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- It is not always the events we have been directly involved in that affect us the most. (vii)
- Have we ever thought about the consequence of a horror that, though less apparent, less striking than the other outrages, is yet the worst of all to those of us who have faith: the death of God in the soul of a child who suddenly discovers absolute evil? (ix)
- But on this day he did not kneel. The human creature, outraged and humiliated beyond all that heart and spirit can conceive of, defied a divinity who was blind and deaf. (x)
- My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental man. There was never any display of emotion, even at home. He was more concerned with others than with his own family. The Jewish community in Sighet held him in the greatest esteem. They often used to consult him about public matters and even about private ones. (2)
- (Moshe the Beadle) explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. (-) "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God & God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death." (2-3)
- "There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate but our own. To do this is dangerous for the one who enters and also for those who are already there." (3)
- ...into eternity, into that time where question and answer would become _one. (3)
- Without passion, without haste, (the Gestapo) slaughtered their prisoners. (4)
- People refused not only to believe his stories, but even to listen to them. (4)
- "They take me for a madman," he would whisper, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes. (5)
- From that moment, everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun. (8)
- "The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it..." (-) (Poor Father! Of what then did you die?) (9)
- On the Saturday before Pentecost, in the spring sunshine, people strolled, carefree and unheeding, through the swarming streets. They chatted happily. The children played games on the pavement. With some of my schoolmates, I sat in the Ezra Malik gardens, studying a treatise on the Talmud. (10)
- We were prepared to wait for some hours. The backyard became like the hall outside an operating room. (10)
- The shadows beside me awoke as from a long sleep. They fled, silently, in all directions. (12)
- ...the head of the household, an old man with a gray beard and the eyes of a dreamer. He was stooped from long nights of study. (12)
- To the very last moment, a germ of hope stayed alive in our hearts. (13)
- Our backyard had become a real marketplace. Household treasures, valuable carpets, silver candelabra, prayer books, Bibles, and other religious articles littered the dusty ground beneath a wonderfully blue sky; pathetic objects which looked as though they had never belonged to anyone. (13)
- By eight o'clock in the morning, a weariness like molten lead began to settle in the veins, the limbs, the brain. (13)
- ...all those I had lived with over the years. They went by, fallen, dragging their packs, dragging their lives, deserting their homes, the years of their childhood, cringing like beaten dogs. (15)
- All those things that people had thought of taking with them, and which in the end they had left behind. They had lost all value. Everywhere rooms lay open. Doors and windows gaped onto the emptiness. Everything was free for anyone, belonging to nobody. It was simply a matter of helping oneself. An open tomb. A hot summer sun. (15)
- Monday passed like a small summer cloud, like a dream in the first daylight hours. (16)
- There was the same infernal heat. The same thirst. (16)
- It was from that moment that I began to hate them, and my hate is still the only link between us today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death. (17)
- We were ordered to run. We advanced in double time. Who would have thought we were so strong? (17)
- Night. No one prayed, so that the night would pass quickly. The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes. (18)
- These optimistic speeches, which no one believed, helped to pas the time. ...People were better disposed toward one another. There were no longer any questions of wealth, of social distinction, and importance, only people all condemned to the same fate--still unknown. (19)
- The lucky ones who happened to be near a window could see the blossoming countryside roll by. (21)
- I knew her well. A quiet woman with tense, burning eyes... (22)
- Standing in the middle of the wagon, in the pale light from the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a cornfield. (22)
- We could hear the wheels churning out that monotonous rhythm of a train traveling through the night. We could begin to doze, to rest, to dream... (23)
- In front of us flames. In the air that smell of burning flesh. It must have been about midnight. We had arrived -- at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz. (26)
- The cherished objects we had brought with us thus far were left behind in the train, and with them, at last, our illusions. (27)
- "Men to the left! Women to the right!" (-) Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. (28)
- I saw them disappear into the distance; my mother was stroking my sister's fair hair, as though to protect her, while I walked on with my father and the other men. And I did not know in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. I want on walking. (27)
- "You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head. That's the teaching of our sages..." (29)
- His voice was terribly sad. I realized that he did not want to see what they were going to do to me. He did not want to see the burning of his only son. (30)
- For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (31)
- Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. (32)
- In the roof were some blue-tinged skylights. The antechamber of Hell must look like this. (32)
- For us, this was the true equality: nakedness. Shivering with the cold. (32)
- (Bela Katz--son of a big tradesman from our town--had arrived at Birkenau with the first transport, a week before us. When he heard of our arrival, he managed to get word to us that, having been chosen for his strength, he had himself put his father's body into the crematory oven.) (33)
- Through the blue-tinged skylights I could see the darkness gradually fading. I had ceased to feel fear. And then I was overcome by an inhuman weariness. (33)
- We were incapable of thinking anything at all. Our senses were blunted; everything was blurred as if in a fog. It was no longer possible to grasp anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one ultimate moment of lucidity it seemed to me that we were damned souls wandering in the half-world, souls condemned to wander through space till the generations of man came to an end, seeking their redemption, seeking oblivion--without hope of finding it. (33-34)
