A Lucky Child

“Each of us who lived through the Holocaust has a personal story worth telling, if only because it puts a human face on the experience. Like all tragedies, the Holocaust produced heroes and villains, ordinary human beings who never lost their humanity and those who, to save themselves or for a mere piece of bread, helped send others to the gas chambers. It is also the story of some Germans who, in the midst of the carnage, did not lose their humanity.” 

Buergenthal’s memoir is a moral story of humanity. Even as a young child, he observes the people involved in the Holocaust in detail and contemplates the motivations for their actions. Buergenthal’s own story is more a psychological and philosophical journey than one emphasizing his actions. The intrigue of the Holocaust, to Buergenthal, is what motivated the actors.

“Soon we were on our way to Poland. It took us a while to get very far, however, since we were trapped in the no-man’s land between Poland and Czechoslovakia. This strip of land measured some fifty yards from border post to border post. The borders were connected by a dirt road that cut through a field. On either side of the road ran a deep drainage ditch. The Polish border post was at one end of the road, the Czech at the other. As soon as we got to the Polish side of the border, the Polish guards would order us back to the Czech side. The Czechs, in turn, would not allow us to reenter. And so it went for days. To me, the strip of road seemed much longer than it probably was because of the many times we had to move from one end to the other, carrying or pushing our suitcases while the border guards kept yelling at us not to show up again.” 

An important and often overlooked issue facing European Jews at the time was their loss of citizenship. Germany denaturalized all Jews, and many other countries feeling Nazi pressure renounced the status of their immigrant Jews, which left them stranded in place, unable to escape. 

“But it was not to be. On our ‘lucky day,’ Hitler decided to invade Poland. When we arrived at the Katowice railroad station, where our transport was to be put together, the people from the British consulate told us that it was no longer possible to leave from a Polish port. Arrangements had therefore been made to get us to England via the Balkans.” 

Buergenthal’s story was one day late from not being told. If his departure date was one day earlier, he would have emigrated to England as a refugee and avoided the ghettos, labor camps, concentration camps, and death marches.