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    • Tadeusz Borowski: Auschwitz Serial Number 119 198

      Posted at 5:20 pm by Dani, on June 29, 2014
      Image courtesy of PAP/CAF via http://dzieje.pl

      Image courtesy of PAP/CAF via http://dzieje.pl

      I first heard the name Tadeusz Borowski as an undergraduate student in Amherst. At that time, I had rather sophomoric ideas of the horrors authored by the Third Reich and of its henchmen, and was scarcely aware of the songs of its survivors. Of course, I’d heard of Levi, Spiegelman and Wiesel. And I’d read Plath’s “Daddy” as a teenager. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the words I would read that semester. Nothing.

      Our syllabus consisted of many required readings: Maus, The Destruction of the European Jews, Night, and selections from Chaim Kaplan’s diary. It also included poetry from Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Yitzchak Katzenelson and Dan Pagis. But the reading that haunted me most was Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. His words, his deceptively simple words and oftentimes frigidly detached account of the unimaginable, proved to lyrically amputate a chamber of my beating heart. Forever.

      After falling into a Nazi trap at a friend’s apartment, Borowski was sent to Auschwitz in late April 1943. It is Auschwitz, then, that serves as the main backdrop for the fictionalized stories found in his brutally gripping book and about which the novelist William Styron wrote in his acclaimed novel Sophie’s Choice: “Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response. The query: ‘At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?’ And the answer: ‘Where was man?’”

      Borowski’s words anchor deep into the most sacred of places. He shows what one will do for an extra bowl of soup or a proper pair of shoes. And challenges the more traditional roles of perpetrator and victim. He also weaves a thread of normalcy through the most abnormal and ghastly of circumstances.

      In this selection, he writes about arrival at Auschwitz:

      You have no idea how tremendous the world looks when you fall out of a closed, packed freight car! The sky is so high…
      …and blue…
      Exactly, blue, and the trees smell wonderful. The forest ̶ you want to take it in your hand. (p. 126)

      The entrance to the main gate at Auschwitz I.  It reads "work makes you free".  Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust

      The entrance to the main gate at Auschwitz I. It reads “work makes you free”. Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust

       

      One of the most chilling features of Borowski’s prose is its icy delivery. It proves to recreate such intensity that the reader is often left breathless:

      The lights on the ramp flicker with a spectral glow, the wave of people ̶ feverish, agitated, stupefied people ̶ flows on and on, endlessly. They think that now they will have to face a new life in the camp, and they prepare themselves emotionally for the hard struggle ahead. They do not know that in just a few moments they will die, that the gold, money, and diamonds which they have so prudently hidden in their clothing and on their bodies are now useless to them. Experienced professionals will probe into every recess of their flesh, will pull the gold from under the tongue and the diamonds from the uterus and the colon. They will rip out gold teeth. In tightly sealed crates they will ship them to Berlin. (p. 48-49)

      Female hair found in Auschwitz warehouses after liberation.  Image courtesy of Polish National Archives via fcit.usf.edu

      Female hair found in Auschwitz warehouses after liberation. Image courtesy of Polish National Archives via fcit.usf.edu

      Here, he recounts the terrors of the crematoria:

      Often, in the middle of the night, I walked outside; the lamps glowed in the darkness above the barbed-wire fences. The roads were completely black, but I could distinctly hear the far-away hum of a thousand voices ̶ the procession moved on and on. And then the entire sky would light up; there would be a burst of flame above the wood…and terrible human screams. (p. 84-85)

      A door to a gas chamber in Auschwitz. The note reads: Harmful gas! Entering endangers your life. Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust

      A door to a gas chamber in Auschwitz. The note reads: Harmful gas! Entering endangers your life. Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust

      An Auschwitz  warehouse filled with shoes and clothing from those who were gassed upon arrival.  Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust

      An Auschwitz warehouse filled with shoes and clothing from those who were gassed upon arrival. Image courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives via http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust

      Omnipresent in Borowski’s stories is the theme of deception: deception by the Nazis, deception by both friend and foe and deception by strangers. That theme is magnified in the following: “It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. This is the only permissible form of charity” (p. 37).

       

      After being liberated in Dachau, Borowski lived in Bavaria, Paris and Berlin; finally returning to Warsaw in 1950. It was there, nearly 63 years ago, on July 1, 1951, that he gassed himself. He died two days later on July 3.  He was 28 years old.

      Sadly, he was followed by others. Others who had peered into the soulless recesses of human eyes and lived to tell about it. Others like: Paul Celan in 1970, Piotr Rawicz in 1982, Primo Levi in 1987, and Jerzy Kosinsky in 1991. Surely there are others, many others. But these are those who survived to share their stories through a written medium. Those who left us with “Death Fugue”, Blood from the Sky, Survival in Auschwitz, and The Painted Bird. Those who live on in elegant typeface in books throughout the world. And through such, are immortalized.

      After all these years, Borowski’s suicide still perplexes me. I wonder what went through his mind as he entered his kitchen, opened the gas valve and repeatedly inhaled. I wonder if he thought of his wife, who had bore him a daughter, Małgorzata, just three days before. Or of his friend’s arrest by Polish Security, the same friend at whose home Borowski himself was arrested 8 years prior. Or of the freight cars and the high, blue sky.

