Ein Überlebender aus Warschau: Originaltext
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Arnold Schönberg
#
I cannot remember ev´rything. I must habe been unconscious most
of the time.
I remember only the grandiose moment when they all started to sing,
as if prearranged, the old prayer they had neglected for so many years
- the forgotten creed!
But I have no recollection how I got underground to live in the sewers
of Warsaw for so long a time...
The day began as usual: Reveille when it still was dark. "Get out!"
Whether you slept or whether worries kept you awake the whole night. You
had been separated from your children, from your wife, from your parents.
You don´t know what happened to them... How could you sleep?
The trumpets again - "Get out! The sergeant will be furious!" They
came out; some very (slowly, the old ones, the sick ones; some with
nervous
agility. They fear the sergeant. The hurry as much as they can. In vain!
Much too much noise, much too much commotion! And not fast enough!
The Feldwebel shouts: "Achtung! Stilljestanden! Na wird’s mal. oder
soll ich mit dem Jewehrkolben nachhelfen? Na jut; wenn ihrs durchaus
haben
wollt!"
The sergeant and his subordinates hit (everyone): young or old, (strong
or sick),quiet guilty or innocent...
It was painful to hear them groaning and moaning.
I heard it though I had been hit very hard, so hard that I could not
help falling down. We all on the (ground) who could not stand up were
(then)
beaten over the head...
I must have been unconscious. The next thing I heard was a soldier
saying: "They are all dead!" Whereupon the sergeant ordered to do away
with us.
There I lay aside half conscious. I had become very still - fear and
pain. Then I heard the sergeant shouting: "Abzählen!"
They starts slowly and irregularly: one, two, three, four - "Achtung!"
The sergeant shouted again, "Rascher! Nochmal von vorn anfangen! In einer
Minute will ich wissen, wieviele ich zur Gaskammer abliefere!
Abzählen!"
They began again, first slowly: one, two, three, four, became faster
and faster, so fast that it finally sounded like a stampede of wild
horses,
and (all) of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began singing the Shema
Yisroel.