Step 6: Liberation
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Viktor FranklWith tired steps we prisoners dragged ourselves to the camp gates. Timidly we looked around and glanced at each other questioningly. Then we ventured a few steps out of camp. This time no orders were shouted at us, nor was there any need to duck quickly to avoid a blow or kick. Oh no! This time the guards offered us cigarettes! We hardly recognized them at first; they had hurriedly changed into civilian clothes. We walked slowly along the road leading from the camp. Soon our legs hurt and threatened to buckle. But we limped on; we wanted to see the camp’s surroundings for the first time with the eyes of free men. “Freedom”-- we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. We could not grasp the reality of no longer being a prisoner. |
We came to meadows full of flowers. We saw and realized that they were there, but we had no feelings about them. The first spark of joy came when we saw a rooster with a tail of multicolored feathers. But it remained only a spark; we did not yet belong to this world. In the evening when we all met again in our hut, one said secretly to the other, “Tell me, were you pleased today?” And the other replied, feeling ashamed as he did not know that we all felt similarly, “Truthfully no!” We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly. For every one of the liberated prisoners, the day comes when, looking back on his camp experiences, he can no longer understand how he endured it all. As the day of his liberation eventually came, when everything seemed to him like a beautiful dream, so also the day comes when all his camp experiences seem to him nothing but a nightmare. |
Elie WieselIn the warehouse (forced labor camp), I often worked next to a young French woman. We did not speak: she did not know German and I did not understand French. I thought she looked Jewish, though she passed for “Aryan.” She was a forced labor inmate. One day when Idek (German guard) was venting his fury, I happened to cross his path. He threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in blood. As I bit my lips in order not to howl with pain, he must have mistaken my silence for defiance and so he continued to hit me harder and harder. Shortly after, he sent me back to work as if nothing had happened. I dragged myself to my corner. I was aching all over. I felt a cool hand wiping the blood from my forehead. It was the french girl. She was smiling her mournful smile as she slipped me a crust of bread. She looked straight into my eyes. I knew she wanted to talk to me but that she was paralyzed with fear. She remained like that for some time, and then her face lit up and she said, in almost perfect German: “Bite your lips, little brother… Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now… Wait. Clench your teeth and wait…” |
Many years later, in Paris, I sat in the Metro, reading my newspaper. Across the aisle, a beautiful woman with dark hair and dreamy eyes. I had seen those eyes before. “Madame, don’t you recognize me?” “I don’t know you, sir.” “In 1944, you were in Poland, in Buna, weren’t you?” “Yes, but…” “You worked in a depot, a warehouse for electrical parts…” “Yes,” she said, looking troubled. And then, after a moment of silence: “Wait… I do remember…” “Idek, the Kap… the young Jewish boy… your sweet words…” We left the metro together and sat down at a cafe terrace. We spent the whole evening reminiscing. Before parting, I said, “May I ask one more question?” “I know what it is: Am I Jewish…? Yes, I am. From an observant family. During the Occupation, I had false papers and passed as Aryan. And that was how I was assigned to a forced labor unit. When they deported me to Germany, I avoided being sent to a concentration camp. At the depot, nobody knew that I spoke German; it would have aroused suspicion. It was imprudent of me to say those few words to you, but I knew that you would not betray me.." |
Magda HerzbergerAfter 10 total weeks in camp, I could hardly walk anymore. I dragged myself to the trunk of an old birch tree, as our camp was hidden in a birch forest, and I collapsed there. I was so weak that I could barely move or even speak because it was too exhausting. I fought for my life all that time. But at that point, I felt that it was time for me to accept death as my inevitable fate. I was hoping to have a peaceful death. I looked at the blue sky above the shining sun. It was such a beautiful day in spring. It was so hard for me to say good-bye to life at age nineteen. I felt deep sadness, despair, and anger. I wondered: Why were we condemned to starvation and death? Only because we were Jewish? In those moments which I thought to be my last ones, I wished I could live longer. I realized the three most important things we should cherish are our life, our freedom, and our family, and so many times we take them for granted. Finally, I closed my eyes, wondering what death would be like. I was prepared for it. I was even thinking: Come death and take me. I don’t fear you anymore. I am ready for you. |
Finally I opened my eyes. What I saw was hard to believe. The guards at the watchtowers disappeared and the British troops rolled in with their tanks.
The liberators had discovered our hidden camp accidentally. The British Forces liberating us were in awe of what they encountered. A British soldier discovered me among other bodies that had passed away. He lifted me, carried me away. I couldn’t talk, and he was crying, filled with compassion. I felt sad that I was too weak to talk. I wanted to thank him and all the liberators for saving us. As I was being carried, I knew that if I was to recover and survive that I would always keep alive the memory of all those victims of persecution that were left behind. I was liberated on |
Citations:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camps
Wiesel, Elie, et al. The Night Trilogy. Hill and Wang, 2008.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camps
Wiesel, Elie, et al. The Night Trilogy. Hill and Wang, 2008.