"I am Motke. I am the last of my village left standing. I will tell you a story so true you will have to venture past the radius of words to believe.
I survived The Chelmo death camp! At the age of forty seven years I returned to this Rzuszow Forest in Poland to tell you this story of one true day. The ghosts of memory still haunt the margins of my words. I tell you voices from unlived lives. Voices will speak in a mingling of past and present. I returned to this peaceful tree covered spot to kneel and kiss a holy ground. Returned to hear the humming beat of a thousand human hearts. By pressing my ear to spirit earth, I hear the beat of Mama’s pulse. I hear the sound of brother Itzhak’s scream and Papa’s moaning curse at murder’s gun. Time’s memory causing the rocks themselves to chant. Pine wind songs enter my senses as I stand in this green carpeted camouflage. Planted to conceal their murder scene from all generations of a future world.
The memories float out of my soaking mind like visions. Visions I pushed back for thirty years.
We lived as family in Grabow village, a short twelve miles from this killing field. At first, they came for only a few of us as product pieces for the gas. Then, the day before “Hanúkkáh” they came for all the rest of us. The German "S. S." troops and Polish police prodded us with clubs into Grabow square. In huge trucks, before daylight, they transported us to Chelmo village. We rode together as frightened children in dark swaying vans. Adults held their babies. Old grandmothers were pushed screaming to the floor. We could not see or know each other. The Polish police unloaded us with clubbing and constant shooting. There was always noise and cursing. It took only four uniformed German soldiers to guard us. The Polish police did all the work.
We unloaded like cattle, driven with clubs into a huge Catholic church in Chelmo. Its thick stone walls provided a convenient prison. Our Rabbi prayed we trade our hidden gold for mercy and release. Some held high their silver candelabrum in a pleading tradition set for a past thousand years. Some, fearing our path ahead, prayed to the cross and Mother Mary painted on the ceiling over our heads. Our large hysterical eyes sought hope from any icon, from any faith, for any comfort and deliverance. Dawn lighted up our last winter’s day beaming down through rose tinted windows: beaming down on hungry Hebrew mothers waiting, with a plate of devils at their door.
The church’s double front worship door were opened to three transport trucks. Our
human sorting had begun. Women and children were pushed into first two loads. Our
men were herded by Polish police into a third truck. My Papa and Uncle Franz were
brave. They struck a guard screaming, "Why?" The guard, a Polish neighbor they had
known, curses a luger shot, point blank into the open foreheads of them both. I watched a
“Capo” throw their lifeless bodies into our truck of men and boys. We took the short
swaying ride to the open doors of Chelmo Castle.The shouting, shoving guards unloaded us into the two large front halls of this cold, half ruined ancient fort. We strip and stand and wait. Soon, I watched naked, freezing white bodied women driven down a ramp into waiting vans of death. Marched by are Mama and her sister Mista for their slowly measured rides to forest graves. Slower rides were timed to force the killing carbon monoxide gas into the dark closed vans of screaming souls. The gas soon muffled all screams to moans and silence. The tall green pine trees sang wind songs, as the final “Kaddish,” for ditch side deaths beside waiting open graves.
Watching our freezing line of naked men with cold shrunk scrotums was the handsome
Commander "S. S." Major Rudolph Link. He stood, soldier erect, dressed in long coat of
black and green with warm fur collar. He was holding the leash and harness of a huge
black shepherd dog straining and snarling toward our line. As we marched by, brother
Itzhak, our high school running star, broke ranks and ran toward the wooden fence. "S.
S." Oberscharfüher Link waved down the aiming rifle guard, to bend and unleash his
great beast "Bruno." The dog’s huge jaws pulled brother down biting into Itzhak’s open
throat. Huge white teeth crushed his carotid, causing dark red blood to spurt over
Bruno’s lips and ears. Brother’s shrieking death scream ended in a gurgle. Proud Major
Link rehooked the beast and petted proud "Congratulations, Good Dog," for a job well
done. Some of brother’s blood dripped from Bruno’s jaws on the Commander’s shining
black uniform boots.I stood shaking in line watching the Capos take brother away. My feet turned to follow them when two strong hands grabbed my naked shoulder from behind. A voice said, "Stay-stay-swim. You must stay and swim on top as long as possible. Float on it! Ride each new wave at all cost. Think of nothing else. Survive, survive to tell, tell the world." The fingers squeezed so hard I became conscious of pain. I recognized the voice of our soccer coach, a neighbor who knew us from our village.
I survived the Chelmo death camp. I worked as part of the mess detail separated from the other prisoners. I lived in the rabbit shed with shackled feet. My work was to raise, feed and butcher rabbits for the soldiers mess. I swam on top watching other villages of innocents from all over Poland and Lithuania die in Chelmo. Two hours before the Russian army liberation, all prisoners were shot. I survived a glancing bullet to my head. A Russian surgeon saved my life. I survived to tell you this one true day. I lived to return at age forty seven to this Rzuszow Forest. My telling is a kind of prayer! I did not tell my wife. I did not tell my son. To live I must forget again. I deed my story to you. I am the last of my village left standing. I am reunited by "The Book." I am Motke."
The End