Chapter 55 Section fifty-fifth

We were cornered by the pallets, and we sat stiffly all the way, and I found myself leaning frequently into the gap in the tarpaulin through which I could catch glimpses of the landscape as I passed. After only a few minutes of driving out of Plazo, we hit a steep hill, slowing down to walking speed, the engine struggling to haul a heavy load against the unforgiving slope.I glanced out of the car, unconcerned by the monotony of the scenery, and noticed that we were passing by rows of Jews, identifiable by their clothing, who were walking along the road at gunpoint. The road moved slowly. The speed of the car was so slow that I could scrutinize every Jew, so I looked one by one, hoping only to find Chaim or Golda among them, the hope in my heart fighting in vain with the reason in my head.

Of course, there wasn't a single person I knew in there.Unfamiliar faces passed by our car one after another, and I finally despaired.But when we reached the end of the slope and were about to speed up, what happened not far away made my eyes widen in horror again. I looked back at the direction I came from, suspecting that I had an illusion.Yet what I witnessed was beyond doubt.Everything happened right in front of my eyes, and the distance made it impossible for me to see all the details, but I would never be wrong.After the Jews arrived at the designated open space across the road, they took off all their clothes at gunpoint. Men, women, and children, without exception, stood in neat rows, one by one under the brutal machine gun fire. fall down.

When the truck drove onto the flat ground, the vibration of the engine subsided, and we could hear bursts of rapid gunshots. I blocked that side of the truck with my body, in case Ilo or Nikolay wanted to find out. I watched all that helplessly, morbidly fascinated.I saw the bodies of the Jews were torn apart by the bullets, and the flesh and blood flew everywhere. One group fell down, and the other group took their place calmly. Follow in the footsteps. While all this was happening, several bulldozers continued to roughly push the fallen bodies into a large pit. I don't know which is more incomprehensible: the massacre I'm witnessing, as if it were a commonplace act near a highway in broad daylight, or the way Jews march toward their death with quiet dignity.

A few seconds later, rows of birch trees obscured the view, and we quickly moved away from that horrible place, and those images became new memories, which could never be easily erased.That scene still lingers in my mind as we drive through the Polish countryside, trying to make sense, to find some logic, or anything close to normal sanity, to explain what I just saw. But that's impossible, because what I'm looking for doesn't exist.