Journal Entery

Date: 12 December 2007

Entery Number: 3

Page/Quote reflecting on: Pgs. 23-24

It's really sad what harsh conditions can do to people. Before, the Jews lived happily in their little community, nice and friendly to each other but that kindness no longer existed in their crammed little cattle car on the train. "'Look at the fire! Flames, flames everywhere....'Once more the young men tied her up and gagged her. They even struck her. People encouraged them:'Make her be quiet! She's mad! Shut her up! She's not the only one. She can keep her mouth shut...'They struck her several times on the head-blows that might have killed her." THis lady, Madame Schachter, had been separated from her husband and her sons except her youngest, and began to go mad; constantly seeing flames. Her screams distressed the other "passangers" and so they tried to shut her up. THeir attempts were not brutal at first but she kept at her screaming and they couldn't take it any longer. It's really sad that they could just do that to someone they had known for a long time. Just being in such closed courters with the stress of the war and this mad lady's yelling, it turned them violent. It really is sad.