From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Thu Dec 14 2006 - 16:18:01 EST
For me personally the hell of Auschwitz came to an end unexpectedly. In the first days of September I was included in a transport of Polish and Soviet prisoners being sent from Auschwitz to Ravensbruck, near Berlin. When they herded us into the wagons, we still kept thinking that they were going to transport us to Birkenau, to the gas chambers. But our train moved west and the glow from the crematoria disappeared from sight. We began to breathe fresh, unpoisoned air. And though we knew that death lies in wait for all prisoners in Hitler's camps, we were none the less as happy as children, because we had been snatched from the hell of Auschwitz. Why do I write about this? Why reopen old wounds? Let me just recall one small episode. It was in the camp, on Sunday, after lunch. A group of prisoners were lying on their bunks and talking about the end of the war, which they expected was approaching. A young Pole, Kazik, turned to an older prisoner, whom everyone called "the professor," and asked him: "Professor, what will happen to Auschwitz after the war?" "What do you think should happen? answered "the professor." "We'll go home." "Don't talk nonsense, professor," said Kazik. "No one here will get out alive." "That's true," said the professor. "But, still, the living should not abandon hope [words of the Polish poet Juliusz Stowacki]! And as for Auschwitz itself, the new Poland will build a great museum here and for years delegations from all of Europe will visit it. On every stone, on every path, they'll lay a wreath: because each inch of this earth is soaked with blood. And later, when the barracks collapse, when the roads are overgrown with grass and when they have forgotten about us, there will be new and even worse wars, and even worse bestialities. Because humanity stands before two possibilities: either it comes up with a better social order or it perishes in barbarism and cannibalism." http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n8_v39/ai_6319771/pg_3
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