18 October 2012
I am inspired to tell you a story, that happened to me long, long ago, whilst working in a nursing home.
I had just returned from
a couple of weeks holiday and was told of a new lady come to live with us. I bounded up the stairs ( I used to do a lot of bounding then) and went to say hello and ask her if she would like a cup of tea.
When I entered the room she was just sat there, not on the bed or the comfy chair but on a hard little stool, facing slightly away from me. I spoke gently to her, said hello and told her my name. Absolutely no response at all!
I might not have been in the room. I thought she had not heard me and so went to stand Directly in front of her. And that is when I saw something so awful and terrible, that it will stay with me for all of my life. Something I hope never to see in anyone ever again.
She looked straight ahead, not at me but through me.
She was gaunt, pitifully and painfully thin, her clothes hanging off her like rags. And worst of all this awful air of dejection, as though even the last ray of hope had been taken from her. All of this was bad enough.
But it was her eyes... Her eyes that I still see sometimes even though it was many moons ago. They were like the cold, icy windswept plains of Siberia on a dark winters night. There was nothing there... And everything there!
I went silently from the room, unable to formulate words for what I had seen.
When I asked what was wrong with the poor lady upstairs, the Matron said simply "she was in "Auschwitz."
I never spoke to that lady again, but I remember. I will always remember her!
I wanted to tell this story because my daughters' friend has to go to Auschwitz for a history trip and does not want to go. Funny that!!
My question is what sort of a society sends 15 year olds off to experience such a place. I know if my daughter Lucy had been told to go I would have refused to send her. Thank goodness we as a family are outside of such a system.
Auschwitz • Opuss № I