Hatred, Misery and Suffering

CW: antisemitism/Nazi mention, Holocaust, gore, violence, death.

Hatred, Misery and Suffering

The old man stood staring out of the window at the lengthening shadows with a smile of wistfulness on his face. He knew he was going to die soon but it couldn’t come soon enough for him. He very much doubted that people would believe the things he had done and seen throughout his lifetime. A life of torment and suffering, of agonizing decisions, nothing had ever been done on impulse. He had learnt from a very early age not to do things on impulse, that impulse created great mental distress and wretchedness for him. Life had not been easy for him, his hunched over back, shabby clothing and not being able to look people in the face all told a story, one of immense sadness and heartache. It was almost as if it had been tattooed all over his body.

He was a gaunt man who looked as if he carried the world on his shoulders. He never spoke much to the other residents that lived in the old age home with him and his demeanour discouraged other residents from speaking with him. He had immigrated to the United States of America in August of 1949 from Budapest, Hungary and had never really been close with anyone, moving from job to job, place to place without settling anywhere. The journey had been long and arduous, one filled with much grief and anguish. 

He was not bitter about his situation or for what had happened in his life, he just accepted for there was nothing else he could do. He was of Jewish descent and had been 18 when his family was rounded up in Budapest, Hungary in June of 1944. He lived in a ghetto especially for Jewish people and had to wear a Star of David on his arm at all times as did everyone else that lived in the ghetto, they had now been singled out from the rest of the population. Their future was uncertain, they were given 1 hour to pack everything they owned into a few suitcases before being corralled into a huge group of people. Most of the suitcases held food and warm clothing but one suitcase held all of the family’s valuables, they were hoping to trade these valuables for food along the way to wherever they were headed.

His grandparents, mother, father, 3 sisters and 3 brothers were all rounded up with him in June of 1944, they were to be deported to Auschwitz- Birkenau, an extermination camp. They were forced by the Nazi’s to march on foot to the camp, there were over 70,000 men, women, and children on this march. Thousands died on the journey, it was wintertime, and the snow was heavy on the ground. Many of them were sick, old, infirm, and little children and babies and they died from starvation, the bitter cold, or were shot where they dropped and left to rot. His grandparents and the two youngest siblings were among these people. They were not even given the opportunity to bury them, they were left where they had fallen. He made a promise to himself that one day there would be a reckoning over what had happened to these much-loved people in his life, the how and when he did not know, all he knew was that his grandparents and little brother and sister had been murdered because of this forced march.

During the march, he had also helped carry his younger brothers and sisters when they were unable to walk any further. Each and every village they were marched through they begged for food and warm clothing, but most people just ignored them. They had learnt quickly not to offer anything of value in exchange for food because it was immediately taken by the Nazi guards that surrounded them. He had been a relatively fit young man at the start of this march but by the end of it, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. No one knew what was ahead of them, they had all heard rumours about the death camps but when they finally arrived it was not hard to figure out what was going on.

The first thing he could remember was the stench of burning and rotting corpses, the smell got stronger and stronger from about 10 miles out of the camp. He had never forgotten that smell, it would be with him forever. That was when the realisation came that they were being marched to their deaths. His fear, not only for himself but for the rest of his family, became so intense he was unable to think clearly. So proud of his Jewish heritage for all of his life and now, because of this heritage, he and his family were going to be put to death. A blanket of fog descended into his brain; his only thoughts were of survival. The stench became more pungent and unmistakable the closer they came to the camp, and he could see the smoke rising up from the tall chimney stacks in the distance.

Upon arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau, there was a thick blanket of black ash in the air as well as piles of bodies rotting in large pits and the hideous smell of burning flesh, he felt as if he had arrived in hell. He was filled with anxiety and fear and was panicked beyond belief. There were many Nazi officials, each of which had a barking, snarling dog, watching as his family was made to line up with all the other people that had survived the march. As the Nazi officials moved down the lines, they separated the old, infirm, mothers and children to one side. They eventually reached his family, he stood up straighter, brushing his hair through with his fingers, trying to make himself look more presentable and able to work, for this was his only hope. His father and he were sent to one line and his mother, and the 4 younger children were sent to another line. This was to be the last time he and his father ever saw his mother and younger siblings again; they were being despatched straight to the gas chambers. In his mind, he knew what was going to happen to them but that thought was so distressingly terrifying that he just could not process the information.

