Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Deportation from Kracow
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Kracow

Archive/File: pub/places/poland/krakow ciemna.street
Last-Modified: 1994/10/30

"Clusters of people were still coming, or being dragged, out of their
quarters. Some, still in nightgowns, resembled apparitions. Each
countenance -- young and old, healthy or sick -- reflected the painful
surge within each heart. Many, bristling with loathing, refused to move and
were practically kicked into their places. Nobody knew what was going on.

Methodically, the guards went back and forth through the rows of people,
sorting, picking their victims -- the old ones, then the young ones. The
older ones were crowded into another street together with the sick, many
who could scarcely crawl. Our row, we quickly concluded, could be the death
row for all we knew. We stood paralyzed when the SS men reached us and one
rested his sharp eyes on Anna. She drew up her youthful body to appear
taller and, unafraid, looked into his eyes. Oh, God, please don't let him
take her away from us, I prayed. When the SS men stiffly passed our row, we
all took a deep breath.
....

When the guards weren't in sight, we sat on our bundles and rested. We had
been standing there for hours. By now, thousands of people were gathered in
all the streets of the ghetto. Some were crying, some were screaming.
Others, hollow-faced from hunger and thirst, stood mutely in the cold air.
Wherever my eyes rested, I saw agony, unsurpassed by any I had seen before.

When we had first come into the ghetto, we still had some clothes, food,
and above all, hope. We thought that the war would last only a little
longer. Now, two years later, our clothes showed the wear and tear, our
stomachs were shrunken and empty, and our hope ... well, I still hadn't
given up, and yet I couldn't imagine how we could last much longer.

The Germans, however, had a most interesting `solution' to our problems.
Whenever our situation seemed impossible to bear, they found something that
would surpass it, something to show us we were actually lucky being where
we were, for it could be worse -- much worse.

In Ciemna Street, the guards kept counting and recounting the rows of the
sick, who were made to stand at attention while this was going on -- the
young ones, the old ones, anyone for that matter whom they wanted to
include. As soon as they had finished, the guards pointed their guns
towards them, and with a brief burst of gunfire across the walls of the
ghetto, all were shot to death."(Rubinstein, 76-78)



                              Work Cited

Rubinsteini, Erna F.  The Survivor in Us All - A Memoir of the Holocaust. 
(Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1983) ISBN 0-208-02025-X  

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