"I am here with my children, and my children had children of their own, and they are here, too. Can..."

By: vivian on quinta-feira, maio 03, 2018

“I am here with my children, and my children had children of their own, and they are here, too. Can you see?”

-

Motke Zeidel, a Holocaust survivor who escaped a camp named Ponar in what is now Lithuania; these were the words he said on his final visit to Ponar.

He was part of the “Burning Brigade,“ a group of prisoners who collected and burned thousands of bodies a week. Despite the horrible conditions, which included living on stew made of ice, dirt, and potatoes, and being chained together, the Burning Brigade managed to dig a 110 foot tunnel into the surrounding forest. The men worked in shifts throughout the night, with saws, files and spoons stolen from the burial pits. Only a dozen survived the attempt.

Though some Ponar survivors were documented after the war, the tunnel itself was lost, and thought to perhaps be an invention. It was only rediscovered in 2016. Zeidel, the brigade’s last living member, died in 2007.

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