      And I wonder what justice there was in such a death. And then realize it was not about justice but rather about hope:

      Much of what I once said was naïve, immature. And it seems to me now that perhaps we are not really wasting time. Despite the madness of war, we lived for a world that would be different. For a better world to come when all this is over. And perhaps even our being here is a step towards that world. Do you really think that, without the hope that such a world is possible, that the rights of man will be restored again, we could stand the concentration camp even for one day? It is that very hope that makes people go without a murmur to the gas chambers, keeps them from risking a revolt, paralyzes them into numb inactivity. It is hope that breaks down family ties, makes mothers renounce their children, or wives sell their bodies for bread, or husbands kill. It is hope that compels man to hold on to one more day of life, because that day may be the day of liberation. Ah, and not even the hope for a different, better world, but simply for life, a life of peace and rest. Never before in the history of mankind has hope been stronger than man, but never also has it done so much harm as it has in this war, in this concentration camp. We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in gas chambers. (p. 121-122)

      Tadeusz Borowski hoped for a better life. For peace and rest and flameless dreams. And perhaps, as much as he tried, it wasn’t possible. Perhaps Auschwitz and Dachau weren’t just horrendous experiences, set apart. Perhaps they became a part of him, like a song, and the only way to silence that song was by stepping on his own throat (20). Perhaps that was his peace.

      Perhaps it was enough that he lived, survived and, above all else, loved.  He wrote: “I smile and think that one human being must always be discovering one another ̶ through love. And that this is the most important thing on earth, and the most lasting” (p. 110).

      Perhaps there is hope in that.

       

      WORKS CITED:

      Borowski, T. (1976).  This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (B. Vedder, Trans.).  New York: Penguin.

       

      Posted in Holocaust, Writing | 41 Comments | Tagged Auschwitz, gas, Holocaust, suicide, writing
    • Shooting wooden stars

      Posted at 9:35 pm by Dani, on December 1, 2013
      Image courtesy of marklinfinancial.com

      Image courtesy of marklinfinancial.com

      On a recent trip to Canada, I heard a startling fact on public radio:

      349 American service members committed suicide in 2012 (to put that in perspective, that’s 54 more than were killed in Afghanistan that same year).

      I was shocked. disheartened. and ashamed.

      The broadcast went on to share the story of a 31-year-old Marine.  He’d been in Afghanistan.  He’d come home to four children and a wife who loved him.

      And a personal hell of what he’d done and seen.

      He was depressed. He reached out. He went to the VA.  He asked for help.  He was told there was a 3-week wait for inpatient care.  By the time they were ready for him…

      He.

      Was.

      Gone.

      His widow said she’s angry she’s without him, but happy…

      He’s. Finally. At. Peace.

      I remember the Recruiters walking the halls of my high school.  I remember their tables.  And their signs…

      “Be all you can be.”

      I remember friends approaching those tables and being told of benefits and opportunities and a college degree paid for through service.

      I also remember getting a call from an Army Recruiter.  He was interested in my language skills (and my affinity for learning languages) and thought the Army would be the fertile soil in which to be planted.

      And. in. which. to. grow.

      We asked lots of questions (I take that back…my husband asked lots of questions.  I sat and quietly stared, dumbfounded by the questions, the responses and the meeting itself).

      In the end, there was no way to guarantee my safety.  So, there was no way I was going to join up.

      Despite the good I could have done, self-preservation kicked in.

      No guarantee.

      No dice.

      Since then (and despite having family members who’ve served) I’ve never thought much about the military.  I mean I’m thankful for them in the quiet moments before and after my head safely hits my pillow, but I’ve never been brave enough to bring myself to a place of discomfort over their service, sacrifice, and, at times…

      Suicide.

      I was not born with much of a backbone.  Not the kind that willingly (and oftentimes gladly) puts you in harm’s way.

      Not the kind that runs, drives or flies toward danger.

      Not the kind that sees friends fall…and continues on.

      Not the kind that catches a person in the crosshairs, pulls the trigger and doesn’t feel as though he’d/she’d lost a piece of himself/herself in the process.

      Not the kind that carries the heaviness of such a burden.

      For. a. lifetime.

      There are people much better than me who have signed on that dotted line, sworn that oath, and found themselves running, driving and flying toward danger.

      They risk everything so that my head and yours can safely hit our pillows.  So that we can say one more “Good morning” and “Goodnight” to those we love.

      They serve.  They sacrifice.  And eventually…

      God willing…

      They. Come.Home.

      And to what?

      A broken system?

      A waiting list for care?

      A hope that 3 weeks won’t be a week too long?

      They deserve better and we have the responsibility to demand that for them.

      At least I do.

      What kind of country recruits you for the type of service from which some never return and then fails to provide the necessary aid?

      3 weeks to get care!!

      It’s preposterous and an outrage.

      It’s a disgrace to these United States, to our flag, to all those who have served and will serve.

      To those whose names are etched in stone in Arlington and in cemeteries (both formal and informal) around the globe.  And whose faces are not-so-simply etched into the hearts of those who love them.

      In the grand scheme of things, I am small.  Some might say insignificant.  I am smaller than the tiniest grain of sand on the tiniest beach on the tiniest island on the planet.

      But those who know sand, know it only takes one, tiny granule in the right place, at the right time to make a pearl.

      And that people seemingly smaller than me, have made a difference.

      There are millions of posts on WordPress.

      M-I-L-L-I-O-N-S

      And it’s easy to fall through the cracks.

      Don’t let this one.

      Don’t let our service members.

      Extend your hand…

      Extend. your. heart.

      Posted in Failure, Friendship, Military, Military suicide, Veteran's Day | 20 Comments | Tagged Afghanistan, depression, grief, hero, military, PTSD, suicide, VA hospital, veterans
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      © Dani De Luca and bloomingspiders, 2013-2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to bloomingspiders, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Photographs are the property of bloomingspiders, unless otherwise noted.

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