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The Heavens Weep
“Almighty God, full of Love, remember all the Jewish mothers, that carried their babies to their execution, led their children to the gas chambers, witnessed their burning, poisoned them with cyanide, or killed them with their own hands. Almighty God, let their anguish, pain and torture never be forgotten. Never be forgotten. In our memory they will live forever and ever. Amen.” – Alexander Kimel
Miriam tugs on my arm. I shush her, afraid of the guns. Everyone has fear in their eyes. This is first air we have breathed in hours. There was not enough for us all on the train.
“What is happening?” Miriam asks.
Miriam’s eyes are like they always are. A child who doesn’t know the true meaning of danger. I’d take her into my arms but there is a soldier’s gaze between us.
We are lined up beside the track. This isn’t the end of the line. Something more is waiting for us, but the soliders won’t tell us what. All they say is “Shut up, rats.” Sometimes we have no choice. Sometimes choice is taken from us. Sometimes it is easier to believe, there is no choice. Then we are just hollow bones. I try to remind myself that this is the fate we have been given. We must decide how we bear the pain. Our only mercy is in our freewill. In our bravery.
Miriam looks up at me. She is beginning to see the sharpness of the faces around us. I don’t know how to bring her innocence back from this. She will not be a child for much longer. The last flickers of trust are waivering.
I kiss her forehead and turn to the officers. The line is being split in half. The crowd is siphoned one way or another. It seems indiscriminate. Between the soliders is an unarmed man. He rations his words, like we are a waste of breath.
It is not long before, we are at the front of the line. An unarmed man in uniform points to his feet. I am shoved forward by one of the guns. They speak as if I’m guilty of something, but I don’t know what.
The officer’s tongue is a scalpel. He begins prodding at me then cuts through my psyche listing physiological terminology like they are my name. I try to find myself in his eyes, but I am not there. There’s a shame, but what the shame is for I don’t know. Is it a shame for feeling for me or not feeling for me?
I can feel Miriam clinging to my leg. It gives me a strange comfort knowing that she is there.
I’m estranged from myself. As if the officer’s eyes were cutting off my arms from my heart, and my heart from the rest of me. He notices Miriam sob, and waves to a solider. They march over, snatching her from me. Her arms stretch but our fingertips do not touch. The officer pulls me back as the solider carries her away like a sack of grain.
“Don’t touch her,” I shout like a last prayer.
A crack twitches in the officer’s eye. His stoney skin breaks. He pulls me again, tugging himself as much as me. There’s nothing more left of me for him to take.
It is running down her cheek. Miriam’s eyes and mine are shining the same last dregs of sunset. I know her tears. She knows mine. With this fate between us we are the closest we have ever been. It is the only hope I can drag from the moment as I watch her throat swallow. Part of me sinks with it. What has she swallowed? Jewishness.
“Mama,” Miriam chants softly. A plea for the familiar to return. A prayer into darkness. And I can’t be the light.
Then a whisper comes out of her, “Hear O’Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One…” Even in this moment, there is space for God. It is the only thing there is space for.
I stand there, listening to her hum. I just stand. A crippling shame overcomes me, I know what awaits her. “Move Schmarolzer! You hold things up,” says a solider. I can feel the bad blood. I am it, an infection to the racial body. I am living up to his words. I am the worm, and I wait for God’s strength but it does not come. Something eats at my body, like my heart is a rat trying to escape my chest. She is dragged off. I stand with nothing but shame.
I heard. My daughter, my heaven, I heard your prayer. I’m sorry that I could not face it with you.
This story is an amalgamation of all I have read, and my own experiences and information gained when visiting Auschwitz I and II. It is not true, but has truth in it. These things were, and in some places still are, a reality. I have linked many different survivor stories, resources, and articles throughout which I implore you to visit and read about yourself. There are many lessons to be learnt, lessons we might need now more than ever. People’s humanity is so easy to strip away, but a lot more difficult to bring back. I hope this story goes some way in restoring humanity to those who need it. Our blood need not divide us but symbolise our commonality.