“May G-d bless you and safeguard you. May He be gracious unto you. May He turn His countenance to you and give you peace.”
These were the words Max’s father, standing behind the wires, shared with his son before their parting. Alas, he was fully aware of the fate which so soon awaited him, having been selected for death in the Auschwitz camp. How strong must a man be to say farewell to the last living member of his family, his beloved son, with the words of blessing he had repeated every Saturday to his children in his own quiet home, over a bountiful table, in the company of his wife and his parents—his happy family.
A family acquaintance, a forester, had warned them about the Nazis rounding up Hungarian Jews, but they were unable to escape before they were arrested. It was Passover Sabbath. Religious Jews, in their traditional attire, with their traditional way of life and traditional prayers, were the most exposed to danger during this time. It was easier for assimilated Jews to dress up, to find shelter, to hide, if they happened to meet moral people along the way.
Still, standing behind the wires, Max’s father added the following, which has accompanied Max throughout his entire life: “If you survive, you must tell the world what happened here. Now go.”
These were the words so often spoken by Auschwitz inmates who knew or felt that they would not survive. With these words, they shouldered their entire fate and the history of their agony upon their fellow inmates, family, and friends. With these words, they wanted to express the hope that someone—be it even a single person—would survive to testify to the tragic fate of the innocent victims at Germany’s largest concentration and death camp. Non omnis moriar. (I shall not wholly die.)
Right after the war, suddenly alone in his now-hostile homeland, Max was for a long time unable to talk about what had happened to his relatives, his siblings, and his parents. “At that time, I could not yet fully comprehend the magnitude of the destruction of Jewish culture and people in Continental Europe, nor could I articulate the depth of my trauma or put my losses into words.”
Is it really the case that after so many years have passed, it is easier to find the right words to script the drama written in the blood of innocent victims? Could such great cruelty make any sense after all this time has gone by? Do all those people—like the survivors, from whom the SS men and their collaborators stole not only childhood but also the peace of old age—go away, as if in a mist, whilst their senseless suffering becomes a well-polished literary subject?
Certainly not. And that is why this book was conceived. Firstly, to fulfil Max’s father’s will—his last, sacred words. Secondly, as a testimony to share with the world. And thirdly, so that people can truly take to heart the facts presented to them from no more than a few decades ago, written as young Max saw and experienced them.
In a sense, By Chance Alone is not the story of an individual life. It is the story of the millions whose stories could not be written. Together with the numerous accounts from other survivors, this book adds another perspective to the picture in its entirety. But it is only a picture, of course.
Max survived transport, selection, the hardships of slave labour, the death of his entire family, evacuation, transfers to other camps, liberation, isolation, Communist prison, and his escape to the West. He survived because more than once on his way he met people who wanted to help: the Polish surgeon, Dr. Tadeusz Orzeszko, and other doctors in attendance in Block 21; the Soviet POW, Misha, from the Melk camp; Ily, the woman who recognized his grave medical condition, and the good-natured secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Salzburg.
These were the people who made Max’s father’s words of hope, “May G-d bless you and safeguard you,” come true. And this book, written so many years afterward fulfils his father’s final wish: “Tell the world what happened here.”
—Piotr M. A. Cywiński
Director, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial