A small city, located in a remote area of Poland, stands isolated from the outside world. A constant drizzle soaks the gray, swampy countryside, and a thick, slimy mud buries the roads. There are no signs of settlement except for the occasional peasants working their horse-drawn wagons in the dismal fields. An aura of loneliness penetrates the dank air, lending to the feeling of sadness that overcomes both citizen and visitor alike. One immediately knows that something has happened here, an event so tragic and inhumane that even time cannot erase its memory from the survivors.

In the horizon looms a tower, a tower that stands in the heart of this city the Poles call Oswiecim and the Germans call, or used to call, Auschwitz. Next to the tower that once held SS guards is an arch jutting into the gray sky over the main gate. Emblazoned in the wrought iron arch is retained perhaps the best known "gate motto" in history (except for Dante's "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" on the entrance to Hell), the German inscription that reads, "Arbeit Macht Frei," or "Work Brings Freedom." A rusted railroad track creeps through the immense gate, leading the eye inside. Barbed wire still stands, surrounding the old labor camp, enclosing the remains of massive buildings, whose chimneys still reach for heaven. Low huts, once housing millions of victims, blanket the marshy ground. The crimes committed here fifty years ago seem not so far away at the entrance to Auschwitz, where if one concentrates, echoes from long ago can be heard.

"Momma, Mrs. Matzik is crushing me," whispered six year old Hannah. Looking over into the embarrassed eyes of her neighbor, Celi could only return the contrite look coupled with a pained smile, knowing that there was nothing to say. Her four year old son Joseph was already crouched underneath Celi on the floor, so she gathered Hannah in her arms, unsure of how long she would be able to hold her.

"Don't you worry; we won't be in here much longer," comforted Mrs. Matzik. Turning her back in a futile effort to make more room for her beloved neighbors, Mrs. Matzik shifted to one side, her face now smugly nestled in her own daughter's back. She had to look down to breathe.

Celi had lost track of time long ago; the hours had already stretched into days with no movement, save for twisting and turning, inside the small space in which they were enclosed. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on holding Hannah. When was the last time she saw Jerome? It seemed like months. It's funny, she thought, the person I feel most sympathy for is my husband. I have the children and they have me. Who does Jerome know? More importantly, where is he?

She glanced around at her pitiful surroundings. It seemed that there were at least a hundred women and children around her; she did not know for sure because they were impossible to count. There was one water pail at the far end of the boxcar, which when it was full, which was almost never, contained red, rusty water. There was also another pail used as a makeshift toilet, but that was abandoned long ago for the floor.

Joseph woke up and began to cry at the stiffness in his little joints and the lack of food and water. "Ticho, milaeek," Celi whispered as she lowered Hannah. "Hush, sweetheart," Celi lamented, "Mamma's here." Hannah and Joseph traded places. Joseph's lighter weight was a relief, but Celi's arms felt as if she had been with the plow all day. He lay his snowy head on her shoulder, as Celi began humming to him. "Prosim," Celi whispered to herself. "Please, God, let this be a nightmare only."

A train screamed through the air, its whistle alerting the SS men that another transport had arrived. "I think we are here," announced a faceless voice. Herded out of small, cramped boxcars like cattle arriving for butchering were 3,860 Czech Jews. Celi woke Hannah and Joseph, as the other mothers also prodded their children into unforgiving consciousness.

"Stay with me, right by me," warned Celi. "Don't let your brother out of your sight, Hannah." Celi took Mrs. Matzik's hand. Again, a warm look and faint smile communicated everything. Then they were lead down a thin, shaky plank into a deceptively crisp, sunny day. They had no idea what was in store, but when they stepped out into the air, the stench invaded their noses. Terror struck the hearts of many.

"Oh, my God," whispered Celi. She furtively stole a glance in the direction of Mrs. Matzik, who was staring at Celi, her face covered in unbelieving shock. It was not an odor that many should have recognized, but the smell of burning flesh and decomposing bodies was especially undeniable to Celi and Mrs. Matzik, who had met each other five years earlier when Celi began working as a nurse under Mrs. Matzik's supervision at the hospital in Prague, where the horror of the War had already begun to show its ugly face, where Celi saw terrors no one should ever see, let alone a nineteen-year-old pregnant newlywed. She tightened her grip on her children, unwilling to believe what she knew in her heart to be true and alarmed at the prospect of having to explain it to Hannah and Joseph.

Her thoughts again drifted to Jerome as several thousand people milled about with blank looks on their faces while grotesque looking men dressed in tailored striped shirts and pants idled, waiting for the boxcars to empty. She considered calling out for him, but thought better of it when she became aware of the din surrounding her. She settled on focusing the concentration she had left, after making sure her children were with her, on looking: looking for Jerome's beautiful black curls, his usually neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, the strong, poignant, lighthearted man she loved.

