Kfar Saba, 2016
If, if, if I survived and I was capable of perhaps returning to Greece…
The single, single thing left to me that could perhaps allow me to live and try to remain alive -because it didn’t depend just on me- was the possibility of finding [my father], since I already knew about my mother and my little brother … As soon as we arrived in Auschwitz, immediately after we were examined by the doctor, just five meters away, they did the selektsia at once, they straightaway put my mother and little brother on a car and directly drove them to the gas, to the ovens. Therefore, I knew that my mother and little brother weren’t alive.
My mother’s family, her siblings, they had younger children and I was thinking there’s no way they’re alive anymore. The only thing I kept thinking the whole time was that, upon my return, if I survived and the war ended, and if the Germans allowed us to live – because perhaps they wouldn’t want us to survive and reveal what had happened, what they did to us – therefore, and if, if, if I survived and was capable of perhaps returning to Greece, I could find my father alive. Because many times I was truly, completely desperate and many times I would say “I’m going to go to the bathroom and he can write down my number, because I can’t take it anymore”.