September 1939, Poland, the Eisendhardts and other Jews and/or Polish are running for their lives as Nazis gun them down. Max's family fled to the woods, but not before realizing that their pursuers are not taking prisoners: the Jews/Polish who stayed behind to surrender are promptly executed.
The German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Following the main German forces, Nazi Einsatzgruppen, or "operational groups," hunted down Jews and Polish intellectuals.
In September and October 1939, Einsatzgruppen and other German forces killed over 16,000 Jewish and Polish civilians.
Two years later, Einsatzgruppen followed the German army into the Ukraine and Russia, slaughtering Jews everywhere they found them.
By the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen and their auxiliaries had killed 1.3 million Jews.
Using his sharp eyes, Max leads his family through the woods all the way to Warsaw where the other Jews are at least being held and not killed outright.
Spetember 1939: In the wake of the Nazi invasion of Poland, a flood of refugees swells the Jewish population of Warsaw from 350,000 to almost 500,000.
In the Jewsish sector of Warsaw, entire families live in Single rooms. Radios are confiscated. Coal becomes scarce enough to be called "black pearls."
October 1940: The Germans officially establish the Warsaw ghetto, forcing all Jews to live within an area less than two miles long.
November 1940: Overnight, the Germans complete the construction of ten-foot walls around the ghetto, topped in places with barbed wire and broken glass.
Over the next few months, the Germans drasticallyreduce food allotments to Jews.
By 1941, the official ration falls as low as 699 calories per day for Poles and 184 for Jews.
By June, 2,000 people a month are starving to death in the ghetto.
December 1941, Max exits a hole in the hole to do his usual smuggling business. A Jewish kid -- whom Max helped out earlier after being beaten for stealing rations -- exits the same hole, only to walk crawl out within sight of Nazi guards. The Nazis promptly kills the boy and throws his body over the wall. Seeing this, he would have tried to kill the Nazis if his Uncle Erich did not stop him immediately, who is also in the smuggling trade.
Max searches the city outside the walls and is lucky enough to spot a coin -- good enough to buy a half pound of beef for his family. Once again -- either his sight or his then unknown mutant affinity with metals -- pays off.
July 1942, Umschlagplatz, Warsaw ghetto: Nazis announces that food and shelter will be given to Jews who will ride the train to do hard labor. Although rumors of the Jews actually being killed in the trains are rampant, the promise of food is attracted many Jews to go anyway.
Max scopes out the inside of the trains and saw blood and scratches on the floor and walls. Max tells this to Jakob and Erich. Erich confirms a story from an escapee: the trains lead straight to a village Treblinka. The people are then told to be getting their baths. Then the Nazis gas them in the showers.
Using Erich's connections, they smuggled the family and arranged a meeting with Cecilia at the bank of the Vistula (a river). Everyone except Erich went to meet wiht Cecilia.
After a short boat ride, they walk right into the hands of the Nazis. Cecilia set them up as the Nazis are holding her mother hostage. They walk a while to a pit where the prisoners are told to line up in front of -- including Cecilia and her mother.
The Jews seemed resigned to their fate. As the Nazis fire, Max's mutant power fully manifests: he deflects the four bullets coming towards him. Whether he unwittingly redirected the bullets to his father or not is anybody's guess. Just the same, the shot prisoners all fell into the pit, on top of the other corpses.
Everything seems a blur to Max after that. He made his back to the city only to be hauled off by the Nazis into the death train -- the very same train where he sees the blood and scratches. The train chugs down the track and arrives to its destination...
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