Chapter 63 Section 63

Nicholas was terrified, and his faint cries were barely audible, and I didn't need to suppress him, and I feared that Ilo would cry too soon. We cuddled together, the innocence of our hearts lost in this dark and sinful place.But despite what I've seen and heard, I still can't accept the truth. No matter how much brutality I witnessed... the execution of my father; the cold-blooded murder at the Bucharest station; How much Henrik and Maxime warned, I still can't believe these horrible crimes, can't believe the bloody massacre staged here. It was all so unreal, and I started thinking to myself that none of it happened.It's hunger and tiredness that make us hallucinate.Or, I'll soon wake up in my own bed at home and find it all but a dark nightmare.

I wanted to comfort the two children, to deny what they had just heard, to give them hope, but my mind was no longer able to control my body.Unknowingly, I moved to the edge of the house where I was hiding. I didn't want to, but I had to see the truth clearly.I want to make sure that the horrible thing didn't happen, it was just a misunderstanding. For a moment, or a few minutes, or an hour, it's like nothing happened.The square is empty, the showers are silent.The chimneys of those great furnaces were close at hand, and a round of unwarming autumn sun was rising into the sky through the gray smoke haze that was constantly emerging from the chimneys.In the distance came the sound of factories operating, producing munitions for destruction and killing.Listening more closely, I could make out voices close by, coming from those showers, and I craned my neck, desperate to believe, to see those hundreds of naked Poles coming out of there , Back to the cold air outside, wash and disinfect the body, ready to put on clean clothes, and start working.

When the door of the barracks opened from the inside, I could barely contain my surprise and almost rushed to meet them and hug them.Celebrate that they are still alive. However, when the first workers in striped prison uniforms showed up dragging a cart, my fantasy was replaced by horrific reality.I guessed what was on the cart before it came into view, but I still stared, unable to take my eyes off the horrific sight. I didn't want to face it, but I couldn't avoid it. I watched carloads of entangled corpses being transported across the square, passed in front of me, and sent to the furnace in the distance.

I watched this scene, and finally suddenly realized.Those four huge chimneys towering above the birch forest represented only one purpose.There is a crematorium, designed and built for the sole purpose of burning the bodies of the innocent victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau.