On November 19th 2015, I posted the lyrics of a Sixx: A.M. song…speaking of anyone knows what the band is up to these days? Do they still exist now that Nikki is playing Mountain man up in Wyoming? Which btw is about the smartest thing he did in his entire life. I'd do the same if I could. Now point, I posted the lyrics on the private blog, of a song that really spoke to me at the time;
''Paint yourself a picture of what you wish you looked like, maybe then they just might feel an ounce of your pain. Come into focus, step out of the shadows, it's a losing battle, there's no need to be ashamed. 'Cause they don't even know you all they see is scars, they don't see the angel, livin' in your heart. Let them find the real you buried deep within, let them know with all you've got that you are not your skin.''
I guess in 2015 I had a little hope. Hope for…I don't even really know. I don't know what I want. The ridiculous miss America ''what's the one thing you'd wish for?'' ''world peace''. Yes of course I want world peace but I was thinking about starting a bit closer to home. It's not trivial things I want, I honestly I only wish for happiness. And you know what's the dumbest thing? I don't really know what would make me happy because I don't really know what it feels like. Hm. Maybe it's not happiness I want maybe it's liberta. You know…freedom. And not the way David Hasselhoff is looking for it in his 89' hit single which as corny and cheesy as it is I actually love. No actual freedom, to live, create, feel, explore, just to be. You know what I mean? I guess if not before in the last months we all learned the meaning of it.
You know I've been to several Holocaust memorials and museums. Museums that document and explain the genocide, the imprisonment, the loss of freedom, the murders…there's a museum in Berlin with a huge tree where you get to hang your wishes, hopes, opinions of the museum on the huge branches. I wrote two one of them being that I wish, hope, dream, pray that nothing even remotely as horrible ever happens again. I don't know what to think lately with governments blatantly walking all over human rights, squashing freedom and ruining lives. It can't compare to the horrors of genocide obviously but it's a new and different type of horror which in itself is just as bad.
I was in Auschwitz in 2009. I never posted these, nor did I take many…feels I don't know, feels wrong taking pictures of a place where so many people died.
I always wanted to go, though it seems ridiculous wanting to see just what monstrosity human kind is capable of. My aunt didn't spend that much time there, nor did her sister, their mother on the other hand was there for three years and eventually died a little bit before the war ended. I didn't get much info from her, part of me understands because you live through such a thing you sure as hell won't be talking about it. And part of me is kinda angry, stories are dying with the survivers and I feel like each story deserves to be heard. Every victim deserves a voice. In those bits and pieces she told me about arriving in Auschwitz on the train, the screaming Nazi's the dogs barking, getting the tattooed number…she mentioned that the tattooist was kind. After reading the book ''The tattooist of Auschwitz'' I can understand why. She also told me about senior Nazi's she met, all those people from history, the monsters…we see them as…I don't know as what. But she saw them as real people. She told me that the ''Angel of death'' Dr. Mengele was in fact whistling and had children running around him all the time. A thought that makes your blood freeze over.
The story I wish most for, to hear it in it's entirety was how were my aunt and her sister released. The command came on paper from Hitlers office, may or may not be signed by him and arranged by her cousin that was a mistress of a senior Nazi officer. That's the one story I wish I heard but never really got the chance, my aunt was too reluctant to tell me anything but that he was an important figure in the Nazi machinery and the typical aryan man that fits the ideology, blond and blue eyed. Couple of pieces fell into place when I recently discovered some mangled letters with some ''Reichmark'' coins, she wrote to her mother in Auschwitz, she talks about forced labor in them, somewhere in Germany, near Munich I think, she mentions how loud the bombing of Munich was heard where they were.
It's really sobering how little things like an orange meant the world to them at the time. And it's sickening to think how human greed works these days. It's never enough. Anything and everything they have. It's never enough.
Why am I rambling? In the stack of my ''to be read'' books I had Heather Morris' ''Cilka's Journey''. It's been there since my birthday last year since it was a gift and I thought it's about time I read it. Because you know nothing like regular depression, mixing with seasonal depression and add a dark book to that as well. Don't get me wrong the book is great, just maybe the timing to read it is off.
I loved Tattooist of Auschwitz, Lale Sokolov was an amazing man and reading his story felt like a privilege. This book however once again received a ton of negative critique. Saying it's innacurate that things happening to Cilka are lies. Apparently Cilkas stepson himself filed a lawsuit against Heather Morris. Sigh. I didn't see it this way. Though Cilka Klein is obviously a real person, and she was both in Auschwitz and in Russia imprisoned this is by no means a biography, it clearly says on the cover ''based on a heartbreaking true story''. Of course all the facts can not be correct since Cilka was no longer alive to confirm or deny them. But ask yourselves how many Cilka's are there? I didn't see this story as Cilka's biography, I saw this story as a description of horrifying events happening to women during the war.
