Final Exploratory Essay

The Box Cars Last Stop

Mary Charlotte Cannon

Gretchen Pratt
UWRT 1102
20 April 2015

Mary Charlotte Cannon

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Gretchen Pratt
UWRT 1102
20 April 2015
The Box Cars Last Stop

In this day in age, it seems almost impossible for someone to witness mass
killings going on for years and it become normal. The Holocaust is now seen as
something so unreal and far-fetched. However starting in 1933, hell on earth quickly
came to be. People were taken from their homes, and stripped of everything seen as
comfortable for them. Life after the Holocaust has been said to been more dreadful than
the event itself. Thousands of people dreamed daily about what it would be like to finally
leave the camps; however life did not just fall back into place. Survivors came home to
nothing: no family, no home, and no sense of getting their life back. Once death had
been surrounding and tormenting a person for so long, the question of how these people
eventually came to live a normal life again is thought by many. I personally cannot
imagine what it would be like to live a normal life and then all of a sudden have
government officials barging into my house demanding I pack a small bag with what I
will need and be ready to leave in twenty minutes. The Holocaust tore apart families and
left nothing in its track. It is just so hard to put into realistic terms just how awful it was.
The survivors of the Holocaust were given both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing
that they made it out alive, but it was a curse that they had to continue on in life with
family members missing, their house gone and having to start life over again.
Many survivor testimonies and personal stories taken from those who went

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through the Holocaust said it was hard to even fathom what was going on around. When
events like these were taking place and dead bodies lined the streets, the first instinct was
not to question but rather to go strictly on survival mode. When the German army came
in, they put placards up in the street. Every male Jew between the ages of 15 and 80 had
to gather in the market. We lived in a third floor apartment. I was frightened, so I hid in
the attic. I said to myself, "If they kill me, let them kill me here." My father and my
brother Leo went to the market. All the Jews were told to lie face down in the street. The
sun was hot. There was no food or water. If you raised your head, you were killed. They
shot every tenth or twelfth man to scare us Out of the blue, the Jewish population and
others who Hitler thought were genetically inadequate were taken from there home
either straight onto the box cars or into the town to be publically tormented.
When the actual events of the Holocaust were taking place, I believe that the
population was on autopilot. Events like these had never taken place on planet earth and
people simply did not know how to react. Men in uniforms would come to homes that
had been in families for generations in the middle of the night and petrify the family.
Men, women and children were told to pack a small bag, which they did not even get to
keep, with their valuables and anything else they found important. These people who had
been evicted from their home would then be shoved like animals into a boxcar and forced
to travel days and sometimes even weeks until they would arrive at a ghetto or
concentration camp. Eighty Jews ride in every compartment. Eichmann [said] the
Germans could do better where there were more children. Then they could jam 120 into
each train room. But 80 is no reflection on German efficiency. The 80 Jews must stand all
the way to Auschwitz with their hands raised in the air, so as to make room for the

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maximum of passengers. There are two buckets in each compartment. One contains
water. The other is for use as a toilet, to be shoved by foot, if possible, from user to user.
On these trains, many would die because of lack of oxygen, food and water. So before the
mass killings even began, these people would see a dead body next to them and have to
teach themselves to not let it have any affect on them.
In more ways than one, many families find different and obscure ways to hide
from the torture and awful world going on around them. Primarily children were hidden
during the Holocaust but ever so often an entire family would survive and hide as a
group. More than a thousand Jews were rounded up and sent to camps, where most died.
But Esther found another way. Along with her family, including her sons Saul and Sam
Stermer, 92 and 86 today, Esther spent nearly a year and a half underground, living in the
pitch black of two vast caves in Ukraine, along with 36 other Jews, to escape Nazi
persecution. "The secret is that we were in trouble," Sam Stermer told ABC News. "But
we never did give in." Esther was a young woman at the time who went on to talk about
how living in the cave saved her life and that the countless sleepless nights spent in the
cave with little to no food and dealing with dehydration was some of the toughest times
of her life. Even those not directly involved with the Holocaust were struck with grief and
grew too death as a constant.

