My Journey.

I looked over the boxes a final time and sighed heavily. Then I lifted my head and said to the removal men, "You can take it out to the van now." As they began to carry the boxes out, I sank slowly on to the window seat and moving the curtain aside with a shaky hand, stared fixedly out the window. Through the blossom trees I could see vivid, green hills stretch far into the horizon. My heart ached to leave all this and move back to a city. The pain reminded me of a time I had moved before. It had been many years ago but it was as clear as yesterday.

*

It was January 1939 and I was thirteen years old. Then too I had stood at a window with an aching heart. The view out that window was ugly and soot coated. A grimy block of flats rose opposite, so the sky was barely visible above them. Below, was a narrow, stone street, the streetlamps reflecting their lights in the puddles. It wasn't because I loved the house that my heart ached, nor because of this street which I had grown up in but because I was leaving behind all the people I loved, my mother, my father, my cousin Franz, my Grandmamma and all my friends. I was leaving them, everyone of them and going far, far away to unknown land where I would have nothing. My little sister started in her sleep, shifting her position, she had no idea how dramatically her life was about to change. I wished that somehow I could protect her from her fate but I was helpless.

It had only been by chance that I had found out my destiny. It was almost Christmas and my cousin Franz, my sister Lore and I had been shopping in Prague's centre. We used to go shopping by ourselves, just Lore and me but since the Nazi's took over Prague, Father has forbidden it. So shopping had become a rarity to us, an adventure we could only embark on if Mother, Father or Cousin Franz could be persuaded to suffer it. I hated the Germans for invading our city. Father had told me to love my enemies but I couldn't help it. They hated us, the evidence surrounded us; Jewish shops had been closed, important Jewish buildings burnt to the ground and we had been stripped of our dignity and pride. The whole of my being resented them.

Cousin Franz should have got off the tram the stop before us but he didn't. "I'd better see you ladies home," he said in a laughing voice but I could tell he was worried. He was worried in case Lore and I got bullied for our nationality, all grown ups seemed to worry these days; I hated

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