“..It would be hypocritical and arrogant on our part ..on ..part of those who never stood in their place and on ..part of those who succeeded in escaping from there ..like ..prosecution witnesses to make this truth a cause for criticizing those ‘little men’ who did not rise to ..heights of moral supremacy when mercilessly oppressed by a regime whose first aim was to remove ..human image from their faces.” Moshe Landau.

At the prosecution of one infamous such as Adolf Eichmann, and as one of the presiding Judges at the Eichmann Trial clearly recognised, the Jews who were his intended victims could not be blamed for what was intended for them. As we come to terms with the injudiciousness of what 6,000,000 Slaughtered Jews were not to receive by way of any form of Justice, all too many Germans were absent from the altar of such indictment. As the will of the Germans was obviously delivered so as to compel All Jews toward enforced compliance, Millions of these Germans, and their cohorts escaped all necessary judgement. In that final remit to force All Jews to fully obey orders, All Jews were obliged, as all people would be, to adhere to what seemed legal edicts in a wartime situation. The Final Solution of The Jewish Question was an enforcement notice that was detailing exactly of the very boundaries in which the Jewish People remained and were to be kept, detained and spared until the exit doors to the Death Camps were thrown open or the Killing Sites provided space for ever more Jewish Lives being stilled. Whatever then happened to those Jews in Death, Concentration, and Labour Camps, in Ghettos and Shtetl, mattered not a jot to a German occupying force furtively bringing all Jews within its sphere of influence, and ever eventually toward oblivion.

Then, and for as long as every single Jew of Europe was alive, and then met each other Jew along that single road toward their own Destruction, the Jews were inadvertently answering the calamitous call that was to emerge into the full-scale operation of The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. However, in all of this detail there are a Jewish People, better placed to know and share an understanding which still remains, incomprehensible to a World that does not fully know what it cannot fully appreciate, or even understand. One such Jewish Person, who traversed that very road toward the same destructive force which fell upon 6,000,000 of her own People was Bashe Krawtchik, nee Schiff. Bashe who emerged from a small Town, Korczyn, in Poland so as to deliver eventually her own testimony of what she managed to endure. This message, this lesson is for us to learn from or ignore to the greater harm to all which must civilise again the humanity that has been lost.

“..Dear friend Dawidowicz,

I am pleased to write to a dear friend of Korczyn about times gone by. You are probably curious as to the author of the letter. My brother Mordechai Schiff, who is presently in Austria, wrote me about you and told me that you are interested in my experiences during the war. I see no reason to deny your request and therefore decided to share my happy and painful thoughts of the period. You may not know me, but you are very close since your mother Pearl Yente was a close friend of my mother’s and they maintained excellent relations. I consider my story similar to the exit of the Jews from Egypt if not worse.

I shall begin with the outbreak of the war in 1939 and finish in 1945. Three weeks following the outbreak of the war, the Germans occupied Poland. Their entry to the city was very tragic for us. The first ordinance was on Yom Kippur day and ordered all the Jews to fill all the earth holes around town. These holes had to be filled smoothly, or the people would face death. This was their agenda for the day. Fasting since it was Yom Kippur, I joined other Jews. I took a spade and started to work as fast as I could. The German supervisors watched us and did not permit an instant of rest. Thus ended the first Yom Kippur under German occupation.

We returned home exhausted and tired from the heavy work. The slave work conditions continued daily, whether we cleaned the streets transferred goods from warehouses or unloaded coal from train cars. These working conditions lasted until 1941. Then started a series of edicts that culminated in the creation of the ghetto. How I suffered in the ghetto is beyond description and I am unable to describe it but am certain that other people described the living conditions of the ghetto.

With the liquidation of the ghetto, living conditions became catastrophic. The word resettlement send electric shock waves through us. Each person draw his own picture of the resettlement process but to all of us it meant that the weak, the ill, the old and the children will be slaughtered, the strong and healthy will be sent to work. I was one of those selected to work.