She could see what was happening to others who had already been abandoned by trains that had come and gone. Quickly, those Jews were ordered to form two lines on the ramp - men to the left, women and children to the right. From the beginning, families were torn apart. From there, two more lines formed on the selection platform - people to be gassed on the left and workers, now slaves, on the right. Mrs. Matzik leaned in close to Celi's ear so the children could not hear. "Hle!" "Look!" She was pointing to a scene unfolding not more than fifteen yards from them. Celi allowed her eyes to take in the disgusting scene before her. "Krista." "Christ." She had no other words.

"No! She is too old and frail to work! She goes to the left!" bellowed a young SS guard, not more than nineteen or twenty, pulling an old babiska away from her weeping daughter and grandchildren.

Joseph, by now oblivious to what was going on because he could not see, looked up at Celi, his face tired and pained. "Chci domu, Maminka." "I want to go home, Mamma." Celi let a tear slide down her cheek, salting the corner of her lips. She quickly wiped it away and squatted to face Joseph, her hand caressing his baby-soft face. "Guess what I have for you Jey," Celi's affectionate name for her beloved boy - "You have to find it, though!"

After just ten seconds of deliberation, Joseph reached into the left-hand pocket of his mother's heavy wool coat and slowly drew out a solitary piece of bubble gum, careful not to disturb anything, lest the gum drop and be lost forever.

"Share it with your sister, Joseph." However, before his mother's admonishment concluded, Joseph had already bitten off more than half of the gum for his big sister, who was unaware of what was going on immediately around her, for Hannah was engrossed in the babbling of the strangers around her. This act did not pass unnoticed from Celi's eye; she immediately felt worse, if that was possible, for undermining her very mindful four-year-old son.

Then, knocked into reality, Celi watched the striped suits piling the luggage and belongings left behind by the train. Since they were not the first to arrive, they could immediately see where their possessions were going: piles, piles ten feet high, one consisting of glasses, one of shoes, one of books that none of their captors would ever, or probably could, read. After minutes of whispered questioning, a buzz passed through the crowd; Celi learned they were in Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, the largest killing center of the Auschwitz concentration camps. These Czech Jews would be safe for now, soothed into compliance by false promises that their families would stay together.

Within a mere half hour, the four lines had crossed the railroad tracks and entered the camp. The elderly, the sick, even some children were told they would take showers to delouse and disinfect them. These poor ladies were given scissors, dispersed to about every one in five, and told to cut their hair to the quick.

"No! I won't do it!" protested a young blonde woman, who, not two seconds later, was dragged to the ground by three older ladies.

"You will do what they want! I will live, even if you have to die, so I would think twice about your uncomfortable situation!"

The howls of the ladies who, until now, took their silky tresses for granted, were heard by every single person on the platform. Suddenly, epiphanies rained down like the first day of the end of a drought. This bought time and in some instances, pity, from the young, thus far, cruelty illiterate SS guards.

They were given bars of soap, Celi noticed, and shown the towels they would use to dry off with once they got out of their embarrassing predicament. Once inside the massive building, they stripped and were herded into the shower rooms. Only minutes later, in much less time than it would have taken them to shower in their homes, prison workers opened the barred doors and removed the dead bodies from the underground gas chambers and took them to the nearby ovens in two large buildings from which flame and ash gushed from smokestacks, the same ones they saw on their arrival less than an hour ago - Krematoria I and II.

Meanwhile, the line assigned to work actually did get deloused in saunas. This was a word camp authorities preferred to the "showers." It belied false comfort and cleanliness. Then they gave up their clothes and possessions for stripes or coarse gray smocks. And whether men or women, their hair was cut to the scalp or shaved. They were led to bunkers originally designed as stables for fifty-two horses, but now housing 30,000 people.

The Czech Jews were lead to a separate acre of the camp, waiting for the announcement that their train would soon be there to pick them up. "Maminka, neco mi schazi." "Mamma, I don't feel well,? murmured Joseph.

Celi could only watch as Hannah took her brother's hand and whispered into his ear. Soon, Joseph was quiet again, and Celi could only wonder what exactly had happened to her family since the last time she saw Jerome.

Just as she was doing everything in her power to be strong for her two young children, it now seemed as though they were trying to take care of her, as if somehow instinctively noticing that their young mother was as helpless as they were.

Soon, they were herded into their cramped quarters. Hannah and Joseph were with her, which she immediately realized was unusual since she had plenty of time to learn about the Kindergarten Camp, where only the children were kept. Why were all the Czechs being kept together?

After three nearly excruciating days, ten SS officers came into the camp, assembled all there, and made an announcement. Not the oldest and most decorated, but the youngest and most inexperienced, whom Celi recognized as one she saw earlier with the ladies getting their hair cut, was the one who spoke.

"Everyone will write postcards to family members in Czechoslovakia. You will date the postcards March 25, 26, or 27. You will tell them that you are doing fine and ask them to send food parcels."

Celi was stunned, as was Mrs. Matzik.

"Mam strach," mouthed Celi.

"I am scared, too," Mrs. Matzik conceded, who just learned news about Jerome and counted the minutes until she got the chance to speak to Celi in private.

