AUSCHWITZ PLAN
Jose Vicente Cintas1
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In The Book of Names of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, among more than 4,800,000 names, our gaze falls on one name and two dates: Madrich Berliner Luftig (2-8-1938 / 12-9-1942)2.
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A young woman named Golda Luftig (1903-1942), with her parents, four brothers, and two sisters, leaves the Polish town of Chrzanów, approximately 20 kilometres from Oświęcim. Together, they head to Belgium. They settle in Antwerp. While there, they find out that the Spanish town of Guernica has been bombed by German air forces allied with the rebels against the Spanish Republic. It is April 26, 1937. This is the reason why Golda and her sisters decided to enrol in the International Brigades3. “The European left saw clearly what the democratic right chose to ignore for three years: Spain was the last bastion against the horrors of Hitlerism”4. Thus, and with more routes, finally the Luftig sisters arrived at the International Military Hospital of Ontinyent (Albaida Valley, Valencia, Spain). The hospital is run by the Workers' and Socialists' International and the International Federation of Trade Unions. Their duties included serving as nurses in the group of brigadiers known as “Las mamás belgas”5. They cared for all the wounded who arrived, also arrived those injured in the Aviazione Legionaria attack on the Xàtiva railway station (Valencia)6.
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Golda becomes pregnant. On August 2, 1938, she gives birth to a baby girl. She will be named Madrich. They can celebrate life amidst the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. But if a life is born in an oppressed context and without freedom, then life is a gift that cannot develop7. The inhuman living conditions soon get worse: Golda and little Madrich are in a critical situation8 . Writing about this mother and daughter is an act of necessary memory and resistance: “the history of Auschwitz […] is above all, the history of people”9.
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Starting on January 26, 1939, after the fall of Barcelona to dictator Franco's troops10, and then they were also arriving to the towns of the south bathed by the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Golda and her daughter are in evident risk. So, she decides to leave with her daughter the Valencian hospital. The negotiations made it possible to fly from a small Valencian airfield to the Algerian airport of Oran11. They continued their journey to return to Belgian city of Antwerp that welcomes Luftig family when they left Poland.
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But on September 1, 1939, World War II broke out. On May 28, 1940, the German army occupied Belgium. On 29 August 1942, the mother and daughter were deported to Auschwitz from Kazerne Dossin barracks in a group of 1000 Jews. Tragedy: "global totalitarian conditions"12. Golda Luftig and Madrich Berliner were murdered in gas chambers on 31 August 194213 .
The reason that motivated the Luftig sisters to enrol in the International Brigades had given rise to the painting Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso. In a relevant detail, the painter illustrates the most painful relationship between a mother and her daughter. It is the relationship that develops through death. Picasso went on to paint numerous versions of this detail14.
1 PhD in Philosophy (Valencia, Spain).
2 Throughout the article, this second date is the subject of a reflection that should not be concluded for now.
3 Tuytens, Sven, Las mamás belgas. La lucha de un grupo de enfermeras contra Franco y Hitler. Editorial El Mono Libre. 2019. Madrid. Tuytens published this study in 2017 in Dutch. The article has also been consulted is “Las brigadistas judías en la Guerra Civil: de España, rumbo a la tragedia europea”, El País, 3-3-2019.
4 Preston, Paul, La Guerra Civil española. Penguin Random House. 2017. Page 20.
5 The expression is of Spanish origin; in English it would be: “The Belgian mothers”.
6 The level of destruction and the murders were so immense that Xàtiva has also been known as the Valencian Guernica. In relation to it, Sven Tuytens offers more relevant information in the documentary he directed in relation to his book and of the same name, Las mamás belgas (2016). For additional information, the book by Joan J. Torró Martínez, Solidaritat en temps de guerra. Hospital Militar Internacional. Ontinyent 1937-1939. Institució Alfons el Magnànim-Centre Valencià d'Estudis i d'Investigació, 2023.
7 Eger, Edith, The Choice. Even in Hell hope can flower. Penguin Random House. 2017. UK. In a conversation between Edith Eger (1927) and a teenager, the psychologist and Holocaust survivor states: “When the only thing you can think is I don’t know, that saddens me. It means you’re not aware of your options. And without options or choices, you aren’t really living” (page 245). In The Choice are developed reflections based on her own experiences and books The Ballerina of Auschwitz. A dramatic retelling of The Choice and The Gift.
8 The concept of "extreme situation" was described by Karl Jaspers in Psychological World Views to refer to situations in which life is at risk and death is a real threat. Piotr M. A. Cywiński uses this expression to focus his valuable study Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human, where the author says: “Auschwitz cannot be fully understood in terms of dates, figures and facts. The history of Auschwitz is above all a massive human tragedy whose unique dimension goes beyond the confines of chronology and exists in parallel with, but apart from central historical statistics, facts and dates” (page 9).
9 Cywiński, Piotr M. A., Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Oświęcim. 2023. Page 9.
10 Although quickly, like Paul Preston, Primo Levi in The Table Periodic (1975) also refers to the immense importance of this fact. Highlighting it enhances the relationship between World War II and the Spanish Civil War to reconstruct the journey of Madrich and his mother.
11 Tuytens, Sven, Las mamás belgas. La lucha de un grupo de enfermeras contra Franco y Hitler. Editorial El Mono Libre. 2019. Madrid. Pages 186 and 223-225. This itinerary is also referenced in the book by Amalia Rosado Orquín, Españolas en los Campos Nazis (2024), Ed. Catarata. Page 289.
12 Arendt, Hannah, Los orígenes del totalitarismo. Alianza Editorial. 2022. Madrid. Page 535.
13 This date, which does not match the Valencian official Stolperstein date, it is intentionally incorporated into the body of this article. Although memory is not just a matter of dates, the objective is to promote research on the subject. This date is based on the transport list available on Kazerne Dossin archive. The date of the transport is given there, and it is known the date when the transport arrived at Auschwitz Camp later 1200 km. For now, and as far as research has been possible to today, there are different dates available regarding what happened. This is the reason for highlighting this doubt about the date of murder, it is to indicate the need for further research on the matter. The time elapsed between the convoy's arrival at the camp, and the murder of the deportees was very short, perhaps only a day. For a while it is known that the date of Madrich's death was between the end of August and the first half of September 1942. This is explained by investigations like the cited books of Amalia Rosado Orquín or Joan J. Torró Martínez and can be added La derrota perpètua. La Vall d’Albaida, la Costera i la Canal de Navarrés als Camps Nazis (2018), the collective book of Carles Senso, Guillem Llin, Ximo Vidal i Salvador Català, published by Ed. Reclam. In this last book, it is noted that “all those transported on the train to Auschwitz-Birkenau were gassed around September 12, 1942” (page 232). But the doubts around Madrich are not limited to the dates; Golda's daughter's name can also be read spelled in different ways: Madrich, Madric, Madrid. Even on the birth certificate of Civil Registry of Ontinyent, there was confusion in the handwriting as to whether Madrich was written like a boy and later like a girl. Surely, the clarifications will be made in the future studies, and many doubts will be dissipated soon, given the imminent and long-awaited installation of the Stolperstein in front of the house where Golda and Madrich lived the last days before being deported to Auschwitz.
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We may see and feel the fullest and irrefutable inhumanity of Auschwitz concentration camp.
Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz Memorial.