“The story of the death camps should be understood by everyone as a sinister alarm-signal”
I love judging High School debates. This Saturday morning, I found myself at my kid’s High school library (where they quartered us judges) waiting to be summon to go judge my next round, when I look up and saw this small book titled above. I picked it up and thought to myself, given what is going on in the world today, we all need the reminders this book offers.
The author’s preface went to the heart of the matter:
As an account of atrocities, therefore, this book of mine adds nothing to what is already known…it should be able, rather, to furnish documentation for a quiet study of certain human aspects of the human mind. Many people- many nations- can find themselves holding, more or less wittingly, that ‘every stranger is an enemy.’ For the most part this conviction lies deep down like some latent infection; it betrays itself only in random, disconnected acts, and does not lie at the base of a system of reason.”
The author then dove straight into the story of his capture. He had fled into the mountains to set up Resistance movement but was caught by Fascist Militia and upon brutal interrogations that followed, he admits his status as “Italian citizen of Jewish race”. He was then sent to Fossoli, near Modena, a vast detention camp, where people not approved by the Fascist Republic are kept.
In January 1944, the camp had 150 Italian Jews but within a week the number rose to 600. Jugoslavian military internees were also camped there but within weeks, the German SS men announced deportation of all Jews without exception to Auschwitz, including the children, the old and the sick.
“In Hut 6A old Gattegno lived with his wife and numerous children and grandchildren and his sons-and daughters-in-law. All the men were carpenters; they had come from Tripoli after many long journeys, and had always carried with them the tools of their trade.”
I found this part of the story interesting as my great grandpa was also a carpenter. Twelve goods wagon was then used to transport 650 men for a journey towards nothingness. The train travelled slowly, with long, unnerving halts towards Auschwitz. Among the 45 people in the author’s wagon, only 4 saw their homes again “it was by far the most unfortunate wagon.”
Within two days of arrival, more than 500 were killed! It’s only those fit to work hard labor that were spared. The children, the old and the feeble sick were gassed to death at the gas chamber. “Thus in an instant, our women, our parents, our children disappeared. We saw them for a short while as an obscure mass at the other end of the platform; then we saw nothing more.”
To be continued