*spoilers ahead*
Cilka is first introduced in the Tattoist of Auschwitz, Lale called her the bravest person he knows. I think it was the curiosity of the readers that got Heather to write the story, we all wanted to know what happened to Cilka after the war and let me tell you something a Russian prison was not what I expected.
Cilka was brought to Auschwitz when she was only 16, she talks about the long train journey there, or if you prefer it's written how the train ride there would look like since this book is a mix of historic facts and fiction. We have a museum downtown that has a converted train cart inside, all walls of the cart are covered in pictures, posters of what Nazi propaganda looked like, one has a prison uniform behind plexi glass. Best part though is that there's a huge red button on one of the walls, if you hit that button, lights go off and the floors start shaking as if you're really on a train. You hear German screaming, dogs barking, the light is flashing like it would through wooden planks of the cart. It gives you an idea how it felt like for the prisoners arriving in these essentially cargo trains. Nevermind the lack of food, water, sanitation…
In the book we learn that Cilka was selected in a line up by an SS officer. The SS officer apparently made her an ''funktionshaftling'' (them crazy Germans with their complicated words) or simply put a ''Kapo''. Kapo's were prisoner functionaries assigned by the SS guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. In return their lives in the camp were a little easier if one can call it that, they got certain privileges as civilian clothes and private rooms as well as they were spared physical abuse and hard labor as long as they preformed their duties to the satisfaction of the SS. After the war though the term ''Kapo'' was used as an insult, Jewish chronicle said that it was the worst insult a Jew can give to another Jew. If I was deluded before thinking they were all just prisoners and didn't really understand the full extend of a Kapo this book cleared that mess up for me.
Cilka talks about doing what she had to do to survive. None of us really know what we would do in her situation so judging her or any other woman in her shoes is completely ridiculous. And she at least felt guilt and disgust and conflicted about what she was doing. Lets be honest people today do worse and not in fear of their life and get away with it just fine, probably sleep better at night than I do. What Cilka really did was act tough and cruel in order to spare the inmates from more cruelty that the SS would administer. I think the biggest issue with calling this book fiction was the fact that Cilka was Jewish and therefore no way a Nazi official would be with her. Uhm…how about Hitlers wife Eva Braun? It's kind of far fetched saying Cilka's story is untrue because a Nazi official wouldn't rape a Jewish woman.
Now imagine that after all she went trough in her time in Auschwitz when she's finally free. Free in a way I know they didn't think they'll ever be, she is accused of collaborating with Nazi's and is sent to a Russian prison ''Gulag'' for fifteen years I think. She finds herself amongst political prisoners and other women imprisoned for ridiculous crimes you'd not think are even crimes. The story follows what women had to deal with on a daily basis, hard labor in a coal mine, rape and beatings. A ''prize'' for induring war crimes, a ''prize'' for doing what you can to survive. I can't even imagine what that must be like. It's unbelievable how despite the cruel conditions, the inhumane treatment, prisoners showed kindness to each other. They helped each other. All I'm seeing today is humans but no humanity. If you lie injured in the streets, people will literally step over you. It's horrible. There's no kindness. There's no compassion. There's no love left.
In the Russian prison Cilka befriends a doctor who employes her to help her, first with administrative work, then when she realises she's gifted and a fast learner, she's trained to be a nurse. It's as a nurse where she meets a fellow inmate that she's seen around camp, Alexandr (which is a character based on her husband) who she marries later after being released from prison. But of course Cilka being Cilka can't keep silent about certain things because she swore to herself she'll never be silent again which brings her all kinds of trouble. What exactly…well you'll have to read the book. I'm not spilling everything here.
I think for me the most important thing about this book is to understand that Cilka was a real person, if that was the actual Cilka Klein or someone else is pretty much irrelevant. There were female prisoners that endured exactly what's written in the book, maybe my own family, that's a question that I'll probably never have answered. So however you take this story you need to understand that the main elements are true, the horrors happening were true and more important than that it's not all a horror show, despite it all there were positives, courage, compassion and most importantly love. Something I'm missing in our far less cruel world. Cilka was released few years earlier when Khrushchev came to power. The story may end with Cilka and her husband going on to live a long life together back in Czech Republic – Kosice to be exact. But really the story is not of the camp or prison as such, the story is of survival, how she (or anyone like her) managed to survive thirteen years of hell.
The book ends with a quote by Morris that says ''Stories like Cilka's deserve to be told, she was just a girl, who became a woman, who was the bravest person Lale Sokolov ever met.''. All in all, I loved the book, the heartbreaking story of hope and survival, it puts things into perspective for you. It shows you how your daily struggles are really not that bad. It shows you that though it seems like it's the end of the world you really shouldn't whine and complain. It shows you what true strength really is. I can't imagine what the women in my own family had to endure and honestly I'm really proud that I come from a line of such strong women. Women that survived and fought and never actually bowed down for nobody. And so I can't either. No matter how hard it gets, I need to be just as strong and carry on. Maybe alone. Maybe with people that think alike, but whichever way it goes I can't back down because I'd be a disappointment to them and that's far worse to me than anything else could be.
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