I have just returned from a journey through several Extermination Camps in Poland. The stories that you’re about to read, simply popped up during this terrible but wonderful trip (which included a feature magnificent coincidence). Also, I sincerely think that every person deserves to visit Auschwitz at least once, the same way as everyone deserves to experience pure happiness, at least once. This good-evil-good axis is also commonly known as…life.

Yellow

…the old man looked a bit odd. His hair untidy, his glasses out of fashion. He behaved very insecure. Nobody wears these pyjama-like brown shirts anymore. Especially not with a yellow Star of David on the chest. For 200 EUR you can get one of those, second hand though, but still yellow. “Our revenge is the fact that we both are still here”, I said to him. “We are still living in Naziland”, he answered.

All I could do was simply getting out of the very non-kosher McDonald’s…

 

Wind of change

…the fascist right-winged dance ball took place, ironically, on the International Holocaust Commemoration Day. The warm atmosphere at the rally turned quickly into clashes between the demonstrators (most of them Hippies and Punks) and the ball guests. Oh yes, the police was also there. The only thought that went through my mind was: “wow, it is so much fun to watch how Neo-Nazis are being escorted by the police”, even though prison was not where they headed to. And then I saw it: they had fear in their eyes! There is a saying in Judaism: “The work of the righteous is done by others”.

Damn, it feels GOOD to see Nazis being beaten-up…

Guilt

…”I’m sorry”, said the seller in the tourist shop in Prague. “It’s good you’re sorry”, I thought to myself, “he didn’t kill your family”.

Could you tell me please, what is the punishment for stealing a mask from a shop? And what if it was in the shape of Hitler’s face? And what if it is the first time I steal anything from a shop? Business is business, some would say, people need to make a living. War was never more lucrative…

Oh yes, I did steal the mask at the end.

On a mission

…”amazing, out of this world”, said the Rabbi. Indeed. Who would have thought that this very suitcase in the exhibition room, belongs to the very same person, who lived in the very same building, with the very same address, where nowadays the organization that took me there is operating, and I, the one who goes to the activities of this organization, in the very same building, with the very same address, written upon the very same suitcase, who belonged to Raphaela and Sara Tausik.

Did G-d arrive to Auschwitz?

Epilog

These 4 stories represent somewhat our current reality concerning how the past still projects itself upon our lives. I started and ended this article by relating to Auschwitz. While I was there, I couldn’t stop thinking that everything there looks like a huge movie-set, taken from a foreign scene.

Until I touched a brick that lied on the ground, right next to the ruins of the gas chambers.

“These red stones”, I thought to myself, “these fucking red stones…”