Memoir of Tobi Komornik-Gerson
Compiled by Martin Davis © 2016

"Graveyards Unknown"

People, do you know of graveyards without a trace left to show that human beings are buried there? The fires are burning in the German camps. The prisoners never smile. There are thousands of bleak barracks. Around the barracks there are barb wires. The barb wire fences are lined with electric wires.   When the sun comes out somehow it is only for the German captors, but for the prisoners it seems always dark. Pains and complaints of the tortured never stop. We miss the days when we had freedom, we are bewildered! They bring more people to this man made hell! What is to become of the people? To the Nazis these people were lower than dogs. All the SS men were burly sadistic killers. Their red faces were evil and showed their mercilessness. We could feel that death was near us. It was cracking its whip to scare the people. Every minute we expected to be shoved into the gas chamber. Can you people understand what it means to be picked out? All you free people in the whole world, can you understand what it means to be called to stand in line and to think that it will be you who will be picked out for the gas chamber? With a clean heart and an innocent soul we struggled with the fear of death. The lawless convicted us, the innocent ones. The prisoners prayed with what little hope they had left in G-d. "Oh, merciful G-d, send us some help!" The last light in our hearts blew out and the last little hope diminished, while the ruthless Germans stood there laughing. Broken hearts, crying mothers. From the arms of their mothers the children were taken away by brutal murderers. The soul dying in them for their children. All free mothers and fathers in this world, oh free men, do you understand this? Where are the convicted's grave yard? With what kind of death did they disappear? Who is praying for their souls? Where are the children that were taken from their mothers? You haven't got a graveyard, convicted, but we keep your memory deep within our hearts and minds for always. And this will never be forgotten as long as we all shall live. The Jewish people will never forget. But the rest of the world - will they remember? That the German people committed the cruellest inhuman crimes against human beings ever before in the history of the world? Tobi Komornik-Gerson (1925-2008) Survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau & Ravenbrück KL