of the community and controlling the town. Life for the people ofSighet quickly changed. Jews could not leave their homes for 3 days or theywould be killed. Gold, jewels, objects of any real value had to be handed overto the soldiers, but Elie's father was smart and buried the familyvaluables in the seller. After three days, every Jew was issued a yellow starthat had to be worn at all times in order to preserve their lives.Restraunts,cafes, and synagogues were taken away from the people and they were notallowedout in the street past six o'clock. The town of Sighet was to be splitinto two ghettos, a large one right in the middle of town that took up fourstreets, and the other one would be spread out all over the town in small sidestreets of the district. Elie's family lived on Serphant Street, whichwas in the large ghetto in the middle of the town. Some of the rooms in hishouse had to be given up for relatives who have lost everything they owned.The townspeople came together to form a little Jewish Republic because alltheyhad was each other to help make it through these tough times. They appointedthe Jewish police, office for social assistance, labor committee, a hygienedepartment and a government of machinery. Talk of deportation began to spread throughout the town. The Jewish Republicwould not be able to prevent the deportation. The people would only be abletobring what they could carry and everything else has to be left behind.Everyone was asked to leave their houses and form a line outside to receivethere deportation times Many of the Jews knew that if they made it to theconcentration camp and they could be sent straight to the crematory. Inreadying themselves Elie's parents said, "We must fast as much aswe can before we are deported because we do not know when they will be feedingus next (Wiesel 16)." The synagogues were used as huge stations forchecking baggage to be sure that people were not jewel smuggling. From therethey were s...
