Real and unreal: Holocaust monologues

    [Katie Berces was 19 when the Holocaust started] We didn’t know where they were taking us, we didn’t know, We just saw the German SS came and one two three and we got the family ghetto lists together And then they took us to the wagon and they took Auschwitz . And that was our first arrival, and we was lucky because my mother was 47 and Mengele s ent us to left side, and who went to right side they all took them to crematorium My mother’s old sister we never saw her again Immediately. My other aunt I brought back from the other camp because I exchange her I did things unbelievable Because when you speak more languages you are more person That saved my life completely, the Russian language With my mother – this was the happiest time that we are still together Terrible thing we was standing every morning in “ Sara pel” as they used to call it – like the army, they counted so you shouldn’t disappear. But we had in four corners watchmens. One morni...

  My parents owned a fabric store, both in the business, I and my sister went to grammar school Life was very nice – normal. It was a hectic time for us. Our lives changed completely. Because they had different ordinances for Jewish people. They planned a head of time to solve the Jewish question. If you ever heard the term it was on Hitler’s mind He was obsessed with it, to eradicate the Jewish population. You can not step on the sidewalk, you have to go on the road. You have to wear the yellow star to identify you. Life was limited for us, beside that the next step was. Jewish people couldn’t have any jobs in the government, or couldn’t teach in the schools or whatever. They collected us all in the Beautiful synagogue. And they told us to take some belongings That they are going to take us to a ghetto. We should mark out belongings. This was all an indication that the would be misleading us to where we are going. They – so we all took along some items with us, basic...

    Is it hot or cold this thing they want me to breathe? I remember how warm I felt in the shop I kept before they came to tell me to leave. I have not felt so warm since though I have felt frightened. You can’t warm your fingers over a pot full of hope the way you can over one of burning coals. You can’t taste, smell or touch hope, and so, it lingers on the tip of tongue or finger or nose, illusive and deceptive when all you ache for is something real. So when I breathe this, will I taste or smell it? Will I feel some warm glow inside my chest? Sometimes, I ache to rush the wire just to be able to feel the penetration of bullets or blade, something solid against my flesh. But this thing they want to make us breath feel as evasive as hope, a tease, a deception, a sneak thief through the back door to eternity when I need to have it hit me full in the face. Is it hot or cold, this thing they want me to breathe?     Holocaust menu   ema...

  I hear it even in my sleep, the clink, clink, clink of what does not quite sound like falling bits of metal. I work in a room full of shoes, and wonder after so many days why so many people feel like they do not need them. The clink, clink, clink bothers me, rising and falling from a room beyond mine. I have tried to look in there a few times but rough hands haul me back. I do not know anyone who actually works in that room only people who work in rooms like mine, collecting items that people no longer seem to need, like hats and shirts and ties and pants. And those who work in those rooms also hear these clinks and also wonder what it is that sounds like metal but is not. We all try to picture articles of collected clothing that would make such a sound, and how much of this there must be to go on and on like it does. Clink, clink, clink. Even in my dreams.     Holocaust menu email to Al Sullivan

  I touch momma’s lips and they are cold. “Sometimes people get cold like that,” she told me once when we saw someone go cold on the train. But I never though momma would. She’s always the one who keeps me warm, especially when I am lonely at night. I’ve been lonely a lot since we left home and still don’t know why we had to leave, only that momma said we must. I didn’t like it so much when we slept in the street with all our neighbors who talked around fires about all the other people who went cold. I want to make momma warm again like she did for me. So I rub her hands until another lady makes me stop and the men with guns come and take momma away. Everybody is waiting here. But no one will tell me for what. Even momma wouldn’t say. And I’m cold and I’m scared that I might go cold like momma did, and I have nobody to rub my hands while I wait.   Holocaust menu email to Al Sullivan

   I don’t cry any more when they shoot someone. I think: “It’s only natural.” And I’m glad it isn’t me. It happens so often, I’m actually surprised that I’m not shot. When I hear the gun go off, I wait for the pain. I don’t look for reasons because I know there are none, only excuses. If you look at someone the wrong way. If you cower or cough. If you don’t look up when spoken to, Or look angry or sad or glad. Sometimes they shoot you no matter what you do. It’s only natural. It’s living that’s not, clinging to this thing in the middle of all this like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver knowing that out here in the wild sea full of sharks with guns, you can’t possibly stay alive. And the most deluded of us are the ones who think someone can save us. So I don’t cry when someone gets shot. I keep my mouth shut and thank God or fate or fortune that it isn’t me this time, and maybe it won’t be the next time either.   Holocaust menu ...