, hoping and praying we weren't to be the next taken into the forest.  My father died, he was shot, a few days before the liberation of Vilna.  Only the Lord knows why he couldn't have stayed alive a few more days.  That image will forever haunt me, my father was asked to come outside by a Nazi officer, and I sat there, hiding under the stairs, peering out the window, watching their mouths move, not knowing what was being said.  It felt like hours he was out there, a cold sweat dripping down my brow the whole time.  As soon as they stopped talking, I was eager to open the door to let my father in, when they started to walk away.  I jumped up, but my mother stopped me.  I shot her an angry look, only to see tears welling up in her eyes.  She knew what was going to happen, as did I.  The last I saw of my father was a desperate look on his face as he walked off with the Nazis to his death.  His head held high, I saw a single tear drop from his face as he turned the corner.  I will never forget that moment as long as I live, be it one more day, or one hundred more years.  By some miracle, my mother and I have made it this far, now I can only pray the road ahead is smooth and filled with improvement.