Today the ghetto knows a different fear,
Close in its grip, Death wields an icy scythe.
An evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake,
The victims of its shadows weep and writhe.
Today a father’s heartbeat tells his fright,
And mothers bend their heads into their hands
Now children choke and die with typhus here,
A bitter tax is taken from their bands.

My heart still beats inside my breast
While friends depart for other worlds.
Perhaps it’s better - who can say?
Than watching this, to die today?
No, no my God, we want to live!
Not to watch our numbers melt away.
We want to have a better world.
We want to work - we must not die!

Eva Pickova, 12-year-old inhabitant of the Terezin ghetto. Eva was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and killed there.