This collection of stories is not one of the more well-known accounts of life in Auschwitz, at least in the United States, but it is no less an important piece of testimony, that is simultaneously tragic and humanizing. It was compiled by notable Polish author and journalist Tadeusz Borowski, who was actually born in the Ukrainian SSR, today a part of the Ukraine. His family was targeted by the Soviets during Stalin's reign of terror, as both of his parents had apparently been subjected to persecution when he was still a child. His father was sent to a Gulag camp in Russia for his membership in a Polish military organization during the first World War, and his mother was deported to a settlement in Siberia in 1930, during which Tadeusz lived with his aunt.
Tragically, Borowski didn't really survive the war. He was one of the many thousands who were just too traumatized to recover. I don't like to say that he "committed suicide," at age thirty. I think it's more proper to state that he was as much a murder victim as those who died by the millions in the camps, as his injuries he sustained there were just too severe to survive. Ironically, or perhaps not, he committed suicide by inhaling gas from a gas stove, in 1951, at age 28. His wife had just given birth to his one and only child, a daughter, just a few days prior to his death.
Borowski provides a unique description of his experiences, as a "privileged" prisoner, specifically a Pole, not a Jew, which meant that he was permitted certain allowances, such as parcels from home (there was a camp post office), including food and letters, and what most would consider at least a species of preferential treatment. He paints a portrait of a world of stark contrasts and impossible contradictions: on the one hand, there are the endless atrocities, like the transports, where thousands of people are unloaded at the ramp, to be led immediately to their deaths, where the "Canada" crew sort through belongings and cart away deceased infants from the trains who did not survive the journey.
On the other hand, there are the brief flashes of light in darkness, almost moments of normalcy in extraordinary circumstances: the construction of a soccer field, located just adjacent to the crematoria, the planting of flowers under the barracks windows, the adornment of the bleak buildings with designs using crushed red brick, the planting of gardens, at Auschwitz, replete with spinach, lettuce, sunflowers and garlic, irrigated daily with water carried from the lavatories. On the other hand, the young author noted that hunger remained a constant. One conversation on the subject resulted in another prisoner telling him, "you haven't really known hunger... have you? Real hunger is when one man regards another man as something to eat."
The soccer field the prisoners had built became a community space, where hospital orderlies and convalescent patients gathered to watch the games, where "anybody who felt like it came to the field and kicked the ball around." As one might expect, however, the scene could instantly turn dark: the author reported that on one occasion, during a Sunday game, "a train had just arrived. People were emerging form the cattle cars and walking in the direction of the little wood. All I could see from where I stood were bright splashes of color... I returned with the ball and kicked it back in a wide arc... I stopped in amazement-the ramp was empty. Out of the whole colorful summer procession, not one person remained... Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death."
Although not perhaps as introspective as the works of authors such as Elie Wiesel or Primo Levi, both of whom spent a lifetime utilizing writing as a means to work through their trauma (although the latter tragically also eventually succumbed to suicide, albeit in old age), this account seems more raw journalism than the type of philosophical treatises that emerged in later decades, when survivors had spent some years attempting to come to terms with their experiences, something that Borowski didn't get the opportunity to do, when death came for him at a mere 28 years of age.
----------------------
"For those who have suffered unjustly, justice alone is not enough. They want the guilty to suffer unjustly too. Only this will they understand as justice."
Tragically, Borowski didn't really survive the war. He was one of the many thousands who were just too traumatized to recover. I don't like to say that he "committed suicide," at age thirty. I think it's more proper to state that he was as much a murder victim as those who died by the millions in the camps, as his injuries he sustained there were just too severe to survive. Ironically, or perhaps not, he committed suicide by inhaling gas from a gas stove, in 1951, at age 28. His wife had just given birth to his one and only child, a daughter, just a few days prior to his death.
Borowski provides a unique description of his experiences, as a "privileged" prisoner, specifically a Pole, not a Jew, which meant that he was permitted certain allowances, such as parcels from home (there was a camp post office), including food and letters, and what most would consider at least a species of preferential treatment. He paints a portrait of a world of stark contrasts and impossible contradictions: on the one hand, there are the endless atrocities, like the transports, where thousands of people are unloaded at the ramp, to be led immediately to their deaths, where the "Canada" crew sort through belongings and cart away deceased infants from the trains who did not survive the journey.
On the other hand, there are the brief flashes of light in darkness, almost moments of normalcy in extraordinary circumstances: the construction of a soccer field, located just adjacent to the crematoria, the planting of flowers under the barracks windows, the adornment of the bleak buildings with designs using crushed red brick, the planting of gardens, at Auschwitz, replete with spinach, lettuce, sunflowers and garlic, irrigated daily with water carried from the lavatories. On the other hand, the young author noted that hunger remained a constant. One conversation on the subject resulted in another prisoner telling him, "you haven't really known hunger... have you? Real hunger is when one man regards another man as something to eat."
The soccer field the prisoners had built became a community space, where hospital orderlies and convalescent patients gathered to watch the games, where "anybody who felt like it came to the field and kicked the ball around." As one might expect, however, the scene could instantly turn dark: the author reported that on one occasion, during a Sunday game, "a train had just arrived. People were emerging form the cattle cars and walking in the direction of the little wood. All I could see from where I stood were bright splashes of color... I returned with the ball and kicked it back in a wide arc... I stopped in amazement-the ramp was empty. Out of the whole colorful summer procession, not one person remained... Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death."
Although not perhaps as introspective as the works of authors such as Elie Wiesel or Primo Levi, both of whom spent a lifetime utilizing writing as a means to work through their trauma (although the latter tragically also eventually succumbed to suicide, albeit in old age), this account seems more raw journalism than the type of philosophical treatises that emerged in later decades, when survivors had spent some years attempting to come to terms with their experiences, something that Borowski didn't get the opportunity to do, when death came for him at a mere 28 years of age.
----------------------
"For those who have suffered unjustly, justice alone is not enough. They want the guilty to suffer unjustly too. Only this will they understand as justice."
Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