- Within a few seconds, we had ceased to be men. (34)
- I glanced at my father. How he had changed! His eyes had grown dim. I would have liked to speak to him, but I did not know what to say. (-) The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it. (-) So much had happened within such few hours that I had lost all sense of time. When had we left our houses? And the ghetto? And the train? Was it only a week? One night -- one single night? (34)
- We were so many dried-up trees in the heart of a desert. (35)
- It was no use opposing this: blows rained down and in the final reckoning you had lost your shoes anyway. (35)
- His face has stayed in my memory to this day. A tall man, about thirty, with crime inscribed upon his brow and in the pupils of his eyes. He looked us over as if we were a pack of leprous dogs hanging onto our lives. (36)
- But his clipped words made us tremble. Here the word "furnace" was not a word empty of meaning: it floated on the air, mingling with the smoke. It was perhaps the only word which did have any real meaning here. (36)
- My feet were running without my being aware of it. I tried to hide from the blows behind the others. The spring sunshine. (37)
- "Comrades, you're in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer--or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive." (38-39)
- I became A-7713. After that I had no other name. (39)
- He was always elsewhere, lost in his thoughts. (40)
- "God is testing us. He wants to find out whether we can dominate our base instincts and kill the Satan within us. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us relentlessly, it's a sign that He loves us all the more." (42)
- The head of our tent was a German. An assassin's face, fleshy lips, hands like a wolf's paws. He was so fat he could hardly move. Like the leader of the camp, he loved children. (...) (Actually, this was not disinterested affection: there was a considerable traffic in children among homosexuals here, I learned later.) (45-46)
- One of his assistants -- a hard-faced boy, with hooligan's eyes... (46)
- A young man with an extraordinarily aged face. (49)
- ...for the young ones, the weak, all those who were dreaming more about an extra plateful than of liberty. (49)
- I now took little interest in anything except my daily plate of soup and my crust of stale bread. Bread, soup -- these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time. (50)
- It was as though we had been taking part together in some game where we each had our own role to play. (50)
- ...(he) crouched under the blows, then he broke in two, like a dry tree struck by lightning, and collapsed. (52)
- This sympathetic, intelligent youth was suddenly no longer the same person. His eyes gleamed with desire. (52)
- His voice was calm and reached me as through a thick wall. (55)
- Terror was stronger than hunger. (56)
- Jealousy consumed us, burned us up like straw. (57)
- But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life. (57)
- ...had to march past the hanged man and stare at the dimmed eyes, the lolling tongue of death. (60)
- I witnessed other hangings. I never saw a single one of the victims weep. (60)
- He had the face of a sad angel. (60)
- The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive... (-) For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. (-) Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" (-) And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is -- He is hanging here on this gallows..." That night the soup tasted of corpses. (62))
- Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days? Because in His great might He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death? How could I say to Him: "Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory? Praised by Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine alter?" (64)
- ...(his) voice... powerful yet at the same time broken... (64)
- This day I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God, the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone -- terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied to for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger. (65)
- But others said that we should fast simply because it was dangerous to do so. We should show God that even here, in this enclosed hell, we were capable of singing His praises. (66)
- In the depths of my heart, I felt a great void. (66)
- Yossi was murmuring something between his teeth. He must have been praying. I had never realized that Yossi was a believer. I had even always thought the reverse. He was silent, very pale. All the prisoners in the block stood naked between the beds. This must be how one stands at the last judgment. (68)
- Those whose numbers had been noted stood apart, abandoned by the whole world. Some were weeping in silence. (69)
- Were there still miracles on this earth? (72)
- ...that he could no longer keep up the struggle, that he had no strength left, nor faith. Suddenly his eyes would become blank, nothing but two open wounds, two pits of terror. (72)
- ...a rabbi from a little town in Poland, a bent old man, whose lips were always trembling. (72)
- But as soon as he felt the first cracks forming in his faith, he had lost his reason for struggling and had begun to die. (73)
- His glazed, faded eyes looked at me. At last he said in a weary voice: "I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people." (77)
- My wound was open and bleeding; the snow had gone red where I had trodden. (78)
- In the morning, the face of the camp had changed. Prisoners appeared in strange outfits: it was like a masquerade. Everyone had put on several garments, one on top of the other, in order to keep out the cold. Poor mountebanks, wider than they were tall, more dead than alive; poor clowns, their ghostlike faces emerging from piles of prison clothes! Buffoons! (79)
- The time was passing quickly now. Dusk had fallen. The day was disappearing in a monochrome of gray. (79)
- The gates of the camp opened. It seemed that an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side. (80)
- The blood flowed more easily in our veins. One felt oneself reviving... (81)
- I was putting one foot in front of other mechanically. I was dragging with me this skeletal body which weighed so much. If only I could have got rid of it! In spite of my efforts not to think about it. I could feel myself as two entities--my body and me. I hated it. (81)
- They had laughed at him because he was always praying or meditating on some problem of the Talmud. It as his way of escaping from reality, of not feeling the blows... (81-82)
