"Walking Tour"

We left this miserable hole Friday morning. A uniformed German SS soldier appeared and called on rabbis and families with four children and more to gather at the center of the yard. Our empty stomachs rumbling, we heard this Nazi bawl out instructions to us. We were about to start a long "walking tour". For many of us, this would be a death march to Auschwitz. I recall that he told us that there is no need to put resistance, as we would not be beaten - he has family too, and he is not a human dog.

Thus, after starving for four days, we commenced our march. German SS guards watched from both sides as we marched in rows of five. None of us tried to escape. We were too depressed, our will power broken down, wholly tormented. We soon arrived at a camp overcrowded with other fellow, desperate Jews, stopped for a while, and then continued the humiliating journey. As Jewish men aged 18-48 were long ago taken to forced labor camps, the marching contingent was composed of young girls, mothers, babies and children, along with many old and sick human souls. Trucks carried our backpacks while we marched for grueling hours in our mournful procession through small towns. The Christian townsfolk stared at us, nobody pouring tears, expressing sympathy our trying to stop the unheard of mass killing of the innocent. I can only recall the name of one town we passed through, Yozsa.

© David Muskal, 2001