Ginna

“You've got to let go of who you were, to become who you will be.”
― Janet Fitch

“But this is how it is done: first just one ordinary barn, brightly whitewashed—and here they proceed to asphyxiate people. Later, four large buildings, accommodating twenty thousand at a time without any trouble. No hocus-pocus, no poison, no hypnosis. Only several men directing traffic to keep operations running smoothly, and the thousands flow along like water from an open tap. All this happens just beyond the anaemic trees of the dusty little wood. Ordinary trucks bring people, return, then bring some more. No hocus-pocus, no poison, no hypnosis.

Why is it that nobody cries out, nobody spits in their faces, nobody jumps at their throats? We doff our caps to the S.S. men returning from the little wood; if our name is called we obediently go with them to die, and—we do nothing. We starve, we are drenched by rain, we are torn from our families. What is this mystery? This strange power of one man over another? This insane passivity that cannot be overcome? Our only strength is our great number—the gas chambers cannot accommodate all of us.”
― Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

“It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end.”
― Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

“neither poems nor prose
just a length of rope
just the wet earth --
that's the way home.

neither vodka nor bread
just bursts of rage
just more new graves --
that's youth and that's love.

neither sleep nor waking
neither joy nor laughter
just tears in the night --
so the rope, paper, knife.”
― Tadeusz Borowski