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autumn remnants dotting the cemetery and donating splashes of
burnt orange colour as far as the eye can see. Row upon row of
tombstones were empty of visitors, only the dark clouds casting
deep shadows across the field.
A
fternoon
. We sit across from each other. He speaks
meticulously, each word carefully picked out, almost as if he had
rehearsed the exact string of descriptions. He told me about the
camp. Thousands crammed onto trains. The strongest sought out
and grouped to work. The gas chambers. On the walls written: ‘Put
shoes into cubbyholes and tie them together so you won’t lose them.
After showers you will receive hot coffee.’ The daily labor that
ruined his legs, the motto of Auschwitz engrained:
Arbeit Macht Frei
,
Work Will Set You Free
He continues talking. Occasionally losing his way as if swept
unwillingly into the past. Examining his frail stature, I find it hard to
imagine he was once so resilient against these atrocities. He mutters
under his breath ‘
Az men lebt, derlebt men
.’ When one lives, one
experiences. I quickly tried to distinguish between whether it was
another saying from Auschwitz or a Yiddish proverb.
‘Maybe I have enough experience for all who died,’ he declares.
T
his
is what
i
believe
: As Marcel Proust put it: ‘We are healed
of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.’ I think my father
managed to isolate himself from feeling anything at all. It never lasts.
The suffering finds a way to explode, breaking the surface, changing
everything. I first found out about my father’s involvement when I
was eight. He never delved into the past; it was never discussed, like
his life only commenced when I was born. He used to sit in his
armchair at midnight, staring at the blackened wall for hours. He
couldn’t hear me when I spoke to him. Or maybe he could. Maybe it
was just easier to stare back at me than to release the torment that
dominated his mind.
The moment his past became my present was on a trip interstate.
Staying in a hotel room was a novel experience, the crisp bed linen
sharply turned down into perfect squares. The soft patter of the
shower sounded against the incessant blare of my cartoons, the neon
lights from the TV illuminating the wall behind me in technicolour.
Thud
. ‘Pa?’ The soft trickle of the water was the only reply I received.
Nervously I crept to the door and timidly knocked. ‘Are you okay in
there, Pa?’ An oozing trail of water slowly seeped under the closed
My Story,
His Story
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