First night in the barracks. Moyshe Ettinger tells how he saved
himself and cannot forgive himself. The evening prayer
is recited and Kaddish is said for the dead.
It is 6:00 in the evening. We hear a bugle call. We stop work and stand to attention in groups of five. The foreman, a Jewish engineer called Galewski, counts us and makes his report. We hear an orchestra playing. We turn right and move in the direction of the kitchen. The kitchen window is opened and we approach it in rows to get our soup. We head for the barracks, which stand opposite the kitchen. The barracks are filled to capacity and we have to lie on the ground.
I look at my friend Leybl and he at me and our tears pour down like rain. Each of us asks the other why he is crying. I cannot answer. I have lost the power of speech. We try to comfort and calm one another as much as possible. Leybl, I say to him, yesterday at this time my young sister was still alive. He answers:—And my whole family, my brothers and twelve thousand poor Jews from my town.
And yet we are alive and witness this great misfortune and are so hardened that we can eat and endure the heartbreak. How can one be so strong, have such unnatural strength to endure? As we stand there, we notice a friend, Moyshe Ettinger, from our town. He falls on us sobbing. After he has calmed down a bit, he tells us that yesterday he was running naked to the gas chamber. Along the way he happened upon a pile of clothing and crawled into the middle of it. He grabbed a pair of trousers and a jacket from the pile and put them on. Not far away he saw a Jew marching past. He begged him to save him and find him a pair of shoes. Fortunately, the worker found a pair and brought them to him. Then he worked his way out of his hiding place and stood near the pile of clothing and began sorting it. The workers standing next to him helped him and told him what to do. In that way he saved himself from death.
Now he stands next to us and weeps. He cannot forgive himself for having saved himself when his wife and child went to their deaths. We are all as if drugged. Yesterday all of my family were living and now—all are dead. Each of us stands as if turned to stone. I weep for my fate, for what I have lived to see.
At that moment I hear, to the left of the barracks, the miserable survivors standing and saying the evening prayers, and after praying they recite Kaddish for the dead with tears in their eyes. Kaddish wakes me up. I look closely: yes, all who are here are wretched orphans and accursed individuals. I become almost wild and shout at them:—To whom are you reciting Kaddish? You still believe? In what do you believe, whom are you thanking? Are you thanking the Lord for his mercy in taking away our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers? No, no! It is not true; there is no God. If there were a God, he would not allow such misfortune, such transgression, where innocent small children, only just born, are killed, where people who want only to do honest work and make themselves useful to the world are killed! And you, living witnesses of the great misfortune, remain thankful. Whom are you thanking?
My grief-stricken friend Leybl tries to settle me:—Calm yourself, you’re right. Yesterday all my brothers and sisters and their little ones were alive, and today they are no longer in this world.
He is trying to calm me, he is beside himself and begs me:—Yekhiel, don’t shout, you know where we are …
He is shouting louder than I am.
We fall to the ground from fatigue and cannot get up. I lie there and remind myself that I wronged my poor sister. A few minutes before she died I dissuaded her from eating a piece of bread so she was driven hungry to her death. Did she forgive me? The murderers have robbed all of us of our understanding.
We lie like that in our pain. The clock strikes 9:00 in the evening. The barracks are locked, the lights turned off. I lie on the ground all night.