Feb. 7, 1943





I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I was back home in my hometown of Frankfurt, Germany, and I also dreamed, oddly that I wasn't Jewish. I dreamed that I was sitting with my family eating and laughing at breakfast, I dreamed that I could walk to school and that I didn't have to have that yellow star on my shirt, I dreamed that at school I wouldn't be known as a Jew, but known as everyone else, I dreamed that Hitler didn't exist and that the Nazis didn't run the country, but the part that stuck out; I dreamed I wasn't a JEW. It was a beautiful dream, but it was only a dream. Why would God give me a dream like that, because when I awoke it wasn't by myself, it was to the searing pain of a whip cracking across my back and a Nazi guard pointing a gun in my face. Oh Lord what has this world come too? If I could ever use you it would be now, in the middle of this brutal winter of 1943, send someone to give me freedom. Oh Lord, please.


Today was far from the dream I had last night, from my cramped block I walked across a snow covered yard to my work in the factory making airplane parts for the people I hate with all my heart, those Nazis, those d*** b****rds. Why can't they send me to a death camp, at least they will put a bullet in my head and I won't have to live under the reign of Hitler. I guess I am in a death camp though. They call the camp I'm at Auschwitz, they call it a work camp, but we all know the game by now, it's a concentration camp, its a place where we go to die, and by we I mean Jews. Everyday I walk past the showers, but oddly I see old frail men and sick people walk into the showers, but they never come out, maybe they left. maybe they got out and are going to bring help. Maybe Im just a god d*** idiot for thinking that. They didn't get out, they are dead in a grave somewhere, we all know it, but I hope to God, even if he isn't listening that I never have to go and find out what it is in those showers. Holy s***, and I don't cuss much, mother always told me it wasn't looked on kindly by God, but desperate times change people, and not only am I desperate, but I'm furious with God. The guard came in a second ago and beat an old man, that means we better get to sleep. Lord, please let me have a nightmare, because thats what I'm living.



Feb 13 1943




I haven't been able to write for a while, the Nazi's have ramped up production on military equipment. I get back to my barracks and I fall asleep right away or I just forget to write. I had that dream again, and this time I dreamed that I was playing soccer with my friends in the park, the trees were green as was the grass stain on my pants. It was a beautiful summer day. I was running down the field with the ball on my foot ready to strike it, and a beautiful girl walked by and gave me a smile, and then her face turned into the face a frail man who had been beaten by life. It was the face of my father, a once strong man, a man proud of his jewish standing. He was an attorney in Frankfurt, and a good one at that. I never thought that my father, the strong man that I saw every morning could be this beaten down, and sadly I knew that he would probably be sent to the showers and like so many others would never walk out. I love my father with all my heart but since passing through the gates of this h*** in the middle of barren Poland, he has been a broken man, a man who still wants to believe that my mother and youngest brother are still alive. I want to believe the same thing, but there is no belief or hope in this h***, there is only h*** and the devil runs this play ground.


After roll call this morning the man next to me forgot to say his name, he was shot. I had never seen a person die before and that quickly. As I looked down the snow turned to red and then I looked at my shirt and it was spattered with blood. I had never seen so much blood before, I never would've thought the human body had that much blood. It was so red, and thick, and flowed like a river down the small hill in the snow. Promptly two SS guardsmen took the murdered man away with blood dripping from the hole in his head. As they carried him away, his eyes were still open and his mouth looked as if he were smiling, smiling right at me with his brown eyes. His none aryan eyes.


The image of that man dying stuck with me throughout the day, and as I was working I stop working for a second to reflect on what I saw, and as soon as I did, a guard took the butt of his gun and hit me across the chest with it, knocking me to the floor. Sick, cruel, pig b****rd, if I weren't so weak, I'd stand up to you and knock you one across the chin. They would surely send me to the gallows or the firing squad for that, or kill me on the factory floor, but I'm not afraid to die, not anymore. I wish to die, pray to die every night.
Feb 16 1943


When I awoke this morning it was to the sun shining on h***. It seems as god is looking upon us at this very moment, but for how long will he watch us? I prayed that he would watch us for a while longer so that he could end this h*** and slay the devil known as Hitler and return us to normalcy. However, by mid afternoon when I looked out the window the clouds had closed and the sky was gray and a light snowfall was blanketing the camp and covering the blood stains on the old sheet. H*** the Nazis will fix that, new blood will soon canvas this blanket I fear. I'll never look at snow the same.


Work was h*** today, but I did my part for the allies today. I didn't assemble their airplane right, I hope that plane crashes and takes her crew with her. Anything, no matter how small helps. Surprisingly the guards weren't as bad today, maybe because, the other day was valentines day. We all know what that means. I haven't much to write about tonight, and I'm afraid that the guards will find my notebook and beat me for it, freedom of speech is that even a thing? Lord please grant me freedom, that is all I ask for.
Feb 26 1943


My father was killed today and I was beaten for screaming when they led him to the showers. I now know that they aren't showers, they are gas chambers, and those peacefully kill you, or not because, nothing is peaceful here. Everything is violent and death is everywhere. I wish that they could have just sent me with my father to the gas showers, I could be free with God right now, and not under the oppression of Hitler. Instead of death I have walked the camp in a daze and with a pain in every inch of my body and the cold makes the pain worse and the cuts burn like fire. I'm afraid my cuts might become infected if they go untreated and in this place it's almost assured that they will. They are deep too, deep and still seeping blood, and tears are streaming down my face slowly and dripping into my soup as I try to eat what little they give us. I know my father is being burned some where but he feels no pain. He is with god and as I passed the crematorium I saw smoke rise from the chimney, and I like to believe that was my father floating to heaven.


For some reason the hope and faith has been sucked out of me, and I wonder why, even though I know the answer. This camp has drained me of who I was. Drained me of my physical stature, drained me of my faith in God, drained me of my family and everything else. All I have to me is a number and stripped prison fatigues. Hitler has humiliated me and the Jews across Europe and I hope the Americans find him and put a bullet though him, but thats a slim chance. I want my life back, and I want to be free, and I don't feel like writing anymore, because, I find the more I write the more I have to remember this experience by. I might as well throw my notebook in a fire, but I will be beaten for having it in the first place. Freedom, what a beautiful thing, and it would be. If i had it.