Do you know what it is like having everything and everyone taken away from you?  Have you ever stopped to think about what it would be like if you had nothing to call your own, no family to comfort you when you needed it most?  Well, I never did and now I wish I had known to stop and think about how great my life was.  I can’t tell you my name anymore, I think it started with an M but I’m not sure.  All I can tell you now is my number, 107034.  That’s right, my number that’s how they tell us apart now.  They don’t use our first names or our last, we are just a bunch of numbers being herded around like mindless animals being forced to work hours on end in the baking sun.  If you haven’t guessed it yet I am just another number, prisoner in a concentration camp called Dachau.  It was September 1944 when I was taken. I was outside playing with my brother Abel when it all happened.  The footsteps were like thunder, each one was in perfect unison with other, shouts and screams echoed the streets as my friends and neighbors were dragged out of their homes and thrown into trucks.  A gunshot rang out as one of the large men shot a man who had been reluctant to leave. 
My brother and I stood there is shock watching it all unfold when we heard our mother calling our names.  We ran for the house and made it in unseen but by the look on her face I could tell that something was very wrong and that we didn’t have much time to act.  She handed me my school bag and I just gave her a puzzled look as she strapped Abe’s bag on him.  Before I could ask what was wrong she was dragging us to the basement.  Our father was standing by a small hole in the wall that I never knew was there.  Kissing us good-bye and telling us that they love us Abe and I were pushed through the hole and it was sealed behind us.  The next thing I knew there was shouting coming from the other side and the only thing I could do was turn the other way and get Abe out of there before someone heard us. 
We hid every time a light came near us or we heard voices.  This went on for a week before I lost Abe.  We had been laying at the back of an a building when I heard the thunderous footsteps again.  Memories of the day we left came flooding back as I woke Abel and quietly snuck around the corner even further from view.  Some how I knew this time was different and that the running was done.  The footsteps got closer and closer, shouts of commands tore thru the silent streets as they woke everyone from their sleep.  That’s when I heard the shouts come from behind us, yelling to stay still, to walk onto the trucks.  I knew what those trucks ment, what happens if you step onto one and there was no way in h--- I was going to let that happen to my Abe.  So, in a split second decision I scooped Abe up in my arms and made a break for it, running to the nearest train that had pulled into the station near by.  Just a little further I thought and we were free for a little while longer.  The footsteps were matching my pace and quickly gaining on me.  Seeing my window of opportunity closing I shoved Abe out of my arms onto the train as it started to pull out of the station.  That was the last thing I saw, him staring out that train window as it sped away but it didn’t matter he was safe. 
The officers caught up to me and I didn’t care because he was safe, so when they knocked me out Abe was the only thing going through my mind.  That’s how I ended up here in Germany where I was just another number.  The number of times I had been hit over the head might have cost me to forget my name but I will never forget him.  I have been here for what I think is six months now, judging by the melting snow, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of him.  It’s been getting harder and harder to remember the good times when more and more people are being rounded up and marched through the gates on the other side of camp.  I hope they are going some place better but I fear the faint screams that sometimes come from there mean that it might not be in my head anymore and that something truly terrible is happening beyond the fence.  I over heard one of the guards talking about a big release next month, maybe I will get lucky enough to get released.
I was wrong, the other side of the gates didn’t lead to some place better but somewhere much, much worse.  On the other side was a cement building with a few windows and large metal doors.  They said that we were getting showers as a precaution for the outbreak typhus that had been spreading throughout the camp.  The group I was placed in was crammed into the “showers” and the heavy metal doors were sealed behind and infront of us.  That’s when I realised that the showerheads were no longer where they were suppose to be.  A green mist began to ooze out of holes in the ceiling and as it filled the air everyone around me began to choke and scream clawing at the walls trying to escape.  I covered my nose and mouth and took small sips of air as I made myself as small as possible sitting on the ground in one of the corners.  The screams died down as I lost consciousness and even then my only thought was of my little Abe.