Firsthand

It is 12 o'clock and a crowd remain seated in the auditorium of my school. The last three grades are gathered, waiting, looking forward to see her. Finally, is the vice director of our school who speaks: 'Please all stand up to welcome Brygida Czekanowska'. Everyone cheers a little old lady who walks towards the stage, weak, but brave. It is the first time she speaks in front of so many people. She is the one. A survivor, a witness. A woman who lived the History personally. With soft speech, she starts to speak. 'I have only felt fear...'

Brygida Czekanowska is a former inmate of the concentration camp Ravensbrück, who survived the Holocaust and is now dedicated to informing new generations about her experience. She was born in Poland and lived her first years in Warsaw. When the IIWW started and Poland was conquered by Germany, her father didn't wanted to sign the 'Eindeutschungsvertrag', a sort of contract which made him German, because he said he was Polish and nobody could change that. Because of this, after uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, she was deported with her mother. Every woman was placed in cattle cars and taken to Ravensbrück, where Brygida was imprisoned for 8 months. She was placed with the other women in tents with straw mattresses. The next day she and the others were taken to barracks where they made ​​them undress and then get their heads shaved. Brygida had never seen a naked woman before. The men gave them blue-gray suits like as seen in movies and they told them they had to work hard. Finally, the SS men took away them the last vestige of dignity they had: their names. They were replaced by numbers they had to sew to clothing.

She said that it was not so hard for her because she spent almost the whole time with her mother, and she luckily had a supervisor who took pity on her and sometimes gave her an apple (they were allowed to eat only rock-hard bread). She also was treated in a better way than the others because she was able to speak German. But the worst of all is that she witnessed all the atrocities done to others, and she felt very helpless especially with older people. I could not understand much of what he said but my brother translated me the main things. Despite she talked for about two hours, I noticed that no one moved even a hair. They had goose bumps.

The conference was actually all about racism, and before she left the place, she thanked everyone and once again reminded us that all people are equal. When she was over, some students were allowed to debrief her. One girl asked her what would she do today if she had the opportunity to sign the contract pleading as a German to avoid all the horror time. Brygida glanced at everybody in the room and then she answered: Of course I would not!