sparkle121+story

German American My name is Joseph Giles, i am 60 years old at the time I was 14. This is when I was put in a internment camp. My mother, Maria Giles worked in a sewing factory and my father Richard Giles worked in a construction company. I had 2 sisters and 2 brothers who were with me in Internment Camp. One night the FBI agents came to our apartment. They woke everyone from their beds and searched our whole apartment. The agents, without notice, took my father away. For several days, my mother and I did not know were he was. Several months later, we learned that he was in an internment camp. During the next two years he lived in a world that consisted of barbed wire and guard towers. He was not allowed to leaving the grounds. The couple of months later, the rest of my family, my mother, 2 sisters, 2 brothers and me, were also taken away to an internment camp. I remember entering the internment camp. The camp was surrounded by a high chain link fence crowned with barbed wire .I don’t remember being able to see much except desert outside the camp. The camp was also surrounded by a tall brick wall. The guards all had rifles and they guarded every corner of the camp. The camp was divided between German and Japanese internees. I also remember entering an enormous room that was dirty and old and the women who were imprisoned there had to clean it. The building was flooded with roaches, rats, and other kinds of rodents. The roaches would scurry everywhere if you moved something. Every man in the camp had a job and was required to work for which he was paid about 5 cents an hour. Special plastic coins were the currency used in the camp which depended on the size of the family. Ice and milk were delivered daily. All we got is one bucket of soup each week for all the people in our room. Meals were prepared several times a day. Each day the amount of food they gave us was getting smaller and smaller. For kids, there were about 1,200 children in the camp. There were about eight women and four children in our room. That’s where I met my future wife, she was the same age as me, 14, and her name was Rachel and she was a girl who shared a room in the internment camps with me. That very night, I wanted to take Rachel out to eat, we walked to my favorite restaurant, Jinxies, but we weren’t allowed in there because they boycotted all German-Americans from there. I was very disappointed at that instead we went to the park and sat in the swings. We returned I noticed that my mother wasn’t feeling good although she said she was fine but she really wasnt in fact, she was dieing. I cried for my mother each night for her to survive and one night she told me "never give up" and those were her last words to me. I finally had enough. I planned a way out by looking at the gates for a tiny hole to squeeze through. I looked around, nothing, i sighed and closed my eyes and prayed for god to find me a way out. I opened my eyes and there was a miracle! I found a hole no bigger than a bucket. I told Rachel to run away with me but she refused and said that she couldn't let go of her family. I couldn't lose Rachel either so I told her we all have to make sacrifices in life. We stayed for one more night. The next night came fast. We said our goodbyes to her family and they wished us luck. We ran to the hole, first went Rachel. She fit in easily but next was me and I got stuck half way. I heard guards yelling. I think they heard me. I tried to squeeze even more with Rachel pulling me. I could hear the guards running with guard dogs towards me. Closer. Closer! Closer!! I finally got through and sighed in relief and ran. We ran as fast as we could. Years later, the war ended and i proposed to Rachel. The End