Night

The last day had been the most lethal. We had been a hundred or so in this wagon. Twelve of us left it. Among them, my father and myself. We had arrived in Buchenwald.

The date was January 28, 1945. I WOKE UP AT DAWN on January 29. On my father’s cot there lay another sick person. They must have taken him away before daybreak and taken him to the crematorium. Perhaps he was still breathing … No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last word had been my name. He had called out to me an

WHEN I WOKE UP, it was daylight. That is when I remembered that I had a father. During the alert, I had followed the mob, not taking care of him. I knew he was running out of strength, close to death, and yet I had abandoned him. I went to look for him. Yet at the same time a thought crept into my mind: If only I didn’t find him! If only I were rel

In those days it was still possible to buy emigration certificates to Palestine. I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave. “I am too old, my son,” he answered. “Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land …”

For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

REMAINED IN BUCHENWALD until April 11. I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore. I was transferred to the children’s block, where there were six hundred of us. The Front was coming closer. I spent my days in total idleness. With only one desire: to eat. I no long

We also spoke often about Palestine. Their parents, like mine, had not had the courage to sell everything and emigrate while there was still time. We decided that if we were allowed to live until the Liberation, we would not stay another day in Europe. We would board the first ship to Haifa.

my life as a writer—or my life, period—would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.

“Listen to me, kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old