The Choice

Auschwitz,” the student explains. “He wrote this book about it, just
aer the war. I think you would ĕnd it of interest,” he says, offering it
to me.
I take the book in my hand. It is slim. It ĕlls me with dread. Why
would I willingly return to hell, even through the ĕlter of someone
else’s experience? But I don’t have the heart to reject this young man’s
gesture. I whisper a thank you and tuck the little book into my bag,
where it sits all evening like a ticking bomb.
I start to make dinner, I feel distracted and out of my body. I send
Béla to Safeway for more garlic, and then again for more peppers. I
barely taste my meal. Aer dinner, I quiz Johnny on his spelling
words. I do the dishes. I kiss my children good night. Béla goes to the
den to listen to Rachmaninoff and read The Nation. My bag sits in the
hall by the front door, the book still inside. Even its presence in my
house is causing me discomfort. I won’t read it. I don’t have to. I was
there. I will spare myself the pain.
Sometime aer midnight, my curiosity wins out over my fear. I
creep into the living room, where I sit for a long time in a pool of
lamplight holding the book. I begin to read. This book does not claim to
be an account of facts and events but of personal experiences,
experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again. It
is the inside story of a concentration camp, told by one of its survivors.
e back of my neck prickles. He is speaking to me. He is speaking for
me. How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the
mind of the average prisoner? He writes about the three phases of a
prisoner’s life—beginning with what it is like to arrive at a death camp
and feel the “delusion of reprieve.” Yes, I remember so well how my
father heard the music playing on the train platform and said this
couldn’t be a bad place, remember the way Mengele wagged his ĕnger
between life and death, and said, as casually as you please, “You’ll see
your mother very soon.” en there is the second phase—learning to