Left or Right

Disclaimer: The following text is a description of an elderly Jewish couple on the train towards the Auschwitz camp. Characters in it are completely fictional, but all of their experiences are based on factual events, which means something similar to this would have happened to them.

I've been trying to keep count of the passing days while feeling the warmth of day and the cold whispers of the night's wind sliding through the wooden gaps of this walking prison. My children, and their children, they all got on the train before me, for that reason they were put in a different cell. We’re traveling together, though I am not with them. But I'm not lonely; beside me is my true company, my wife Vida, a true baleboste (master of the house). We both share the food we've brought to the train- in secret. A few others have also brought food, but some of them were not wise enough to keep it a secret, they've let other travelers see the food. Now, they carry no food and their bodies are soulless, while the thieves of this train feed on the bloody bread.

What's happening? I can hear the screams of rusty metal being dragged across rotting wood. The same sound of when the doors were closed. Suddenly, with the sound of an opening door, a mountain of light collapses into our cell with only one shadow being cast by a man that starts helping everyone out. The oldest ones cannot compete with the force of the young ones that fight to freedom and push us to the back. We were the last two to leave, leaving behind a cell furnished with corpses of the unfortunate ones.

After we leave the train they begin to take away from us what they believed we shouldn't have. My eyeglasses are taken from my face without a request and thrown into a hill of confiscated objects, in it, though it was hard to see, I recognised a unique familiar bag which belongs to a friend, and I now wonder: if it is a comfort or a burning sadness that he too is here with me in this place.

For now, I do not know what awaits me, but I do know I’ll find it impossible to sleep by the end of the day. I see the pain of the young ones that walk with naked feet on the hard gravel; they walk in front of me in a straight line not allowing me to see their faces of misery, but I can hear the torment in their gasps and involuntary shakes with every step they give. For an odd reason, Vida and I were allowed to keep our shoes.

The line is too long. We're the last two in a long, long, long line of people. In fact, people from the front are just dots. At least they appear to be so. Some moving left while others moving right. We wait and wait, as time is the only thing we have with us. My wife grips my hand with such strength that it makes me wince and awakes me from my thoughts. I look up to see what caused her a disturbance and see my family: my children in the company of their own children.

I might not see as well as I once did, but I can see a mile away when my little girl, Kiva, is upset. My children go right and their children go... left. They're not allowing this to happen, they will not be separated! They scream and demand to go with their children, they're threatened with guns aiming at their heads, but they're too brave.

I yell as loud as I can to go with their children.

The "doctor", which decides who goes left or right, fixes his eyes on me, his eyes move up and down- judging my appearance- his focus shifts to my walking stick, he remains unimpressed. In a rough accent, he asks me "Is this your wife?" I say "She is my wife, yes..." His face turns away and he whispers to the man on his right, he then proceeded with his work of pointing left and right. The man he whispered too approaches me with a warm smile and says "Come, you and your wife can accompany your grandchildren." and so we go towards the left side.

There's a repulsing smell of sweat and unwashed people, familiar to the one in the train, as we go into a room that was built underground, it has no windows and not much light survives in the sea of darkness that covers hundreds of people in the room. They're taking their belts off along with their shoes and jackets. I proceed to do the same. A man next to us has the same bag as mine. One of the soldiers approaches me and gives me a piece of chalk "For you to write your name on it." he said, "You should also tie the shoe laces together, we don't want you to lose anything when you come back."

We take our time and again, we are the last ones to leave.

The next room is... the next room is crowded, even more than the train, I thought such thing wasn't possible, but it is. My dear wife grabs my hand not to lose me. The children grab our legs. The man that advised me about the shoes approaches me on the edge of the entrance and pushes us to the crowd while another man closes the door. The arms and legs of those in the room move around like fishes out of water, all trying to fight for space to breathe; my chest is squished against the wall allowing no air into my lungs. In this room of movement, Vida can't stay still and she's swallowed by the crowd. I scream her name, hold her hand with a strong grip not to lose her, as the sea of people tries to take her away from me. Suddenly, I hear the voices of the little children- they're not with me! I travel towards them but the waves of movement are too strong- the bodies around me trap me as I hear the children scream for my name. A desperate man grabs my shoulders and pulls me down onto the floor so that he could put his head over the crowd and breathe. I try to knock him down, but I fail and fall on my knees… What smell is that? A repulsing smell. I open my mouth trying to breathe but I cough and cough, the harder I try to breathe the harder I cough. Everyone around me is in the same struggle- painful coughs, violent gasps and slow deaths. I still feel the hand of my darling- she no longer struggles, and neither do I.