David, the forgotten child: Between tower and trench

Von Helmut Lauschke

It was a lean little boy who was left behind and lost on the platform and was picked up by a woman in Wehrmacht uniform. "Boy, you can't stay here in the cold," said the woman, picking him up and carrying him into a small room that was heated. "Who are you waiting for?" She asked. "To my parents, they took the train without me," said the boy. "What's your name?" She asked. "My name is David." The woman in uniform: "And where are you from?" Boy: "We were brought on the truck from the village to the city and on foot to the train station, where we had to wait on the platform."

David: "Two things dominate the landscape, the towers and the trenches. In the case of the towers, the church towers differ from the watch and shooting towers and in the case of the trenches there are, on the one hand, the trenches for military defense and, on the other, the trenches for filling up with shot men, women and children. It is the landscape of desolation, depravity and forlornness and the shame of arrogance and the lack of bread and humanity. "

Professor David Blumenthal: "It was the time of the great trials of the 1950s and 1960s over the events of Auschwitz. On the one hand it was about the imprisoned people who had survived the concentration camp and on the other hand about the other people who were the perpetrators in the camps, be it as camp manager, "camp doctor", supervisor or other auxiliary person. During these processes, there were major problems reporting what had happened in the camp.

Access to the soul is through a door that requires a special key to unlock it. An extraordinary woman gave the word "soul unlocker". This woman saved my life at the time of the transports of Jews to the concentration camp Auschwitz when she took me from the platform as a forgotten nine year old child and took me to her little back house and gave me to eat and a place to sleep."

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Erscheinungsdatum: 25. März 2021
• ISBN: 9783753183770

Buchvorschau

Platform 3

Between tower and trench

The train left the child behind in the thundering snow and raging wind.

The child waits for the mother and her hand, everything else is unknown to the child.

Fear and storms cloud crying eyes in the thundering expanse of ruins and dead.

The child stands abandoned in the darkness, it calls to the mother lost and alone.

It was at the time when Jews and other people were being transported in crammed cattle wagons to the extermination camps in occupied Poland. Elie Wiesel adds the following sentence to the terrible events ("To bury the night, Elisha): Happiness is up there. Everything fled up there. How empty it is down here! There is real life there, there is nothing down here. Nothing, Kathleen. Here is the dry desert, the desert that is a mirage to everybody. "

It is the station where the child, overlooked and left behind on the platform, sees his parents drive away on the train. It is one of many children who is scared to death, calls for their mother and does not see their parents again.

It was a lean little boy who was left behind and lost on the platform and was picked up by a woman in Wehrmacht uniform. Boy, you can't stay here in the cold, said the woman, picking him up and carrying him into a small room that was heated. Who are you waiting for? She asked. To my parents, they took the train without me, replied the boy. The woman in Wehmacht uniform looked serious. What's your name? She asked. My name is David. The woman in uniform: And where are you from? Boy: We were brought into town on a truck from the village of Brimitz and then on foot to the train station, where we had to wait on the platform.

The woman in uniform with a serious face: David, you cannot spend the night here and you cannot stay here either. Keep quiet, I'll be back in an hour and pick you up. I have to lock the door and turn off the light while waiting. You don't have to be afraid of the dark. I'll be back for sure, then I'll take you out of here. Do you understand that? Boy: Yes, I understand that and I am waiting for you. Another question: are my parents coming back? I ask because every child needs their parents and I have such loving and caring parents. The woman in uniform: I don't know, I can't answer that question for you either. So wait until I'm back in an hour to get you.

The woman turned off the light, left the room and locked the door. David, the abandoned boy of nine years, felt totally abandoned. He prayed as his mother had taught him and asked God that his parents should return soon because he could not live without them. He falls asleep in the chair. In the dream his parents appear, smiling at him and comforting him with the words that he shouldn't be sad, because they would return soon and in the cold, despite the lack of briquettes, heat the apartment with raw lignite pieces and make it cozy. David replies to the parents in a dream that they should hurry back because he has to get something to eat and his bed to sleep in for the night.

The woman in uniform opens the door, turns on the light and wakes David from his sleep. He is shocked because he has forgotten that he is sitting in a room in the train station, albeit a heated one, and that he fell asleep there. With thin threads of memory he asks himself when the woman in uniform puts her hand on his right shoulder and wakes him up, whether it can be true that he saw his parents here and spoke to them, who smiled at him and comforted him with the words that they want to come back soon