I was assigned to a factory that produced electro-mechanical parts for the German army. I worked in the place for two years and saw only barbed wire and heavy machines. My workday consisted of 12 hours of hard work serving heavy machinery. The latter used all my energies since we had to fulfil the quota set by the taskmaster. If we failed to fulfil the quota, we were placed on the black list that meant death. One could be shot or torn apart by dogs trained to kill people. This was the death camp of Plaszow. I must have had supernatural powers to overcome all these sufferings for it is difficult for me to perceive how I survived. People that were not in the camps will never understand the horrors of these places. Following two years of hard exhausting labour beyond our abilities, we moved to another camp.

We were constantly hungry since we were fed a half a litre of potato soup and a half a kilo of bread per day. The constant fear of the unknown made conditions worse. Rumours started that the Russian and American armies are approaching and we will be evacuated. We did not expect good things from the Germans and as long as they ruled we expected the worst.

Suddenly, the day arrived and we were called to the roll call square or appel-platz. I will describe for you the square. It was a big field surrounded with electric wires and each morning at six AM before we went to work, we were called to the square by a loudspeaker that uttered the words, roll call, out, out, faster, faster. The people lined up in rows of five and the SS man counted them. This procedure was repeated three times each day; before going to work, returning from work and before going to bed. If a person escaped or disappeared, twenty other inmates were shot.

On this day, the group leader informed us that we are leaving the camp tonight and ordered us to leave everything behind in Plaszow. I thought to myself, sooner or later we were all going to die, others in the group said let them kill us here why bother to drag us to other places. Still others hoped to survive the war. We started to march and walked an entire day until we reached a railway station. The Germans screamed and shouted for us to enter the cattle train cars with the sealed windows. They counted up to a hundred and twenty people per train car.

Then an SS man closed the door and told us to shut up. The entire train was packed with 120 people per car. Nobody knew where we were going. I still see the mother that died in the arms of her daughter for lack of water. She begged for water but nobody could provide her with the liquid. Nobody cried for the woman, as a matter of fact, some were envious of her situation. She was delivered and they still had to suffer.

The train rolled, we stood like mummies without being able to move, and there was no air. I mentioned to some people that I have a pocketknife and asked to get to the wall. The people moved and I finally reached the wall and began to loosen a board. I worked for some time and finally managed to open a sizable hole in the wall. We immediately saw barracks with their small lights. I screamed out, we are heading to Auschwitz. Hell broke loose, people screamed and shouted, the German guards threw stones at the car and ordered us to shut up. Twenty minutes later, the doors opened and we descended from the train and were counted. We lined up and marched like soldiers through the forest. We expected to be shot at any moment, why the delay, we are not far from the crematoria.

I saw the tall chimneys, taller than the ones in the factory. I smelled the smoke-filled air that was rising to the sky. My God, did you forget your people of Israel. I asked many questions, but nobody answered them. Is the world dumb to permit the murder of millions of innocent people. All of them asked for revenge but nobody listened. Should we resist but how, meanwhile we are paralyzed with fear. Then we heard the command that we will be showering tonight. As we approached the showers, I noticed a thick curtain that hang over the place and a guard at the entrance.

I mentioned to my friend that I would ask the guard what was behind the curtain. She told me not to ask such question since he may shoot me. I was bold and asked and was told that there was a kindergarten behind the curtain. Now I was certain that I faced the gas chambers. The last road that lead to the end, no return, this was where thousands of adults and children were gassed.

We entered a long barrack without windows and remained there the entire night awaiting our verdict. In the morning we awakened to the screams of the guards. They rushed us to undress and forced us to pass in review before so called German doctors that examined us if we were fit to work. The strong ones were sent to the right that is to continue slave labor. The weak, sick and hopeless were sent to the left that is the to gas chambers. Every woman that had to pass the review of the murderers felt debased and violated but there was no choice.

I was one of the lucky ones and chosen to continue to work. The next day we received a slice of bread. I had not eaten for two days and therefore swallowed the bread with one gulp as though it was a pill. My stomach was already accustomed to everything, grass, raw potatoes, a luxury in the camps, there were even fist fights over potato peels. Our new camp was Birkenau near Auschwitz. Here I remained three weeks under quarantine. Ten women slept on a platform of wood planks. There was no room to move or budge. The three weeks seemed like three years.

We were forbidden to talk loud, we received 5 minutes of fresh air before going to sleep. This bit of fresh air kept me going for the next twenty-four hours. Whoever did not adapt to the conditions suffered. Suddenly, a group leader appeared, a real beast, and ordered all inmates to line up. He checked every person thoroughly and those that looked fit he sent to another barrack where they would continue to work.

