German soldiers filled the streets. There were strict rules placed among all people, and the place they used to call "home," was now a war zone. "On October 17, 1939, at 8 a.m. there were two German gendarmes, who roughly told me that in a few hours I had to be ready to travel with my children and everybody in the house not only must I be ready, but that the flat must be swept, the plates and the dishes washed and the keys left in the cupboards, so that the Germans who were to live in my house should have no trouble."1 Alter describes a similar situation when German soldiers entered his home and brutally dragged his brother out of the home, except with no warning. The same happened to Alter, himself, a year later. The brothers were only able to bring with them what they could grab as they were being dragged out the door.
Even with all the documents and stories detailing it, life in concentration camps is unimaginable for everyone but those who experienced it firsthand. The way those people were treated is incomprehensible. They digressed from human to subhuman in the hands of the German soldiers. "The guards beat every new arrival with iron bars, whips, etc. So that virtually every incoming Jew had contusions or wounds on the head. Many weaker men were trampled to death in the throng."2 Just upon arrival, these people were treated with brutal beatings for no reason. They had not done anything to elicit the beatings and mistreatment, they had simply just arrived. .
Hitler's "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question" was brutal and savage. Jews who had survived into 1944 were being sent to Auschwitz to be annihilated in the crematoria and gas chambers. Anything that could be of value was stripped off the dead bodies including dental gold, hair, and any hidden valuables. As if they were not tormented enough, they were stripped of their last human element, their name, and were given a number instead.