All of the elderly, infirm, women and children were told to strip naked, had their hair and pubic hair shaved and were told they were going for showers when in fact they were going into the gas chambers. It had become very apparent that the crematoriums were unable to keep up with the gas chambers, corpses were being burnt in large open pits. He and his father wept open tears for they knew they would never see the rest of the family again, they hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye. Their names were taken, they both had their heads shaved, they were then tattooed with their prisoner number on their right arm and were assigned beds in one of the men’s barracks. There were no words spoken between them, they knew they had escaped with their lives but at what cost. Both father and son were so overwhelmed and traumatised by what had happened that day, there were no words to describe the cacophony of screaming voices inside their heads, all vying to be heard. The other men in the barracks were all acutely emaciated, eyes deeply sunk into their heads and skin hanging off their skeletons and all with shaved heads.

Night came and he wondered why he had been saved, and how long he could keep himself alive, it was a nightmare that kept repeating itself over and over that first frightful night. At first light, the prisoners were woken, given a sparse breakfast and both he and his father were sent to one of the crematoriums. Their first job was to check every single body for gold in their teeth, if any was found it was to be removed and put into a large wine barrel. They then had to fill the ovens with bodies from the gas chamber victims, babies, small children, women, the elderly and the infirm. They were made to stoke the fires that kept the crematoriums burning. There were four gas chambers and incinerators, and each could kill and burn more than fifteen hundred people a day but even then, they just could not keep up.

By the end of the day, both father and son were covered from head to foot in blackish grey ash and the stench of burning bodies had been forever locked into their very being. It was everywhere in the camp, the ash, the smell of death, and the smell of burning and rotting bodies. It was all just too much to take in, the unbelievable ending of lives, the burning of the body’s, how does a boy of 18 react to such inconceivable evil. The Nazi’s were trying to annihilate a whole race of people, one could almost consider it unbelievable if the truth was not there in their faces at all times. They were sent back to their barracks after doing a 12 hours shift and ate with the rest of the men what little food was available. He was so exhausted from the day's work after dinner he fell on his designated bunk and slept.

The crematoriums were kept going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. Morning came and the previous day was repeated, this was going to be his daily assignment until he dropped from the sheer exhaustion of it all and was shot or until he dropped dead from either malnutrition or disease. There was no conversation between himself and his father, both were in deep shock and were also grieving the loss of the family, what words could be used to excuse what was going on, there were no words. The boy felt as if he was losing his mind, all of the jobs he had been given were both atrocious and horrendous, it was the shared determination to live and his promise to himself that one day he would be able to punish those people who were forcing him to do this under such atrocious conditions.

Within three weeks of their arrival in the camp, his father collapsed in exhaustion from the lack of food and the amount of work he had been doing. He was shot on the spot, right in front of his son and then the boy was told to load his father’s body into the furnace. It became clear to the boy that he had to cut off from the reality of it all otherwise he was in grave danger of losing his mind. The only way he could survive was to cut himself off from what was happening, pretend that he was elsewhere and not think about what was happening right in front of his eyes. His whole autonomy had been lost, the very foundations of his life had been cut away and he knew that if he had any chance of survival this was the only way.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau SS finally stopped gassing newly arrived prisoners by early November of 1944. The whole camp could hear the shelling and the sounds of planes dropping bombs from a distance. Camp officials began dismantling the crematoriums and gas chambers by blowing them up. The final two gas chambers and crematoriums were destroyed as Soviet forces approached the camp in January of 1945. The boy finally held some hope that help was on its way. The sounds of exploding bombs and gunfire could now be heard very much closer to the camp. Although he was immensely malnourished and weak from hunger he was determined to live, he kept remembering the promise he had made to himself about his family. On the 27^th of January 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau was finally liberated by the Soviet army.

