Through Someone’s Eyes

I woke up to the sounds of my parents rushing about. I looked out my bedroom window into the street and saw the soldiers pushing families into the street, then in trains. Our neighbor, Mr. Johansson is shot in the back of the head by one of the soldiers. My mother tells me to quickly put on my warm coat; the one with the 6-pointed star of my religion sewed on and quickly get into the space beneath the floorboards with my older sister, Juliana. The bed and rug are replaced over the trapdoor just in time, I hear the soldiers yelling something in German and break down the door. I hear a commotion and then people leaving, my older sister and I stay quiet in hope that the soldiers won’t come back.

I remember the past, things were not always this way: living in what is called the Polish Ghetto. I came from an upper middle class family in Poland. We had heard about a man named Adolph Hitler. He was voted into office of his country, Germany. We were told he used to be from Austria. He went to Germany to study art, and ended up joining a political party called the German Labor Union, later called the Nazis. He rose to the top of his party and ran for rulership of the country against the Communist Party. He spoke of may hateful things against the allies that brought Germany defeat, and about how us Jews were the cause of all the troubles. He is said to believe in a religion that claims a people called Aryans were gods, and ugly giants coupled with them and destroyed paradise, he claimed we were these giants. People rallied against us, and that with the torching of the Communist Party’s headquarters, some say by the Nazis, he won the rulership. He started to take our people out of our homes and put them in ghettos, rich, poor, old and young. We have stayed here, packed in buildings, no heat save our own for months.

I believe I had fallen asleep, for when I wake, my sister is out of the hiding place and talking to a new family. They have restocked our neighborhood and the new family would be willing to let us stay with them, to preserve our family. When she questioned about our parents though, the aged woman said they were taken on the trains. Put into cattle cars and locked in with no food, water, or facilities. No one knows where they are taken.

We lived with the family for a while. My sister showing favor to their son and I playing with new friends, as my old ones had been “relocated”. We knew what was going on, but there was nothing we could do, so we played and made the most of the time we had. One night, the lights, the noise, the soldiers returned. My sister and I open up the hiding spot, but we can not fit anymore, we have both grown and only one can fit. My sister could have told me to run, I would do it, I trust her more than anyone else in the world. But, she tells me to hide in there, and she went next door to hide with some other people. There was a crashing sound once again, and the commotion. I waited, scared, but this time I did not fall asleep. When I see day through the cracks in the floorboards, I climb out. New families are moving in. I rush next door to see my sister, but there is no one. I ask others where she is, they close their eyes and shake their heads, and I know she had been found. I live with another family, but when it comes time to play, I do not. I hate the soldiers, I hate this place, I hate Poland, I hate Hitler for what he has done to me, I dream of fighting back, freeing the ghettos, the concentration camps and finding my sister, my family, alive and well. But these are only dreams, and the army is too great, how can me, a little boy, take on the German Army? I have an idea.

I talked to many, only a few were willing to fight the holy cause. We know that if we stay quiet, we could avoid the relocation, and get others into hiding as well. We could perhaps save people from going on the trains, and fight as what one person said, a guerilla war. We start to plan a mode of attack. We find places to hide and avoid troops. We place small children in the German armies group of child spies to allow us to move more easily, for they will not report us as the monsters have convinced other children to.

It has been 2 years, we have lost many of our spies to the camps, and many of our operatives have been found and killed or sent to the camps. I walk down the street towards our new headquarters; I see a squadron of troops coming toward me. I grow pale as I see that they are walking away from a pile of dead bodies, my fellow members of the underground. The troop leader looks at me and at a paper, I can guess what is on it, I run. They try to follow me, but I am quick. After I manage to lose them, I slip into the nearest house and sleep.

I wake up to familiar sounds, except there is no place to hide this time. The troops open the door and pick me up, I am lucky they haven’t seen my picture or drawing. They lead me into the street towards the trains, but I do not care. I am the last of my family, the resistance is gone, what do I care what happens to me now? I am put on the train and in an hour, we are sent off. The train is dark, hot, and stinks of decay, feces, and death. We are sprayed down every stop; it helps the heat and thirst little. Those who die are not removed, the doors are never unlocked. I don’t know what day it is, only that it is night. There are dead at our feet, there is no where to put them. The smell is unbearable.

I do not know how long it has been. We are unloaded and put into lines. All are processed, the sick, old, and young are put into one line, the healthy ones like me into another. I envy those in the other line; their pain will be brief. I am stripped of my clothes, my hair shaven, and my clothes are gassed to rid them of disease and infestation, the Germans call the gas Zyklon-B. I look at the entrance, there are words inscribed there: “Arbiet Macht Frei”, which means, “Labor make you free”. I doubt that the Germans are planning to keep that promise.

It has been a time since I arrived. I do not say how much, I have lost track of it. The ovens have been going all day long, with smoke billowing out. They have started to put people into mass graves as well. Himmler, the person who ordered the camp built here, wants another one 4km from here, in a village called Birkenau. There are not just us Jews here, there are political prisoners and other people in here as well. During exercise, I saw buildings that scientific studies are made at, headed by Karl Clauberg. I saw twins and dwarves going in there, to be examined like animals. Rumor is one dwarf was a professor at a university, they took him and killed him to study his skeleton. These people are monsters masquerading as men; they cannot be anything else.