The others will be sent to the crematoria. I failed the test. I discussed the matter with a woman from Krakow and we decided to leave the barrack. When everybody was asleep, we jumped from the barrack and headed to the one that had received the survivors. We of course faced death if caught but that we already that sentence. We were all tattooed on the left hand and to today I still have the number that remains me of my bondage. It is Germany’s shame and not mine, thus was memorialized the brown beast. A new order started in Auschwitz. We entered a big building and received wooden shoes.

Here we started very heavy work. Going and coming to work we were escorted by a music band. We marched to the tune. Every direction was 10 kilometres. We chopped trees. Three women were given a tree and it had to be removed with the roots. The tools were heavy and the work was very difficult. We could not relax for a minute for the murderers were standing next to us with their dogs. These dogs could tear apart a human being in a matter of minutes. I was lucky that I managed to avoid whippings but I was constantly afraid, cold and hungry. Thus, we worked 14 months at which time I was totally exhausted.

Now begins a complicated game, as the allies approached the camp we are sent further away. The Germans packed us into cattle cars and sent us to Bergen Belsen in Germany. Allied planes flew above us and bombed some cars but we escaped injury. We reached the camp and new problems started. Nothing mattered anymore. We were 300 women in a room all stretched out on the floor. The people were no longer people. Many nationalities were here: Czechs, Belgians, Dutchman, Russians, Hungarians, and Poles. Ten women received one kilo of bread. I distributed the bread in our group. This was a trustful job since everybody was starving. I used a string to measure each portion so that it should be fair. We stayed in this place for 15 months.

There was no shortage of lice. Once a week we did not get food because we did not work.

Decisions. The Germans were busy with their own situations and forgot to assign jobs. They did not forget to punish us though for their errors. Many of the inmates lost all hope and collapsed. Suddenly we were on the move again. Nobody knew where we were heading. We were driven over unmarked byways. We walked over fields and through forests. There was no rest, people fall by the wayside like flies. We were exhausted, hungry and fearful. Cold rains, strong winds worsened our condition. The Germans shot anybody that fell and did not get up at the count of three. The fast pace was beyond our ability.

We started 1,300 women and were now 800. We no longer feared death. At last we arrived at Selenau, deep in Germany. Here a typhoid epidemic broke loose. I was affected and managed to survive without medication. How I survived is beyond my comprehension. There was no medical help or medications. I exchanged my bread ration for some jam. For two weeks I ran a high temperature of 39-40 centigrade. How I managed to overcome the disease is a mystery.

Every day, some dead bodies were carried out from the bunk. No sooner did I feel better, they rushed us to leave the camp. The Russians and the Americans were surrounding the Germans from everywhere but the latter were still preoccupied with us. We marched in the direction of Austria. Then they packed us into cattle trains and closed the doors. But the tracks were bombed and the train blocked. We sat in the train for 14 days until the tracks were fixed. The train rolled and reached Czech Territory.

Then a miracle happened, a Czech delegation came to the train and told the German guards that they brought food for the inmates. The Germans grabbed the best foods for themselves but let the inmates out of the train and lined them up. From sitting and lying, our feet were numb. We saw that the first inmates in line received a piece of white bread, a piece of salami, a piece of sugar, and a cup of soup. We began to cry from joy. Our hands trembled upon receiving the food. When my turn came, I kissed the bread and the Czechs cried. They also whispered that they would have brought more but the Germans did not permit it.

When I started to eat my food, I had terrible pain since my mouth was no longer accustomed to food. We constantly gulped and here we had food to chew. We will never forget the kind help of the Czechs that saved that day hundreds of women by giving them some food. The same day the train rolled again. The allied armies continued their advances, but we were still in German hands.

The firing could be heard in the distance, bombs flew over the train, but we continued to roll. Already three days we are squeezed together without food. I reminded myself that I saved a drop of salt in my bag, a luxury at the time. I licked the salt and took another lick and another lick. I said to myself stop it, save some for the next day and started to put it away. My neighbours saw that I had something and told me that nobody would survive another day. Better to distribute the item now while we can still enjoy it. I distributed the salt to everybody. Needless to say, I became thirsty and the thirst increased by the hour. Luck had it that it rained.