Those who were not lucky enough to hide were sent straight to the concentration
camps. Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into
one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget
the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent

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sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget
the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I
forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never. Once they had arrived at the camps, families were split up immediately with
women and children in one line and men in the other. Most of the time, this is the last
time families would be together in whole. The women and children were most likely
taken to the gas chambers and killed instantly. However, very few women and children
were fit enough to be used for manual labor and stayed alive. For the men, the physically
fit and working able were sent to work and the rest headed for the gas chambers. In the
realest of terms, the Holocaust was honestly full of months passing on with more and
more people dying for no good reason and Hitler gaining more and more power. For
years, death was something that did not affect people. I cannot imagine just walking
down the street and seeing dead bodies piled up. Death no longer had a sting and did not
even demand tears. Many survivors from the Holocaust said that they just eventually
grew numb to death and saw it as something that was ordinary. It just blows my mind to
think of society now and how we handle death. Death is something that is talk about by
many and demands to be felt and dealt with. Comparing death in this day in age and the
time of the Holocaust are complete opposites. Death during the Holocaust was another
emotion that fell by the wayside.

On a day sent from Heaven, Adolf Hitler realized that he could not win the
Second World War and committed suicide in his bunker with the woman who he spent

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most of his life with. Once all of those who had been in the camps were free, their
perfect life was far from over. Many men who had survived the Holocaust never found
their wives and children again. The survivors would go back to what they used to call
home and see that nothing stood there. Even though these men and women fought day
after day, and year after year to stay alive; they did not have all of their wishes granted.
Survivors had mixed reactions to their newfound freedom. While a few looked forward
to being reunited with other family members, some felt guilty for surviving when so
many of their relatives and friends had died. Some felt overwhelmed, as one survivor,
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist, expressed: "Timidly, we looked around and glanced at each
other questioningly. Then we ventured a few steps out of the camp. This time no orders
were shouted at us, nor was there any need to duck quickly to avoid a blow or a kick.
'Freedom,' we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it."
Contrary to popular belief, the camps being liquidated did not mean that life was
now going to be perfect and things would go back to normal. These survivors had to
come out of hiding, finds way back to home and start a new life over. So much death
surrounded these people and took everyone they knew and loved. I personally feel for
those who came back to nothing. I could not imagine what it would be like to survive
something that detrimental and return home to nothing. Both the Holocaust and death
took no prisoners and destroyed anything in its path. I guess my real question would be,
how did these people grow and move on to produce a life that was semi-normal. Looking
back, countless survivors have spoken about how death is something they have sadly
become numb too. At first, many may seem like this is a hard concept to grasp but when
further diving into the subject, it is easier to understand. In modern times, death is not an

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everyday thing for everyday people. Once in awhile a family member or friend might
pass away in ones life but very rarely is this occurrence often. However, in the Holocaust
thousands upon thousands of men, women and children were killed and either left to rot
in the streets or burned emitting a putrid smell that could be smelt miles away. Survival
was seemingly the only thing on the mind of survivors, not on a random person dead
beside them. Why focus on death when that was the sole thing that sought to avoid?
As the years passed and the Holocaust ceased to exist, men and women were
thrown into the world and figured they had to start new lives. I cannot imagine what it
would be like to go into the Holocaust with your family and have the people at your
deathbed be different. The Holocaust is something that had death in, around and between
it.

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Works Cited
"Deportation to the Camps." Aishcom. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

"Holocaust Survivors: Joseph Sher's Story." Holocaust Survivors: Joseph Sher's Story.
N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

"Liberation." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust

Memorial Council, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

"Quotes About Holocaust." (197 Quotes). N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Moran, Terry. "Family Survived Holocaust by Living in a Cave." ABC News. ABC News
Network, 04 Apr. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

"Val Ginsburg | The Fate of My Community." Val Ginsburg. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.