Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of
1. The testimony of Yitzhak Cohen, born in
Every day, every night, they pass by on the other side of the barbed wire fence that separated us and the two crematoria — number 3 and number 4. You see people, women, old and young, walking hand in hand silently. Nobody made a sound.
They all go into the same place, and nobody comes out. Before they go into the gas chambers, they are made to stand in the crematorium yard, and then we hear the first words, and — of course — the shouting of the Germans. “Dolmacher,” “Dolmacher.” And many probably volunteer, thinking that it is in their best interest.
And then the German begins to explain that, according to the rules of the camp, all newcomers must wash and undergo delousing. They must all undress and leave their clothing where they are, in a single pile so that they are not confused when they come out of the shower room.
And most importantly — they must tie their shoes together in pairs, since there have been incidents in which people have not found their shoes upon coming out of the shower room. (This, of course, was so that the Germans could find the victims’ shoes in pairs after their death, rather than one by one.)
The first in line go in easily. The last ones crowd in, with beatings and vicious dogs frightening them, of course, so that they will go in faster, until a door is hermetically sealed after them. The shouting of the people, and the children in particular, before they go in is simply indescribable: A quarter of an hour of shouting, screaming to the heavens, until the box of Zyklon B is poured in.
And then, the calm after the storm, as though not a soul had been in the gas chambers: Death, death, death. The death of two thousand people in a matter of minutes.
The chimneys light up and the flame reaches a few meters high from the tip of the chimney. The smell of burning flesh can be smelled day and night. Crematoria number 1, number 2, number 3, number 4 all work at full steam — how can they keep up?
They don’t keep up — the Sonderkommando has its hands full. They can’t keep up, the ovens cannot burn all the bodies. They found a solution. They attach a wagon to the gas chambers which leads straight to pits that burned day and night, pits that had been dug behind crematorium number 4.
And I worked a few nights only at night. I went out and saw a scene that was too horrific to describe. And while the people were going into the gas chambers, as I heard the screaming, one evening I began to scream as well: Lord, You are the Master of Revenge — how long will You allow this kind of killing to continue? How long? Take pity only on the children at least.
(It is worth going to this page from the Yad Vashem site. You may want to go beyond; but everyone should at least start here).
(hat tip: Pookleblinky).
2. This poem, posted by littleoldlady at LGF:
Grandfather Eliezer was an important man.
Not nearly as wealthy as
Great-grandfather Aaron.
Reggie, my grandmother,
was neither important nor wealthy,
but she was "an angel,"
feeding half the town
even though she could ill afford it.Importance, wealth, kindness.
None of it mattered. They all perished
in. Auschwitz
My aunt Sarah and her two children,
Eva aged 5, and Moshe aged 3, the sweet babies
also died in. Auschwitz
Mothers and children.
No matter.
All consumed in the fires
of. Auschwitz
Where are they? I have pictures to prove they existed.
Yet some would deny that it happened.The rich and the poor.
The young and the old.
It didn’t matter.
The Jews were sent to die
in. Auschwitz
One hundred miles away.
Another Aunt Sarah, a great beauty.
Another three children, geniuses all.
And my Uncle Daniel, as handsome as a movie star
in his army uniform.
I know, I have pictures.The pretty and the plain.
The smart and the simple.
Does it matter?
They were all murdered
In Auschwitz.Where are they? The aunts and the cousins.
Friends of the family. Uncles and
grandmothers who were angels,
I was never to meet.
I am left with their faces in the photographs.
They are in the pictures and
In a part of my heart I keep safe.
The memory of people I never knew.There is the number A12311.
Forever a reminder.
A tattoo printed on my mother’s arm
in. Auschwitz
She gives the significance of the tattoo here. And she says that “Unfortunately, it’s all true — every name, every relative. Some people don’t need liberation ceremonies to remember Auschwitz
The rest of us need to know. Start here.