-Hasta la revolucion, siempre!

Uncle Valdemar welcomed us at the airport already shouting his staff and in his spare time speaking ill of President Bolsonaro. It was November 2019, the long-awaited trip to Poland, Germany and Holland.

Dad, son of a former military man, was fascinated by war matters, along with his brothers.

Between a laughing Aunt Aliana, a funny and distracted Uncle Valdemar, my cousin Lucas’s comments, and Dad’s ironies, my expectation was the best possible.

From Munich to Krakow I felt very bad and I could hardly stand.

At the airport, when I picked up my bags, Lucas’s joke about harassment in the car warmed and comforted me, as I had had indigestion earlier.

Dad joked:

-If they told me to keep my underwear on the x-ray, they would see what a handsome boy I am!

I laughed and saw that the laugh did me good. The van dropped us off near the hotel and we still had to pull our bags up to the hall in the rain.

Upon arriving, I am dazzled by the square at night, all bright and vibrant. A charm. The hotel was right on the square and was small and charming. It had real pumpkins in the decoration, because Halloween had just passed. Subi, I took a shower and went down to dinner at the hotel cafe with Mom. I was asleep, and blacked out as soon as I got to the room.

I woke up refreshed and the breakfast was highly stylish, worthy of a photo. The next day was a city tour with Rafael, our Brazilian guide.

In the huge square of our hotel there was the first modern shopping center.

In the afternoon, when we arrived, I went to the salon to get my nails done and got lost on the way back. I forgot that the hotel was in the square, next to the Benneton store. I took a taxi that had taken me to the square but couldn’t recognize the hotel. blonde and very benevolent helped me and called a second taxi, to the same square.

Until a message from mom saved me and I found the hotel, I finally got to the room, to Grandma’s relief!

The next day it was the day to go to Auchwitz. The van was already waiting in the morning, I didn’t want to go, but in a last attempt Mom came into the room and convinced me.

The road in the fall was beautiful, the countryside with its villages and factories very picturesque.

But nothing can prepare you for that.

From a distance I saw the famous sign: Arbeit Mach Freit, which means “Work free”.

We held hands and we prayed  the Lords prayer at the entrance.

The public was largely student.

The suffering and pain there gave more chills than the 5 degrees.

The accommodations today are museums with photos and reconstructions of the time.

I saw the famous blue suit with white of the Jews. The energy was strong and a smell

of pain pierced the glass that held them. Smell of despair, of anguish, perdition.

I thought: sorry. Sorry that you have known the worst of humanity.

Hair and braids, glasses, bags and even crutches.

Everything that time has preserved with the aroma of pain.

In the Birkenau camp, with the sun already setting, I walked with my mother hand in hand towards the exit, and I imagined that nothing could be worse than a camp like that.

At that moment I remembered an even comical scene: she, in Teresina, bald from chemotherapy, wearing white and blue striped pants, identical to that of the Jews. My mother, bald, without nails, crying resignedly in her warm and welcoming home it seemed like a tragedy. Imagining those mothers who were also bald and without their children neither warmth nor cover, minimized my pain.

That desperation machine from a nation with the wounded ego of the first war left the feeling that being happy today is a way of telling the Jews in the countryside that their suffering was not in vain. That their suffering made me resize mine.

As soon as I arrived in Teresina, I talked to a spiritist friend:

-After I got there I don’t want to believe anything …

-What matters are the souls. The body passes, he replied.

They say that God gives the cold according to the blanket.

I don’t know. There was no blanket, no heater, no light at night for those poor Jews.

There was a thread of hope that death took away.

A mother seeing her 3-year-old son go to the gas camera for no reason is worse than death.

Why do we die in life when the meaning is taken away from us.

We die in life without a heart warmed by the love of those who love us.

And today, I know that my life is good, worthwhile and I am in a position to help others.

I don’t know life in general, but mine is like that.

The trip came to an end and my feeling is one of pure gratitude. I arrived with a warm heart of joy and discoveries.

I saw that hate can build walls, drop bombs on cities,kill millions in concentration camps.

But only love reconstructs and everything it encompasses. Courage, overcoming.

I see countries that are now modern, happy, vibrant and it’s hard to imagine so much pain and suffering in the years just under 100 years ago.

It is not your religion, color, origin or profession that makes you better, but love, respect and charity for others.

Love is what makes us more human and heals wounds.

Only love is worth it. 2/6/2020