20 Mar 2012

Memoirs from the Death Camps

Yesterday night when I reading blogs of my buddies at 2wapworld… I read one touching blog written by my sister Amela. Today I requested her to allow me posting her work here at my blog… and kindly she permitted me to post it. I am thankful to my dear sister Amela Leyla Hodzych for allowing me to share her blog here.


Memoirs from the Death Camps 

Polish concentration camp survivor weeping near charred corpse of a friend

The early morning. The stagnant air. The silence. Everything has stopped. Outside. In the hall. In us. Like pearls threaded along the walls, the prisoners. Are we all here?

Good, no one is missing. They won't have to make a new list. The same routine. Only few are sleeping. Or seems to be asleep. Others are sitting in a twilight, and gazing at themselves a recognizable point. What are they thinking? How are they?

The wounds are healing. Intolerable pain. The uncertainty and fear. It's not the fear of beatings, or death. The fear is something in between, vague and unattainable, unpredictable, when everything stops and waits.

When they beat, first they kill the fear. Simply, you hear your name, it stuffiness the air, it hit the wall somewhere next to you and bounce off like a wedge and crashes down there in the darkness. You go out, without a fear, slowly, empty... And half drunk crowd is waiting for you to come out. You see human creatures, people with names and faces, with batons and rifle butts, bars, chains ...

Only the first kicks hurt. The tenth, fiftieth, hundredth - do not hurt. You see whiteness. White heat. Everything around you is white. And strangely, it's even pleasant, warm and sticky. And grudge! And defiance! They were masters of life and death. They have the power. I have love. AND love is the power. I'm stronger. I want to be stronger. I will not give up, I, I, I want! I want to live! Well, you will not kill me!

And now, with the first outlines of light, without movement, without saying a word, no questions and comments, we have finished, in ourselves, separately, one more terrible story. We communicate via eye contact. The eyes says it all. About whose have been those cries last night. And whom they broke the fingers and ribs.And whom they put out cigarette butts on the bare skin. ...

Slowly I perceive faces. Every morning I see a new faces, but the same people. Again and again disfigured. Each in a different way. Like an exhibition of masks from horror movies. Beaten, cut, and swollen faces..

It smells. Everyone smells. Smells blood on the walls. The air smell. And in the hall. Unbearable smell all around us. Breath of death. Yes, it smells like death.

And eyes. Eyes of hungry and thirsty prisoners. Everyone's are the same...Gray. Ash-gray. Dry and withered. Extinguished. Lifeless. Or mine are such and this is how I see them?
 
And the questions in your head...Are we going to eat today? Will they give us a water? Allow to ventilate room? Will we be allowed to look through the window? To whisper? Will they beat us? Always the same questions. And conjecture. And anxiety. And hope. Usually the unsure answers.

Women survivors in the barracks at Birkenau

And when you by some miracle survive that hell, they ask u about the war. About the pain. Stupid question how did you felt, what was giving you the strength to hold on. And you just want to forget, to heal scars on the body and the soul ....
 
It's not worth to talk about the horrible killings, the human fear, the atrocities of people, it should not be remembered, nor anybody should feel sorry for what had happened, nor anyone should praise it.

It is best to forget, and let all that is ugly to die, and that children do not sing songs about revenge. I hope that my children will never hear the sound of grenades, of whistling bullets, standing in line for humanitarian help.....watch the death, struggle for bare survival ... I hope and pray that my children will never know the meaning of the word war.


Blog copyright: Amela Leyla Hodzych

Pictures from: Life and Scrapbookpages

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