Survival in Auschwitz have meant torture and certain death. As a Jew, I was sent to near Modena, where a vast detention camp, originally meant for English and American prisoners of war, collected all the numerous categories of people not approved of by the new-born Fascist Republic. is, at the end of January At the moment of my arriva that fifty Italian Jews in the 4, there were about one hundred and rose to over six camp, but within a few weeks their number hundred. For the most part they consisted of entire families captured by the Fascists or Nazis through their imprudence or following secret accusations. A few had given themselves up spontaneously, reduced to desperation by the vagabond life or because they lacked the means to survive or to avoid separa- tion from a captured relation, or even absurdly to be conformity with the law'. There were also about a hundred Jugoslavian military internees and a few other foreigners who were politically suspect have made The arrival of a squad of German ss men should even the optimists the boventy in various ways without drawing the most obvious conclusions Thus, despite everything, t announcement of the deportation caught us all unawares, on 20 February, the Germans had,inspected the camp with tion of the kitchen service and for the scarce amount of wood distribution for beating; they mary would soon be opened. But on the even said that an in morning of the 21st we learned that on the following day the Jews would be leaving. All the Jews, without exception. Even the children, even the old, even the ill. Our destination? Nobody knew. We should be prepared for a fortnight of travel. For every person missing at the roll-call, ten would be shot. Only a minority of ingenuous and deluded souls continued to hope; we others had often spoken with the Polish and Croat refugees and we knew what departure meant. For people condemned to death, tradition prescribes an austere ceremony, calculated to emphasize that all passions and anger have died down, and that the act of justice represents only a sad duty towards society which moves even the execu- tioner to pity for the victim. Thus the condemned man is shielded from all external cares, he is granted solitude and, should he want it, spiritual comfort; in short, care is taken that he should feel around bim neither hatred nor arbitrariness, only necessity and justice, and by means of punishment, pardon But to us this was not granted, for we were many and time was short. And in any case, what had we to repent, for what crime did we need pardon? The Italian commissar accordingly decreed that all services should continue to function until the final notice: the kitchens remained open, the corvées for clean- ing worked as usual, and even the teachers of the little school gave lessons until the evening, as on other days. But that ing the children were given no homework. And night came, and it was such a night that one knew that human eyes would not witness it and survive. Everyone felt this: not one of the guards, neither Italian nor German, had the courage to come and see what men do when they know they have to die All took leave from life in the manner which most suited them. Some praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time. But the mothers stayed up to pre pare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed the luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hun dred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed to would you not give him to eat today? In hut 6A old Gattegno lived with his wife and numerous children and grandchildren and his sons- and daughters-in-law. All the men were carpenters; they had come from many long journeys, and had always carried with them the tools of their trade, their kitchen utensils and their accordions and violins to play and dance to after the day's work. They were happy and pious folk were first to and rapidly finish the preparations for the journey in order to have time for mourning. When all was ready, the food cooked, the bundles tied together, they unloosened their hair, took off their shoes, placed the Yahrzeit candles on the ground and lit the according to the customs of their fathers, and sat on the b soil in a circle for the lamentations, praying and weeping all the night. We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed every century Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruc- tion. The different emotions that overcame us, of resignation, of futile rebellion, of religious abandon, of fear, of despair, now joined together a a sleepless night in a collective, uncon trolled panic. The time for meditation, the time for decision was over, and all reason dissolved into a tumult, across which flashed the happy memories of our homes, still so near in time and space, as painful as the thrusts of a sword Many things were then said and done among us, but of these it is better that there remain no memory With the absurd precision to which we later had to accustom ourselves, the Germans held the roll At the end the officer asked Wieviel Stick?' The corporal saluted smartly and replied that there were six hundred a fifty 'pieces' and that all was in order. They then loaded us on to the buses and took us to the station of Carpi. Here the train was waiting for us, with our escort for the journey. Here we received the first blows: and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain, neither in body nor in spirit. Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger? There were twelve goods wagons for six hundred and men; in mine we were only forty-five, but it was a small wagon Here then, before our very eyes, under our very feet, was one of those notorious transport trains, those which never return, and of which, shuddering and always a little incredulous, we ften heard speak. Exactly like this, detail for detailgoods wagons closed from the outside, with men, women and children pressed together without pity, like cheap merchandise, for a journey towards nothingness, a journey down there, to- wards the bottom. This time it is us who are inside Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happi- ness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider that perfect unhappiness is equally unattain the antithesis able. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these ex- treme states are of the same nature: they derive from human condition which is opposed to everything infinite. Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and in the other, uncertainty of the following day. The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief. The in- evitable material cares oppose it: for as they poison every lasting happiness, they equally assiduously distract us from our misfortunes and make our consciousness of them intermittent and hence supportable the thirst It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, during hat kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both the journey and after. It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation: for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity. train did not The doors had been closed at once, but the move until evening. We had learnt of our destination with relief. Auschwitz: a name without significance for us at that time, but it at least implied some place on this earth. halts. The train travelled slowly, with long, unnerving Through the slit we saw the tall pale cliffs of the Adige Valley and the names of the last Italian cities disappear behind us. We passed the Brenner at midday of the second day and everyone stood up, but no one said a word. The thought of the return journey stuck in my heart, and I cruelly pictured to myself the inhuman joy of that other journey, with doors open, no one wanting to flee, and the first Italian names and I looked around and wondered how many, among that poor human dust, would be struck by fate. Among the forty-five people in