I have wasted to almost nothing. We work until we drop. If we do not, we get nothing but the knowledge that tomorrow brings even more work. They do not care if we live or die; they will get others when we fail. There is news from the newcomers that Germany is not longer just accepting pale, blonde hair Germans, but anyone that wishes to fight for the Third Reich. The Furor attacked Russia, but now Russia is pushing back…What was that!?!? A shot from one of the commanders houses, the person who tells me of these things lies dead, that is the price for not working. I do care about dying, not because I love life, but because I will not let the Germans defeat me, even though they have their brand on me, this hideous tattoo on my arm, a serial number.

Another period of time has passed. They have been running the ovens day and night, in a hurry to get rid of us. My rags that I kept for modesty are too diseased to do any good, as is my body. I have not eaten much in weeks. What they give us, the stronger take, I am rarely among them. It is night now, I am asleep in my bunk, the person above me stinks, they have not removed his corpse yet. The door is thrown open, there are soldiers pulling us out of bed, it is our turn for death, it is our turn for the showers.

We are led to the ovens, it is hot here. I wonder whether or not I will see the blue light, or the eternal pit of darkness and agony after the flames has consumed me. I start to hallucinate, I see the many horrors that I remember from my past few years. I see images, spotlights, trapdoors, rocks and dead Nazis. I see trains, the camp’s walls, a wizened, bespectacled dwarf, said to be a professor as he is led into a building. Most of all, I see my sister, motioning to me to stay away from the flame. I can almost hear her say “Stay away, if you can keep away for a few moments, then you will not see your mortal flame die in the oven’s.”

I do as she says, even though I know it will not make a difference. I struggle against the soldier, to no avail. I am too weak and they are strong through…fear? Suddenly the door is opened and there are more soldiers. These say something to the ones operating the ovens, but what are a few more Nazis to watch me die? Then I notice something, one of the new soldiers has dark skin, he is black. But there are no black Nazis, then I look at a patch on his uniform. It is not the swastika in a white circle, on a field of red, but some odd red and white stripe combination, with a box of blue and white stars in the box. They look like they are very angry at the Nazis.

The Nazis are arrested and we are led to a building, where they clothe us, feed us, give us water and medical attention. When we have been attended to, we are sent to hospitals. The villagers had no idea that this was happening. I am told in other camps, soldiers forced villagers to walk through the camps to see what the Nazis did to us. I am not angry with them though. Like others, they only knew what they were told. That does not make them innocent, for ignorance is the ultimate crime, but I do not wish them to share the fate delivered to others.

It has been over 50 years since the death of Adolph Hitler and the end of World War 2. I am told that Hitler took a cyanide capsule during the siege of Berlin, the coward. America unleashed a great weapon on Japan, called an Atomic bomb that ended the war completely. I have heard of people, heroes that helped my people. Oscar Schindler is to name one of them. He sent Jews to work at a factory of his, one that made shells for the Nazis. His did not work, so he bought shells and resold them to keep the Nazis from knowing the truth, that he was saving Jews. Some war criminals have gone through the Nuremberg trials, people like Hermann Goring and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, or the soldiers, whose defense was “we were only following orders”. Others, like Josef Mengele had avoided the trials, just to live and die a hunted man.

I have slept most the way to Poland. Once there, I took a train, then car to the place that was once the ghetto I lived in. I closed my eyes and remembered. I could still, after decades, smell the smoke of the Nazi rifles, still see the troops as they evicted people from their homes and into the trains. I walked down the street and found the house I had lived in with my family. I greeted some small children at play, and remembered the games I played with my friends, and how when one was sent to the camps, we would just accept it and look for a replacement.

I wish there were records of my family’s fate, for closure. I know in my heart what became of them. I am sad, stricken with grief, but I had known for many years that I would never see her again. There is nothing left for me here, so I go to the station, and take a train back to London.

I arrived at London in the afternoon. I went home and rested my old body into the chair. The news was reporting on some difficulty with the busses, then switched to international news and talked of trade agreements. My telephone rings. I answered and heard a voice. “Are you Daniel Hasenfas?” “Yes” I replied. “I am a representative of an American organization. After the movie Shindler’s List, we started a collection of digital recording and archiving accounts of the survivors of the Holocaust. We would like to record your story, so that people may learn of this, and never forget what happened.”

I thought for many minutes in silence, do I want to do this? Relive the horror I had seen and experienced? Then I remember the children playing. I will not let history repeat itself. “Yes, I agree. What is the name of the company?” They reply “Shoah”

They came to my house 2 days later. My nurse opens up the door and led them to the dining table where I sat. They set up their video equipment and microphones. The interview started, and as I told them the events, I relived them. I felt the cold of the Ghetto, the heat of the ovens, the terror of dying, and the relief of living. After the interview, I was spent. I thanked them and they left.

I now lie on my bed. I know that I will not get up, I am dying. Doctors have tried to tell me I will pull through, but I know the truth, but I am not sad. I told my story; hopefully it will keep those of the future from making our mistakes. I feel death’s presence, he is very close, and it is not as people think. Many believe that it is an evil presence that comes to rip people out of existence, but I do not believe this. I am ready, I have lived first in some privilege, then in terror, then in happiness. I think of all those who committed the sins against my people, and I know what is destined for them. I see my mother, my father, and my sister. They are dressed in nice clothes and are beckoning me to them. I look at what was once a frail body, it is now youthful, and the way it was before the horrors it has experienced. I run to them. I do not know what is destined for me, but I am ready.

The End