Almighty God, let the cries of the multitudes of murdered children reach the hearts and minds of men, and help them in their eternal struggle with the forces of evil, darkness and prejudices. Almighty God, full of compassion, let the cries of the innocent and helpless creatures help man understand that he is created from dust and to dust he returns, leaving behind him only, his good name created by his deeds.

A widow sits at home and weeps. Perhaps the older son will bring something from his smuggling. She does not know that a gendarme has shot her son dead. . . But do you know that soon everything will be all right again? (From Janusz Korczak - Ghetto Diary).

The gas-chamber was crowded with Jews but one Jewish boy remained outside. An SS-man approached the boy and tried to kill him with a stick. Mangled badly, with blood dripping on all sides, the boy lay motionless. Suddenly , he jumped to his feet and silently looked at the SS-man with a childish , innocent gaze. The SS brute burst out laughing, took out his revolver and shot the child. (From the Diary of a Jewish Sonderkommando, found in 1952).

A miracle happened in AUSCHWITZ. Lily, a beautiful eight-year-old doll, survived the gassing. She was lucky. When Leon, the Jewish Sonderkommando, pulled her lithe body to transport her to the crematorium, she opened her eyes and asked. "What happened to me? Where do you take me?"

Leon, faced a dilemma. "What shall I do? Burn the girl alive?" Risking his own life, Leon smuggled the child into the dormitory, and hid her under his bed. She stayed there for two days, until she was discovered by the supervising SS-man.

The SS-man took Lily outside and . . . shot her. "Burn the body in the open pit," he ordered. " I can't sidestep the Fuhrer's order."

And so the splendid German Death Machine, has proven its efficiency, once more. An order is an order. Deutschland uber alles.

Ghetto of Rohatyn 1942. A heavyset German climbed the steps to the attic, in search of the Jews. He spotted a two young children, hiding behind a black trunk.

He slowly approached the children, frozen with fear. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled out his bayonet and . . . grabbed an old quilt, ripped it apart and covered them with a heavy layer of white feathers. "You remind me of my own children. How can I harm you?" He said quietly.

It was an act of kindness. It gave the children, left without parents, a few months of a wretched life. Six months later, they were shipped to Belzec, for gassing.

At the Umschlagplatz, the transfer point to the gas chambers, a three-year old boy asked: "Mommy, why does Hitler hate me? He doesn't even know me. I am a good boy, Mommy."

"Yes, you are a good boy, and therefore we soon will be reunited with Daddy and Rachel." Answered the mother, reassuringly.

In a small ghetto, a ten-year old, homeless orphan, was laid up with typhoid. He lay outdoors, on a bundle of straw, covered with snow. Fed by some good souls, he miraculously survived the typhoid, the high fever and the cold. . . to be shot by the Germans.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, Shlomo wrote in his diary: "My father is a fighter. Everyday he fights for a piece of bread. " Soon afterwards, Shlomo was shipped to Tremblinka.

In a small ghetto of Rohatyn, the Nazi raiders approached the bunker and the six month old baby started to cry. Scared, the mother pushed a pillow to the baby's face, to muffle the cry. When the Germans left, the mother removed the pillow and found the baby dead. Choked to death.

In a small town of Lithuania, a mother with a four-year old daughter on her hands, stood in line to be shot.
"Mommy, why don't we run away. They are killing us." Pleaded the child. "Where shall we run?" Answered the mother.

A run down street in the Ghetto. Three youngsters aged three to five years,are playing on the elevated sidewalk, made up from stone uprooted from the Jewish cemetery. The ancient Hebrew inscriptions are smeared with brown mud.

A small boy, dressed in oversized blue pants with a etheric body supported by needle type legs, stretches out his hand and imitating a gun, points his finger toward his companions, exclaiming:

"I am a German, you are Jews. Puff! Puff! You are dead."

"Not fair! Not fair!" Objects another boy. "I am the German and you are a Jew"

He points his finger at the boy in blue paints. "Puff! Puff! You are dead."

Market day in small town Sandomierz, Poland, after the war. The market was full of peasants selling eggs, chickens or butter wrapped in green leaves. It was a hot summer day. Suddenly a ten-year-old girl, dressed in a peasant's garb, ran out of one of the houses, screaming: "Help! Help! The Jews want to kidnap me. The Jews are kidnaping me."

Police intervention, averted a riot. It turned out that the girl was Jewish, and she was brought to the city for identification. The peasant, who saved her, received a 2000-dollar reward, and the girl was returned to her aunt. She is now an established and successful physician. The "kidnaping" was successful.

Sandomierz, Poland 1942. Shlomo felt the pangs of hunger and left the ghetto to get some food, in a nearby village. On the way he was intercepted by "Bloody Edzio," the nasty German Gendarme who was known for his sadistic practical jokes.

Shlomo, the fourteen old boy, recognized Bloody Edzio, and started to plead for his life: "Please let me go. I have an old mother to support."

"I will let you go, after we arrive in the ghetto." Promised the Gendarme. He tied Shlomo with a rope to his horse and started to gallop The emaciated boy could not keep up with the horse. The boy screamed, and the more the boy screamed the more the sadist whipped his horse.

Bloody Edzio, dragged the body to the ghetto and there he kept his promise, and let the boy go. Shlomo died two hours later.

Sandomierz, Poland 1942. The newly established Hitler Jugend Camp requested from the Jewish Council, 50 Jews to be sent for a forced labor assignment. When the Jews started to work in the garden, a Hitler Jugend boy approached a Jewish boy and shot him, for fun, with a small caliber gun.

The wounded boy, started to bleed, but continued working. He worked to the end of the day, and was leaving when an adult German, intercepted him, let him to a tree and shot him at close range, declaring: "A Jew wounded by a German, has no right to live."

kimel@systec.com