All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [56]
On April 10 we were back on the Appelplatz, ready to be evacuated. But once again we were told to go back: “Tomorrow will definitely be your turn. The last convoy leaves tomorrow.” That day I stayed behind. Someone else took my place. Since then I have often wondered who left because I stayed behind. I will never know him, but I know I owe him my life.
Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945. Actually, the camp liberated itself. Armed members of the Resistance rose up a few hours before the magical appearance of the first American units. Gustav ran from barracks to barracks in our “small camp,” his pockets stuffed with grenades. Elated prisoners put the SS to flight. Soviet prisoners of war commandeered American jeeps and drove off to punish the inhabitants of Weimar, city of Goethe. Some of us organized a minyan and said Kaddish. That Kaddish, at once a glorification of God’s name and a protest against His creation, still echoes in my ears. It was a thanksgiving for having spared us, but it was also an outcry: “Why did You not spare so many others?”
Strangely, we did not “feel” the victory. There were no joyous embraces, no shouts or songs to mark our happiness, for that word was meaningless to us. We were not happy. We wondered whether we ever would be.
Later I would hear speeches and read articles hailing the Allies’ triumph over Hitler’s Germany. For us, Jews, there was a slight nuance: Yes, Hitler lost the war, but we didn’t win it. We mourned too many dead to speak of victory.
I wandered the camp dazed and confused, joining one group only to drift to another. Glancing at the sky, staring at the ground, I was looking for something, though I didn’t know what. Maybe someone to whom I could say, “Hey, look at me, I’m alive!” Another word that didn’t mean much. Would I ever again know what it meant to be alive?
I will never forget the American soldiers and the horror that could be read in their faces. I will especially remember one black sergeant, a muscled giant, who wept tears of impotent rage and shame, shame for the human species, when he saw us. He spewed curses that on his lips became holy words. We tried to lift him onto our shoulders to show our gratitude, but we didn’t have the strength. We were too weak even to applaud him.
A soldier threw us some cans of food. I caught one and opened it. It was lard, but I didn’t know that. Unbearably hungry—I had not eaten since April 5—I stared at the can and was about to taste its contents, but just as my tongue touched it I lost consciousness.
I spent several days in the hospital (the former SS hospital) in a semiconscious state. When I was discharged, I felt drained. It took all my mental resources to figure out where I was. I knew my father was dead. My mother was probably dead, since Mengele would have considered her too old to work. Likewise my grandmother. My little sister was too little. I hoped Bea and Hilda might still be alive, but how could I find out? Lists were being circulated. Racked with anxiety, I devoured them. I found nothing but was told not to lose heart: other lists were being drawn up. They came, and I leapt upon them. Still there was nothing. Here and there my eye fell upon a Wiesel, but no Bea or Hilda. Feig, Deutsch, Hollander, Slomowics—some names of cousins were there, thank God. But where were Bea and Hilda? Each list carved a deeper void within me. I was free, but I was more distraught than ever.
We held meeting after meeting. What were we to do now? Where should we go? We could not stay where we were indefinitely.
The American military authorities urged us to make a decision. There were about four hundred of us children and adolescents—the youngest a boy of six or eight, the future chief rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau. The future scientist Izso Rosenman was a little older. Some men from Sighet, who had arrived from neighboring camps, urged us to go home. “We’ll be greeted like princes,” one of them said. “We’ll be able to do whatever