There were still many open pits, many with bodies piled 18 high in them. The Nazi’s had tried to eradicate the corpses but there were just too many. The soldiers who had liberated the camp could not believe what they were witnessing, the emaciated people who had survived, the enormous open pits filled with the dead and still burning, the disease and sanitation, if they hadn’t known better they would have thought they had arrived in purgatory. In this camp, they had found just over three thousand men and women alive yet how they had survived was beyond comprehension. It took the boy six weeks before he was strong enough to be released and travel. He started the long walk back to Budapest and spent most of his time trying to work out how he was going to keep true to his promise to his family. He wanted the whole world to know what had gone on in these internment centres and he wanted those people who had perpetrated these atrocities to take responsibility and be punished for their part in it.

As he walked, he could not believe the devastation throughout the countryside, the bombed-out buildings, complete villages had disappeared and the railway down through the consistent bombing from the Russian army. He met with many other people trying to get back to their homes, sometimes he walked alone and at other times with groups of people. He had been stripped of every inch of humanity within him and he could see this in the people he walked with and spoke to. Many were not sure which members of their families had survived this shocking injustice and were hoping to find them upon reaching their destination although he knew he was the only member of his family who had survived.

After finally arriving back in Budapest, Hungary he joined up with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for the sole purpose of hunting down Germany’s war criminals. This became his entire life from March 1945 until his immigration to America. The hunt was on, lots of high-ranking Nazi’s had disappeared during the upheaval of the end of World War 2 and these people needed to be apprehended for their roles during the war. The young man joined the search, in his mind, he could clearly see the faces of the Commandant of Birkenau, Dr Aribert Hiem also know as Dr Death and The Butcher of Mauthausen, and Dr Josef Mengele also known as the Angel of Death. Never in his life had he ever been so determined to catch as many of the people who committed atrocities during the war.

Although frightened and having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the young man became instrumental in a number of arrests made all over the world of former SS guards, the commandant of Birkenau and the butcher of Mauthausen also known as Dr Aribert Hiem. All of these people were bought before the Nuremberg war crimes trials, found guilty and sentenced to death. Although he found that finding and arresting these people gave him a sense of purpose, it did not take away the terrible screams of his family being ripped apart as they stood in line upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the deaths of his grandparents and his youngest brother and sister on the forced march in the middle of winter, and the death of his father, whom he himself was responsible for putting into the crematorium fires. His whole family had been wiped from the face of the earth and it did not matter how many people he found who were responsible for atrocities during the war, he found himself feeling unimaginable guilt at the fact he alone had survived, and the rest of his family had died. He found that his faith was being tested and that at times he questioned himself as to what he was doing. Finally, he decided to immigrate to America to try and start anew.

He found that no matter where he went or what he did, it could never take the place of his family or stop the cacophony of voices in his head, the voices of his grandparents, his brothers and sisters, his mother and then his father. The culpability that he felt regarding having to put his father into one of the furnaces was immense and he just could not run away from it all because it followed him right throughout his life. He felt cut off, disconnected from other human beings and unable to explain why he was like this. Although he would have liked to marry and have children, just the thought of this happening again kept the world at bay in this endeavour. Eventually, after watching the sunset and the stars begin to shine, he took himself off to his own room and prepared himself to go to bed.

He had been feeling nostalgic all day and his body had been racked with pain. After taking his nightly medication, he slipped into bed and slowly drifted off to sleep. The cancer had been eating away at him for quite some time now, pain had long been his friend, almost all of his life had been about pain in some way or another. He welcomed it as it gave him the insight to know that he was still alive. Sometime overnight he slipped into a coma and by morning was found by the staff to be stiff and cold and not breathing but with a majestic smile upon his face. He had finally come home and was now surrounded by the family he had so desperately missed, reunited in death, and lovingly welcomed back into his mother’s arms as if he was a child of five. Finally, his world had come full circle and he was once again where he was supposed to be.

Written by Linda Hackett