Sublime

We need individual stories. Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, “casualties may rise to a million.” With individual stories, the statistics become people—but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless.

ON APRIL 10, there were still some twenty thousand prisoners in the camp, among them a few hundred children. It was decided to evacuate all of us at once. By evening. Afterward, they would blow up the camp. And so we were herded onto the huge Appelplatz, in ranks of five, waiting for the gate to open. Suddenly, the sirens began to scream. Alert. We

He must be impressed by my performance, because he tosses me a loaf of bread—a gesture, as it turns out, that will later save my life. As evening turns to night, I share the bread with Magda and our bunkmates. I am grateful to have bread. I am grateful to be alive. In my first weeks at Auschwitz I learn the rules

On that day most of its 1,500 inhabitants, including Pesia’s family, were shot on the outskirts of town.

We may not know why, but this we know, that from the vantage point of heaven there was a reason for it and we must accept it as God’s unfathomable will. The alternative is that God does not exist, and thus the universe is blind to our hopes, deaf to our cries, indifferent to our existence. In such a world there is no reason not to expect an Auschwi

The quicksand of despair held them, it was at their chins. Then just before they died a man came and pulled them out. All they now know is, they will not die. They are in hysteria of deliverance, almost they worship him. But whoever the savior was, they would have done the same. God grant it is a true leader and no black angel they follow so joyous

“But we are the good guys. Aren’t we, Uncle?” “I hope so. I hope we are.”

They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of hope, lack of something to live for.