“I came here today, to Auschwitz, to fulfill a request. The last request of a man I knew. He wrote a letter.”
I trudge through the mud drenched by the rain. Drenched by my tears. My shoulders are hunched against the cold as I gaze at the ground unseeingly. Slowly heavily I walk past the barracks toward the crematorium. I feel the finality knowing that for so many this was the end. This was where millions of my people perished. This was Auschwitz.
And then we reach the gas chambers. My eyes are transfixed. It’s a mess a ruin of brick and rubble. Only the occasional twisted metal remains of a pipe testify to the horror of the past. To what was committed against those once living breathing happy souls whose lives were snuffed out by evil.
I see the other members of my group struggling to grasp the enormity of the tragedy. Our heads are bent.
And then I notice her.
She stands slightly further apart her shoulders shaking. Her hair is covered in a scarf legs clad in jeans beneath her long raincoat. She is trembling exuding an air of fragility. I watch as she slowly approaches her footsteps nervous and hesitant.
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