After the announcement, they were each given a postcard and writing utensils were parceled out, five for each block of fifty, so not much was written at the same time.

Celi, Hannah, Joseph, Mrs. Matzik, and her daughter sat together, thinking of what to say. "I do not suppose that we could put some sort of warning into the note," Celi wondered outloud.

"Ne," Mrs. Matzik hinted in a hushed tone. "You know they have people meticulously scrutinizing these before they send them out.

"Just write what they instructed and we'll get out soon. Remember, there is a train coming for us soon."

Celi did what was instructed, writing a note to her parents, but also instructing them to get word to Jerome's parents, feeling quite out of sorts having just lied to all of them, especially considering she had not yet heard from her husband.

Later that day, when the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky was shades of royal blue, burnt orange, and rose, Mrs. Matzik turned left on her side toward Celi and whispered, "Celi."

Celi slowly lifted Joseph's arm from around her neck, placed it over her stomach, and shifted to the right. "What is it?" she softly asked.

"Celi," Mrs. Matzik replied, "I have news about Jerome."

Celi paused. Images swirled about in her head. She had not seen or heard from her husband in close to a month. "What is it?"

"Celi," Mrs. Matzik voiced, "Je po nem," "He is dead."

Not knowing what to do or how to respond, Celi stared at her neighbor for a few seconds and the averted her gaze to the straw-thatched ceiling. Tears silently crept down her temples, moistening the soft auburn hair around her ears. The only noise Mrs. Matzik heard was a ragged, but soft, inhaling after each expulsion of grief. She reached out in the slowly darkening room and gently placed a comforting hand on Celi's cheek, wiping away the wetness of anguish. Her children would never know this grief, she thought. Never.

Early in the morning, Celi guessed it must have been four or five, for she had not slept all night but instead watched her children gently slumber, two SS guards barged into their cramped quarters, kicking their pallets and shouting for them to get up. Frightened ladies and children hustled to carry out the order quickly, for more shouting was unwelcome, but groggy minds had to struggle to comprehend, and therefore the loud male voices were intermittently replaced with sharp whacks and slaps.

Inside the crematoria, workers loaded naked corpses onto steel conveyor belts that rolled them into the furnaces. Sometimes a familiar face was spotted, maybe one of a friend or even a family member. Then the workers would pass on to survivors the bad news in exchange for a cigarette or a piece of cheese. When the ovens were not working to full capacity, bulldozers opened huge holes outside the fences of the camp and the bodies were burned there. Later, dirt covered the holes and mass graves were formed, making the flat land hilly. Except for an occasional inspection by higher authorities, this routine went on every day for six years straight.

Celi, Hannah, Joseph, Mrs. Matzik, her daughter, and the other Czech Jews were led outside, the early morning chill and dampness permeating the air, and soon, their bones. They gathered quietly, only whispers sounding throughout the large group. They silently waited for an announcement. Eyes darted everywhere, body language hoping to be read by someone, anyone, family or not; but they were all family now.

"You are to be resettled at nearby Heydebreck," declared yet another nameless, and by now faceless SS guard. By now, word had circulated around the camp that Heydebreck was just another labor camp, and earlier promises of safe relocation were quickly becoming the images these people had been surrounded with at Auschwitz.

A mere four days after they were brought here, they were being taken to their own personal death camp, not given any time to settle in for the long road they thought awaited them.

Once there, it did not take long for Celi to realize that their "special treatment" was indeed gassing. They were not the first there, so she watched, just as she had done at their first arrival.

She was led, along with Joseph, Hannah, Mrs. Matzik, and her daughter, into the "saunas" she had heard about. There was no disguising their fear. They knew from experience what these lines meant. But, ironically, they felt a certain peace, as if they had accepted what was going to happen and decided to leave it to a higher power. Certainly none of them wanted to die, but the chances just were not there. The SS guards not only outnumbered them in totality, but also in strength. The entire group, thousands, began at once singing the Czech national anthem, "Kde domov muj," "Where is my home?" They stood huddled together, Joseph again in her arms, his little hands wrapped tightly around her neck, and Hannah with her arms around Celi's legs, her face nestled in Celi's hip. Mrs. Matzik stood with one arm around Celi and one arm around her daughter, gently rubbing their arms in an effort to not only calm them, but also herself. No one said anything.

Out of the 3,860 humans brought to this place worse than Hell, thirty-seven were spared, including eleven pairs of twins to be used in inhuman experiments conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele.

Today, Birkenau is an official Polish museum. Surrounding the abandoned camp are billboards with pictures or the horror of WWII Auschwitz. But the main road leading from the main camp (Auschwitz I) to Birkenau (Auschwitz II) is still not paved. The countryside remains bleak and lonely, and swamp water still invades the camp in spring and fall. The main guard tower still stands, the barbed wire surrounding the grid of huts. Chimneys stand among the rubble of buildings dynamited by Russian liberators. Outside idles a gaudy French tour bus, filled with wide-eyed tourists snapping pictures. Fifty years later, Auschwitz is still alive.

� karrie orsak