Auschwitz
Revisited:
March of the Living 1998
by
IRVING ROTH
Returning to Auschwitz after fifty-four years evoked feelings of anger, sadness, elation, validation, revenge and horror. These emotions were generated by the overwhelming evidence of mass extermination and the devastating images indelibly seared into my brain. Even in the presence of six thousand Jewish high school students from around the world wearing blue jackets and caps imprinted with the "magen david," I wondered how I would be able to face Auschwitz again with its haunting memories.
April 23, 1998, was a sunny day in Auschwitz and an ideal day for a parade. I scrutinized the brick buildings set in neat rows. There were tall poplar trees lining the streets and signs posted along the road for groups to assemble before the "march" -- Miami, New York, Israel, Hungary, Mexico, Slovakia, Brazil and others. The New York delegation congregated on a grassy lawn (270 of us) adjacent to the Auschwitz "cookhouse" which produced a daily ration of ersatz coffee, thin cabbage soup and stale bread for the inmates.
I gazed at the pristine view of the camp. Superficially, it looked like a college campus getting ready for a demonstration. Suddenly I spied the steel bar supported by wooden posts in front of the kitchen -- "The Hanging Place." Visions of emaciated prisoners in gray and blue striped jackets were standing at attention, me among them. We were five abreast and forced to watch as four tortured Jews were being hanged for stealing a few potatoes from the pigsty.
I observed the Guard Tower and envisioned the SS Guard pointing a machine gun into the camp. I saw the double electrified barbed wire fence with posted signs "Achtung - Hochspannung" (Warning - High Voltage). I recognized the Laboratory Clinic where men and boys were injected with chemicals and live bacteria to determine the effects on human guinea pigs. Inmates were submerged into frigid water to ascertain how long it took to freeze to death and at what point revival would be possible. I stared in the direction of the "showers" where Mengele and others performed the dreaded routine "selections" of who would fee the fires of the "crematoriums" and who would continue to live another day. I remember placing bricks under my cousin Meir's feet so that he would appear taller even though he was too weak from hunger to stand up straight.
The loud blast of the "shofar" announced the beginning of the "March" and I was back among the living. A never ending line of spirited youth walked proudly out of Auschwitz through the gate under the infamous sign "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" (work Shall Make You Free), past the headquarters of Rudolf Hoes, the camp commander who was responsible for the murder of up to twenty thousand Jews a day. I was surrounded by thousands of fearless young men and women majestically waving the blue and white flags of our people, proclaiming that we were there to show the world that we have built a future for ourselves and our progeny and for all of humanity. This was my revenge!
The gate to Birkenau loomed before the marchers. I closed my eyes for an instant and the railroad tracks, the tower and the gate to Hell aroused the familiar night sweats of arrival in Birkenau in May 1944.
It was pitch black except for the glaring lights on the railroad platform. "Herraus, Mach Schnell" (Out, Move Quickly) was shouted by the armed guards. Anxious for a breath of fresh air, I jumped out of the cattle car and a peculiar order, reminiscent of burning feathers stifled my breathing passages. In the distance I saw the outline of buildings with huge chimneys spitting orange-red flames. Seven thousand of us were herded into long lines. I can still hear the heartrending cries of infants and young children as they clutched their parents in terror. We marched along the platform and came face to face with an officer holding a riding crop. He glanced at my brother Andre and barked "Links" (Left). He shouted the same at me. My grandparents, Aunt Clara and her ten-year-old daughter, Edith, were waving to the right. The line on the right was comprised of elderly Jews and young mothers with their children. They were led to the buildings with the belching chimneys and in less than twenty-four hours, over six thousand human beings from our transport were gassed an all the remained was smoke and ashes.
I was startled as the Prime Minister of Israel stepped to the microphone clad in a "tallit" (prayer shawl) and recited the "SHMAH", the affirmation of faith in the living God. It was 1998 and I was on the "March of the Living."
After the ceremony we walked to the women's barracks in Birkenau. There were saw wooden platforms stacked four high, covered with straw. In a section, smaller than a queen size bed, nine women were squeezed together in a restless sleep. The latrines, two rows of holes in a concrete slab, was most humiliating. There was no privacy even for the sick who were dying of dysentery and malnutrition. It was too much for my young charges to contemplate and they broke down and wept.
I exited Birkenau flanked by thirty-five youngsters. We walked in silence and reverence for those that perished.
A few days later, we returned to Auschwitz to examine the interiors of the prisoner barracks. One building contained thousands of eyeglasses, a mountain of cut and shaved hair and a countless number of toothbrushes. Prosthetic devices filled another room while thousands of unclaimed suitcases were piled high, all neatly labeled with the names and addresses of their former owners who became statistics in "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
As the students and I meandered past many barracks noting the countries of origin for inmates we arrived at the "Hungarian Block." Relying on the emotional support of my group, we climbed the steps to the second floor. There inscribed on the wall were the names of the Jews who had survived the first "selection" at Birkenau.
There we found my name and the names of a few family members. My grandparents, cousins and aunts are not listed because they did not survive the Birkenau selection. Sadly, my brother Andre, whose name appeared above mine was murdered one month before liberation in Bergen-Belsen. It was then that I asked each member of my group to embrace and absorb the spirit of a survivor into the core of his humanness as a reminder of life before, during and after the Holocaust lest we forget who we are and why we inhabit this universe.