Zyklon B gas chamber, Majdanek
In the days that followed I saw men weep while working with the pickaxe, the spade, in the trucks. I saw them carry heavy rails, sacks of cement, slabs of concrete; I saw them carefully level the earth, dig dirt out of ditches, build barracks, watch-towers and crematoria. I saw them consumed by eczema, phlegmon, typhoid fever, and I saw them dying of hunger. And I saw others who amassed fortunes in diamonds, watches and gold and buried them safely in the ground. And those who made it a sport to kill as many men as they could and seduce as many women as possible.
And I have seen women who carried heavy logs, pushed carts and wheelbarrows and built dams across ponds. But there were others who would sell their bodies for a piece of bread; who could afford to buy a lover with clothing, gold and jewellery stolen from the dead. And I also saw a girl (who had once been mine) covered with running sores and with her head shaven. And every one of the people who, because of eczema, phlegmon or typhoid fever, or simply because they were too emaciated, were taken to the gas chamber, begged the orderlies loading them into the crematorium trucks to remember what they saw. And to tell the truth about mankind to those who do not know it.
—Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 175.