- ...he let himself sink down. (-) This is the last picture I have of him. I do not think it can have been the SS who finished him, because no one had noticed. He must have been trampled to death beneath the feet of the thousands of men who followed us. I quickly forgot him. I began to think of myself again. (8)
- Death wrapped itself around me till I was stifled. It stuck to me. I felt that I could touch it. The idea of dying, of no longer being, began to fascinate me. Not to exist any longer. Not to feel the horrible pains in my foot. Not to feel anything, neither weariness, nor cold, nor anything. To break the ranks, to let oneself slide to the edge of the road... (82)
- These thoughts had taken up a brief space of time; during which I had gone on running without feeling my throbbing foot, without realizing that I was running, without being conscious that I owned a body galloping there on the road in the midst of so many thousands of others. (82)
- All I had to do was close my eyes for a second to see a whole world passing by, to dream a whole lifetime. (83)
- An endless road. Letting oneself be pushed by the mob; letting oneself be dragged along by a blind destiny. (33)
- We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth. (83)
- There too the snow was thick. I let myself sink down. it was only there that I really felt my weariness. The snow was like a carpet, very gentle, very warm. I fell asleep. (84)
- How old he had grown since the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed. Everything about him bore witness to extreme exhaustion. His voice was damp with tears and snow: "Don't let yourself be overcome." (84)
- Around me everything was dancing a dance of death. It made my head reel. I was walking in a cemetery, among stiffened corpses, logs of wood. Not a cry of distress, not a groan, nothing but a mass agony, in silence. No one asked anyone else for help. You died because you had to die. There was no fuss. In every stiffened corpse I saw myself. (85)
- God knows what I would not have given for a few moments of sleep. But, deep down, I felt that to sleep would mean to die. And something within me revolted against this death. All round me death was moving in, silently, without violence. It would seize upon some sleeping being, enter into him, and consume him bit by bit. (85)
- ...a bewildered, stupefied--a bereaved stare. He stared all around him in a circle as though he had suddenly decided to draw up an inventory of his universe, to find out exactly where he was, in what place, and why. Then he smiled. (-) I shall always remember that smile. From which world did it come? (-) The snow continued to fall in thick flakes over the corpses. (85-86)
- Despite the trials and privations, his face still shone with his inner purity. (86)
- And, in spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed. (87)
- The march began again. The dead stayed in the yard under the snow, like faithful guards assassinated, without burial. No one had said the prayer for the dead over them. Sons abandoned their fathers' remains without a tear. (87)
- My wounded foot no longer hurt me. It must have been completely frozen. The foot was lost to me. It had detached itself from my body like the wheel of a car. (87)
- At every step someone fell and suffered no more. (88)
- We pushed and jostled one another is if this were the supreme refuge, the gateway to life. We walked over pain-racked bodies. We trod on faces. No cries. A few groans. My father and I were ourselves thrown to the ground by this rolling tide. Beneath our feet someone let out a rattling cry: "You're crushing me... mercy!" (88)
- Was it a dead man I was struggling against? Who knows? (-) I shall never know. All I can say is that I won. I succeeded in digging a hole through this wall of dying people, a little hole through which I could drink in a small quantity of air. (90)
- I was thinking of this when I heard the sound of a violin. The sound of a violin, in the dark shed, where the dead were heaped on the living. What madman could be playing the violin here, at the brink of his own grave? Or was it really an hallucination? (-) It must have been Juliek. (-) He played a fragment from Beethoven's concerto. I had never heard sounds so pure. In such a silence. (...) It was pitch dark. I could only hear the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as her would never play again. (-) I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert, given to an audience of dying and dead men! To this day, whenever I hear Beethoven played my eyes close and out of the dark rises the sad, pale face of my Polish friend, as he said farewell on his violin to an audience of dying men. (-) I do not know how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse. (90-91)
- Our eyes grew weary of scouring the horizon for the liberating train. (92)
- __...head empty and heavy at the same time, brain in a whirlpool of decaying memories. Indifference deadened the spirit. Here or elsewhere--what difference did it make? To die today or tomorrow, or later? The night was long and never ending. (93)
- The days were like nights, and the nights left the dregs of their darkness in our souls. (...) It never ceased snowing. All through these days and nights we stayed crouching, one on top of the other, never speaking a word. We were no more than frozen bodies. Our eyes closed, we waited merely for the next stop, so that we could unload our dead. (94-95)
- Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, tearing at each other, biting each other. Wild beasts of prey, with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails. (95)
- The audience stared at these skeletons of men, fighting one another to death for a mouthful. (95)
- Hundreds of cries rose up simultaneously. Not knowing against whom we cried. Not knowing why. The death rattle of a whole convoy who felt the end upon them. We were all going to die here. All limits had been passed. (97-98)
- I felt that I was arguing not with him, but with death itself, with the death that he had already chosen. (100)
- He grew weaker day by day, his gaze veiled, his face the color of dead leaves. (102)
- Oh, to strangle the doctor and the others! To burn the whole world! (...) But the cry stayed in my throat. (103)
- There were no candles at his grave. No candles were lit to his memory. His last word was my name. A summons, to which I did not respond. (-) I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like--free at last! (106)
- From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. (-) The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me. (109)
jul 11 2020 ∞
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