BatsheVa dagan
Greetings to you all. Hearty Shalom from Israel. It's hard for me to hide my feelings. I'm standing here, and I don't know if it's real or a dream that I've been with you 75 years since my great suffering here. I was Schutzhäftling, number 45554. Schutzhäftling in German is a prisoner under protection, but there, I mean here, in that reality, which existed here, that word did not mean protection. There was no such thing as concern for a fellow human or human dignity. On the contrary. A dictionary search won't provide a word to describe how they trampled on human dignity. So why was the term 'under protection' added to the word prisoner, Schutzhäftling - a prisoner under protection. How much in this is contempt? In the devil's world, where human dignity was treated like dirt, there was no trace of refuge for anything. I'm a Häftling, and all those people who were in the camp will surely be amazed, but I did not have a striped uniform, because it was not enough. And they gave me a Russian soldier's uniform; on a bare body and legs were wrapped in a prayer shawl taken from the Jews. And I had Dutch clogs, two different ones.
What else did they do to me? Apart from the number they tattooed on me, which is still as it was then, because it was well-tattooed, and I, for one, didn't recognise myself, and since these blocks had high windows, I raised my hands and then recognised myself; it was me. And well, the worst thing that I experienced at the beginning; it's hard to say what caused me more pain - tattooing a number on my arm or something else. It seems to me, however, that the most painful thing was losing my hair. It gave me a sense of feminine beauty; braids combed into a crown on my head, smooth and pleasant to the touch, and they were mine! And yet they were affected by the criminal hand; it took the crown from me and made me another sad, pathetic creature. My hand touched my bare skull, I stood in front of the window, the contour of my face reflected in it. An unfamiliar figure. Is that me?! Where is my crown?
I raised my arms through the corner before I even said that; I recognised my reflection in the mirror, well not in the mirror but the glass; it was me. My braids and hair were to serve other purposes. Who could have assumed that they would become raw materials for mattresses or carpets. The motivation for the haircut was different: that there would be lice on the head, but it was above a plot to deprive me of a human countenance. The hairs taken from me under duress grew back in accordance with nature and against all the odds. And along with them, a hidden dream lived in my heart: And perhaps, perhaps, tomorrow will still come? Tomorrow comes, and yet the memories remain.