Settela was a Romani Gypsy girl who was sent to a concentration camp during World War 2. I wrote a diary entry about what her life was like.
4/3/08
War time diary
Dear diary,
Today I am going to a concentration camp with my family. I am really scared and so is my family. I am scared that I will be gassed. I am really hungry and cold I’m really scared. I can hear my family and my mummy crying and I can hear the soldiers shouting at my family. I can smell something really bad, it smells like a dead body. All I can think of is getting gassed or hung.
I want to escape, but I am afraid I will be found. And I feel really sick and ill. I thought I was going to get a shower but I got the fright of my life when I got out of the train I was at a concentration camp. I was looking at all these people who were starving to death and really skinny. They looked as if they were going to collapse any minute and they were working non-stop. They were crying and there were little children who were being told by their parents’ to stop crying. The little children were crying with hunger and cold.
I felt so scared just thinking that I was going to be treated the same, being forced to work and work . I was thinking of how could I ever escape, because I’ve been here a long time. I’ve got so skinny and I am really pale. I can’t show my head. All of my hair is shaved because of the lice. I have a horrible feeling that I am next to be gassed.
Charelle Doyle
