Free A Murder in Auschwitz by J.C. Stephenson Page B

little bit of French to have a great conversation. He also has a wife and two boys at home waiting for him. I also found out that he did not much trust the French or like the English any more than I did! We had a good laugh about that!
    I even heard a rumour of a football match being played between German and British soldiers further up the line. Can you imagine that boys? Enemies putting down their guns and playing a game instead! But the next morning the big guns started shelling again and the war was resumed.
    The whole experience has heartened my confidence in the human race and shown that the proletariat are capable of working together in peace, as I have always known.
    If Christmas can stop a war, then everyone should celebrate! It was the best Christmas present I could have ever wanted.
    With all of my love,
    Papa’
    After she had read the letter, Meyer had asked her to open the present. It was a book by Erich Maria Remarque, ‘ All quiet on the Western Front .’
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Auschwitz, 24th July 1943
     
     
    DEATH camp. Meyer tried to take in what Geller was telling him. How could this be? He had heard about the concentration camps. He knew about the deportations to the east and had never believed it was for resettlement. He had always thought that they would be labour camps. In fact, Klara and he had discussed this many times over the years. If you were arresting all of the people from a large ethnic community during a time of war then it made economic sense to put that population to work. Otherwise, not only would they be a drain on resources, but you would be removing a percentage of your skilled workforce from wartime production.
    But to kill them? He could never have known. Never have guessed.
    Meyer thought back to when he first got off the train. The old people were guided away. It seemed kind at the time. They had been on the train for a very long time and would need to be processed first, fed and given water.
    The separation of the men from the women. At the time, Meyer thought it would be temporary. After all, they were in the same camp, which could not be so big that he would not be able to see his wife and girls. He knew that life would be hard in a concentration camp, but he thought that families would be allowed to stay together. Now Geller was telling him that he would never see his wife or children again. He pushed the images of Klara and the girls being led away from his mind.
    When Meyer had begged Geller to tell him everything he knew about the camp, so that he might work out where his wife and children were, Geller had explained that there was a women’s camp and the children who had not been sent to the gas chambers were allowed to stay with their mothers. He also said that the men and women rarely saw each other. However, depending on the work group Meyer was put into, he might be able to get a message to his wife.
    Meyer had had to ask Geller to repeat what he had said about what happened to those who had been selected for extermination, as he could not believe how organised the facilities were for the killing and disposal of such huge numbers of people.
    Geller had nodded when Meyer had asked him to tell him again about the selection process and the fate of the prisoners, as determined by which group they belonged to. Geller knew it was difficult to take in, especially if you were German. Meyer had been shocked that such things could be done to anyone, but especially your own countrymen. Anton Geller ran through what he knew of the processes used on those arriving in Auschwitz.
    First of all, the prisoners were split into those who would be capable of working and those who would not. The old, the infirm, the sick, and the very young were sent one way. As with the processing that Meyer had experienced, they were stripped and their possessions taken from them before being taken to large chambers which were filled with gas. The bodies were then taken to the crematoria and