Night Diary Entries

Chapter 7

Dear Diary,

After being transferred into a differerent Kommando block than my father, my father was put on the list.

He was selected for the crematorium.

In this parting, I refused to accept my father's fate. I could only take my inheritance gifts and turn my back from him. I life to work in the construction block for the day, hauling stones. 

When I came back to the camp, I knew I would find myself alone.

However, walking back, I could see his figure standing in line. Despite the odds, he somehow passed the selection, and I quickly returned the knife and spoon I "inherited."

In the harsh cold of winter, my leg also started to swell up.

In the infirmary, a great Jewish doctor decided to operate, so it wouldn't have to be amputated.

Life in the infirmary was much better than the one outside with better food and no more work.

With the insight of a nearby patient, I began to question my usefulness to the Germans.

After the operation lasting an hour, the doctor told me I would be resting my body in the Infirmary for two weeks.

Rumor of the battlefront drawing near to Buna began to spread around the camp. The camp evacuated to an unknown location, but the sick would stay.

My depressed friend had the wonderful idea that all the sick would be killed within the furnaces. Though, I was not thinking of death like my optimistic friend, but I was thinking of the separation between me and my father.

That was when I decided that I would go with him. The meaning behind my decision to stay with my father was based more on greed rather than my own hospitality as I believed I could not last with my father at that time.

With hope or fear, neither would carry us to what lay ahead. After the war, I learned that the Russians liberated the sick that stayed within the infirmary.

Elie