Caught Between Heaven And Hell

Death Toll - Maria

I woke up to the dark room, my eyes had stopped swelling and I could see quite well, considering it had been about a week. I was too exhausted to even move my fingers and so starving hungry that I had resorted to eating the black grit off the floor. I didn’t know what it was. Just knew that I needed to stay alive. I needed to live. Although, for the last few days, I have been feeling not so hungry. Like something inside me has been quenched. Suddenly, as I opened my eyes again, there was a stream of light that lingered through the door. I curled up and moved very slowly, curling my muscles, to move to the back wall as it opened, with immense pain and struggle.
Big, black, boots stood at the foot of the door. A soldier, no doubt. Then he cried in another language then German. I looked up, lifting my tiny, frail head. His uniform was different. He was not a German soldier. He was not here to kill me, well, at least I hoped.
Another one walked in and picked me up, off the floor. Then carried me away. I was on the verge of death. I couldn’t sit up, I was hanging out of his arms like a dead body. I bet it would have felt like that, too.
He carefully sat me in a truck and gave me some water. I skulled it so quickly, I wondered where it had gone. Then he gave me some biscuits from his pocket. I felt for the first time in months that someone was making an effort to help me. I peeked my frail head and vaguely smiled as much I could.
‘Danke sehr.’ I managed to say with as much emotion as I possibly could. Then he walked away, probably to free more people here.
When she was freed, Amelie was less weak then me. But she still had that look of complete torture written on her face. I couldn’t do anything to help her, but I wanted to help her more then myself. She was shaking, then she turned and saw me. She moved back and put her arm around my shoulder. Blanketing us from the cold. A soldier come and gave us blankets and more food. But we had to again survive the long trip back to the city.
I quickly come to the realization that I didn’t even know how she had got out of it, alive. We had been sitting here for about an hour in silence, facing our own demons in our heads.
‘Amelie.’ I whimpered, ‘How did you…’ I couldn’t find the strength to finish.
‘I escaped three days ago. Climbing out a small hole in the barrack with some others. They had stopped burning people and there was a massive dumping site of bodies in a room that I ventured into. It reeked of a horrible smell and was so disgusting that I nearly fainted. I had no other choice but to hide there. The soldiers had begun taking people on these marches. They were being made to march for miles and most of the people were dying. So, I knew that I would have to sometime go. I have been hiding in there for days, since before the soldiers fled and just hoping that someone would come. I managed to stand and walk where they would find us.’

This was the one month anniversary of our fourteenth birthday.
I got in touch with Adele and Gero and they took us in. Helped us to eat. Gave me too much at times until I had finally really put on weight. In the camp, that was fake fat. We weren’t actually getting healthier by getting fat. Just thought we were.
It was an achievement when I come to 20 kg. I was still a mass of bones with a bit of skin covering it. The tiniest bit of fat. Living in constant pain. I feel like death everyday. And blame myself for what happened to Amelie. I wish that I never told her that twins were treated better. I wish I hadn’t met her. I wish that she had just lived out the rest of the war time in that house. With those kids just like her. And that I died because I was too weak to work anymore, or died with my family in the gas chambers.
I still live with the mental strain of what they did to me and the physical. I know I will die eventually. But at least I will not die in that horrible place. My soul will linger in the halls of my home. Not a death camp. It shouldn’t have happened. But the truth is; it did. And none of the survivors will ever recover. And we were the lucky ones to even get out alive.
When the Nazis knew the Allies were coming, they burned all documents and maintain that 3 million people died in Auschwitz. I, one of just 6,500 survivors believe that it was more, but we could not prove it. Nor can anyone else. And that is only Auschwitz. There was 6 extermination and concentration camps.
My Mama, Grandma, Grandpa, and baby sister were killed on arrival because they were not good enough to work. My grandparents were too old, my sister was too young and my Mama was with my sister. They were sent to the other side of the room, because all of those people were doomed for immediate extermination. They were inhumanly gassed and burned in the crematorium. My sisters and my brothers were all killed because they were too young and if Amelie didn’t come, I would have been gassed or would have died and classed as a ‘natural’ death. My Papa may have got out alive if he wasn’t bashed to death, or had disease. But I just don’t know.
They did mass shootings everyday and made sure that they killed as many as they could and then burned them. And the experiments were only the beginning of the doctors wrath. He wasn’t even charged for what he did and all of his survivors were forced to testify.
We were treated like scum and there was nothing we could do. The worst thing is that the one man, who I believe is the most responsible for this happening, that hated our race and put us all through this absolute act of inhumanity, killed himself when he knew he was defeated. I lost my entire family at the hands of this horrible man. And when it comes down it, this could have been prevented.
How can one man chose the fate of the total of 11 million people in these camps alone. Not to mention all the soldiers who died, the victims of the bombings, the genocide, and everything else that happened. War is the worst thing imaginable. And it was all over power.

That is the truth with war; If you are blind to it and you think it will never happen again, you just won’t see it coming.


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