Dear Mr. Wiesel,
I must say, I was relieved that you were able to make it out of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The torture that you endured should never be experienced by any living creature.
First off, I cannot imagine walking, even running, the distances that you traveled right after the surgery on your foot. Just the fact that you wanted yourself and your father to live is remarkable. Tell me, was it hard to hear that the prisoners left in Auschwitz were liberated, right after you and your father left? I mean, you were traveling on an injured foot, and your father was weaker that you. You were only, what, fifteen? Sixteen? I would have probably given up at that point if I had to help my father travel those distances, in such a weakened state. You even argued with him to sleep, when you knew he was right in saying "it's dangerous to fall asleep in snow" (88). You wanted him to sleep to conserve energy. Or, and I'm sorry if I offend you by saying this, did you want him to fall asleep so he would die, and be better off? It would've helped you. You could have traveled farther faster and not even worry about where your father is.
How did you feel when you had finally traveled that far, made it that long, and your father got sick? I would be worried. You had used much of your energy to help keep him alive, and now he was dying. Or how did you feel, waking up on that morning and seeing "on [your] father's cot lay another sick person" (112). These men just took your father away from you, literally from right under your nose. The audacity of the doctors to not even alert you to this. How did you feel?
Then, finally, you got out. The camps were liberated. How did you feel about that, knowing that the camps were liberated just days after your father's death? Were you relieved that you made it out? Or were you angry that the troops couldn't come sooner, to save your father?
You survived unimaginable terror, and you live to tell our generation about it. Your story will never be forgotten.
Your comments are touching, knowing that I made even just one person more knowledgeable about the Holocaust makes me feel like I have done what I was meant to do here on earth.
ReplyDeleteTo hear that those individuals still at Auschwitz were liberated after my departure was not too hard to hear. I was mostly relieved that some of my fellow Jews were set free from the pain that I was facing traveling to Buchenwald.
Yes, running all that distance was quite hard and taxing physically and mentally. Seeing those I had once befriended falling and being killed was, in a way, more demanding on my health than the physical part of it was. Although this is what I am saying years later as I am haunted by the memories of mental struggles currently versus the physical tasks I faced long ago.
No, I am not offended in any way by your question about the struggle with the choice to sleep or not. Many mist wonder the same thing that you have just asked. I will not lie, the thought of having the burden of my father taken away is a thought that crossed my mind once or twice. But how could it not? I did want him to rest up in that moment, I knew that I myself would be unsuccessful in sleeping.
After my father fell ill, I was frantic. Although having him gone would mean more food and less responsibility on myself, I knew that he was helping me to survive and keep fighting along the way. To wake up and see that he had died and been replaced already was extremely saddening, but I knew that it was going to happen at some point. He was so weak, and so was I. After seeing so many die before him, I had become numb to death. As I said before and I still stand by today, "I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears," (112). At this point, my survival was the main thing my body could focus on, it was the only thing I could focus on. The primitive part of myself deep down was glad to have the hindrance that was my father gone.
When the Americans came in and liberated those of us who were still alive, I was thrilled. Free at last! I do wish that they could have come sooner to save not only my father, but all of the others who died innocently during the Holocaust. But of course I do not blame them. After all, they are the people that ended up saving so many others, including myself.