A young boy from Warsaw

I watched hangings.

I never saw a single victim weep.

Except one.

There, in the middle of the camp, in the Appelplatz,

stood a black gallows

Two SS were headed towards the solitary confinement cell.

They came back, the condemned between them.

A young boy from Warsaw

A sad eyed angel

Tortured and condemned to death

An icy wind was blowing violently

He marched,

Snow Piled high,

Without faltering,

To the gallows.

An SS unit appeared and encircled us:

One SS every three paces.

Hundreds of eyes were watching his every move.

Hundreds of men marching with him.

The Machine guns on the watch towers were pointed towards the Appelplatz

"Caps off!" the Lagerälteste suddenly shouted.

Ten thousand caps came off at once.

"Cover your heads!"

All eyes were on the child.

He was pale.

Almost calm.

His eyes damp from tears and snow

The Kapo wanted to blindfold the youth,

But he refused

The hangman put the rope around his neck

Just as the Kapo was about the give the signal.

The boy.

He was crying.

Sobbing.

Screaming.

Fire! Fire!

Look at the flames! The huge flames! Fire! Flames everywhere!

Beneath our feet there lay men,

Crushed,

Trampled,

Underfoot,

Dying,

The Icy wind whipped my face.

All around me was a dance of death.

I was walking through a cemetery.

Among the stiffened corpses, there were logs of wood.

Not a sound of distress,

not a plaintive cry,

nothing but mass agony and silence.

Nobody asked anyone for help.

One died because one had to.

No point in making trouble.

I saw myself in every stiffened corpse.

Soon I wouldn't even be seeing them anymore;

I would be one of them.

Like a sword, the order cut through the air.

The executioner had completed his work.

“Caps off!”

It had stopped snowing.

The boy had stopped crying.

“Cover your heads!”

As for the rest of us.

We were weeping.