Everybody tried to catch a few raindrops through the pores of the car in order to quench the thirst. The train dragged forever and finally we reached the death camp of Mauthausen in Austria. We were skin and bone, skeletons, nothing resembling human beings. We did not have the energy to talk. They led us to the showers. We knew that this was the end. But we had luck, the crematoria was full with Russian prisoners of war and other transports that were ahead of us. So they took us to a big warehouse where we awaited our turn. Here we met other women from various other nationalities also waiting their turn.

We received pieces of bread that tasted like sawdust. We swelled up from the bread, the soup and the grass. Even this food is too good for you since tomorrow is your last day said an SS woman. So indoctrinated were the Germans that to the last minute they saw the Jew as their eternal enemy. But when the allies surrounded the camp, they disappeared like rats.

One beautiful morning at 6 AM, we suddenly noticed that the German guards disappeared. Nobody watched us, unbelievable. Slowly we hedged to the entrance gate and noticed that the guards were gone. We did not believe our eyes and began to run back and forth for joy. Next to us were the inmates that were not able to move, mere skeletons, dying people, a horrible picture. Those that had some mobility moved forward and saw in the distance a white flag. Now we must strengthen ourselves and perhaps take revenge I thought to myself. Then Russian and American soldiers appeared.

It was the 6th of May 1945. They immediately gave us assistance such as food, medications, and vitamins. They disinfected us but for many of the inmates it was already too late. No medicine or doctor could have saved them. Even the transition from evil to good required some strength that some inmates no longer possessed. The fact that I survived, I considered a miracle.

Slowly, I regained my strength and decided to move to Italy in order to reach Palestine. Nothing was left for me in Poland where my family perished. Everything was destroyed except for Polish anti-Semitism. I am already here two years and we still have not returned to normalcy. We are still looking for a better tomorrow. We live here in a camp, which is not normal, but we are free. The Italian people are very sympathetic and friendly. It is a year since I married Mr. Krawtchik. He is also survivor, he stems originally from Lodz, Poland. We have no income since we can’t work in Italy in spite of the fact that my husband has a good trade.

We greet you and send you our warm regards.

Signed,

Bashe ‘Schiff’ Krawtchik.

Sometimes it is imperative for you to steal into a story of such misery, which is so terrifying, and horrifying, it belongs gifted to us all. From another World what Bashe informs us, is for a better understanding that is to be given to us all, should we choose to learn from it. This detail was the letter written by Bashe Krawtchik, who Survived all that Hitler could throw at her, and for her to fulfil what 6,000,000 Jews could not, and these are from her experiences of being trapped in hell. While we extract from one tale, we reflect upon it, and hopefully further gain a pertinence that emerges at a trial for just one such criminal who reigned supreme of the Jewish People. Of course, and so as to deliver any form of judiciousness, a single piece of evidence, which should have condemned millions of Germans, and others, who acted in such a way, fell vastly short of the demands Lawfulness must bring to the tableau of Laws enacted to protect All People’s from other people. Sadly, and during a period when humanity collapsed, when civilisation disintegrated, and while the societal norms of human beings ran rough shod over other People, for being Jews, We must best imagine that laws defined would expressly function to detail the wrongs done against the Jewish people, and punish those who acted with malice and hatred. A malignancy and destructive capacity were directed toward the Jewish People, and yet, the Jewish People, all 6,000,000 of them were to receive no recompense for the crimes enacted against them, on the whole. Here was displaced, and to the outer margins of such cruelty, bestiality and terror were the markers now best defined as Genocide. Here, where the extremes of such hatred for a single People, the Jewish People was exacted, humanity dug deeper into the depths of an inhumanity which was clearly expressed, and in murderous terms 6,000,000 Jewish lives paid for.

“..Genocide does not necessarily mean ..immediate destruction of a nation ..except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at ..Destruction of essential foundations of ..life of national groups ..with ..aim of annihilating ..groups themselves. Genocide is directed against ..national group as an entity ..and ..actions involved are directed against individuals…not in their individual capacity…but as members of ..national group.” Raphael Lemkin.