Lessons from Auschwitz

1. Lessons from Auschwitz

2. Pigtail When all the women in the transport Had their heads shaved Four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs Swept up And gathered up the hair Behind clean glass The stiff hair lies Of those suffocated in gas chambers There are pins and side combs In this hair The hair is not shot through with light Is not parted by the breeze Is not touched by any hand Or rain or lips In huge chests Clouds of dry hair Of those suffocated And a faded plait A pigtail with a ribbon Pulled at schools By naughty boys

3. GenaTurgel Gena was born on Krakow in 1923 and survived Plaszow, Auschwitz- Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. “We must have been walking for about three weeks and it snowed all the way. We kept wondering: ‘When will it end? How much further?’ As we got nearer to Auschwitz and the German border, some people came out their houses with buckets of water and deliberately poured it on the ground in front of us, to mock us. Some stood eating chunks of bread as they watched us pass by… At Auschwitz- Birkenau, every last remnant of respect and dignity was squeezed out of us. In our lose, striped, insect ridden clothing and with our hair cropped or shaved, we felt completely dehumanised.

4. Elie Wiesel Elie was born in Romania and deported to Auschwitz where his parents and sister were murdered. For a part of a second I glimpsed my mother and my sisters moving away to the right… I saw them disappear into the distance; my mother was stroking my sister’s fair hair, as though to protect her, while I walked on with my father and other men. And I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. A little farther on was another and larger ditch for adults. I pinched my face. Was I still alive? Was I awake? I could not believe it. How could it be possible for them to burn people, children and for the world to keep silent?

5. http://vimeo.com/49219159 • http://vimeo.com/56898216