My Mother Was Viennese

As a picture emerges in my mind of my mother being herded into a cattle truck forced to stand during the two-day nightmare journey to Auschwitz and then arriving there in such a weak condition that she would immediately be selected for the showers; stripped naked and finally slowly painfully choked to death alone and abandoned amidst the unimaginable terror of the gas chamber I ask myself the question: why was I spared what entitles me to lead this charmed life of mine? And then I think: what can I do to somehow 'atone' for my good fortune? Perhaps the answer to the last question is: I can at least record my mother's tragic fate in the hope that together with thousands of other not-so-different stories it can touch hearts and keep this abominable example of man's cruelty to man alive in the minds of future generations.