E1 Unit 4 MC CFA

Excerpt from Chapter 3 Night

1 Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

2 Never shall I forget that smoke.

3 Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

4 Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

5 Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

6 Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

7 Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

8 Never.

9 The barrack we had been assigned to was very long. On the roof, a few bluish skylights. I thought: This is what the antechamber of hell must look like. So many crazed men, so much shouting, so much brutality.

10 Dozens of inmates were there to receive us, sticks in hand, striking anywhere, anyone, without reason. The orders came:

11 “Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your belt and your shoes ...”

12 Our clothes were to be thrown on the floor at the back of the barrack. There was a pile there already. New suits, old ones, torn overcoats, rags. For us it meant true equality: nakedness. We trembled in the cold.

13 A few SS officers wandered through the room, looking for strong men. If vigor was that appreciated, perhaps one should try to appear sturdy? My father thought the opposite. Better not to draw attention. (We later found out that he had been right. Those who were selected that day were incorporated into the Sonder-Kommando, the Kommando working in the crematoria. Béla Katz, the son of an important merchant of my town, had arrived in Birkenau with the first transport, one week ahead of us. When he found out that we were there, he succeeded in slipping us a note. He told us that having been chosen because of his strength, he had been forced to place his own father’s body into the furnace.)

14 The blows continued to rain on us:

15 “To the barber!”

16 Belt and shoes in hand, I let myself be dragged along to the barbers. Their clippers tore out our hair, shaved every hair on our bodies. My head was buzzing; the same thought surfacing over and over: not to be separated from my father.

17 Freed from the barbers’ clutches, we began to wander about the crowd, finding friends, acquaintances. Every encounter filled us with joy—yes, joy: Thank God! You are still alive!

18 Some were crying. They used whatever strength they had left to cry. Why had they let themselves be brought here? Why didn’t they die in their beds? Their words were interspersed with sobs.

19 Suddenly someone threw his arms around me in a hug: Yehiel, the Sigheter rebbe’s brother. He was weeping bitterly. I thought he was crying with joy at still being alive.

20 “Don’t cry, Yehiel,” I said. “Don’t waste your tears ...”

21 “Not cry? We’re on the threshold of death. Soon, we shall be inside ...Do you understand? Inside. How could I not cry?”

22 I watched darkness fade through the bluish skylights in the roof. I no longer was afraid. I was overcome by fatigue.

23 The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them—who knows what happened to them?—but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.

24 Around five o’clock in the morning, we were expelled from the barrack. The Kapos were beating us again, but I no longer felt the pain. A glacial wind was enveloping us. We were naked, holding our shoes and belts. An order:

25 “Run!” And we ran. After a few minutes of running, a new barrack.

26 A barrel of foul-smelling liquid stood by the door. Disinfection. Everybody soaked in it. Then came a hot shower. All very fast. As we left the showers, we were chased outside. And ordered to run some more. Another barrack: the storeroom. Very long tables. Mountains of prison garb. As we ran, they threw the clothes at us: pants, jackets, shirts ...

27 In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men. Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed. We looked pretty strange! Meir Katz, a colossus, wore a child’s pants, and Stern, a skinny little fellow, was floundering in a huge jacket. We immediately started to switch.

28 I glanced over at my father. How changed he looked! His eyes were veiled. I wanted to tell him something, but I didn’t know what.

29 The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded—and devoured—by a black flame.

30 So many events had taken place in just a few hours that I had completely lost all notion of time. When had we left our homes? And the ghetto? And the train? Only a week ago? One night? One single night?

31How long had we been standing in the freezing wind? One hour? A single hour? Sixty minutes? Surely it was a dream.