Ruth Klüger – Lost Days

Lost Days

In the distant past, these were moments that went by in the blink of an eye, and their significance was not clear at the time.

Over the years, there were terrible hours and days, terrible degradation within life. Experts give this various different labels.

Apparently they know what is good for the very people who endured life in the shadow of death.

Bibliographies are often published and national and international conferences held where people are sorted into “first generation”, “second generation” and “surviving children”.

While all this happens, the sand in the hourglass diminishes and the number of survivors dwindles. Treasury officials and everyone involved in the process of monetary compensation that is disparaged as blood money

take a deep breath when a survivor is sent for by the “Great Redeemer”. And the file falls to be torn up in an archive.

But what do they do about the lost days that are accumulating? Early in the morning under the Mediterranean sun,

with the scent of spring and the sound of birdsong,

when the majority of mortals awake with a melody of mandolins in their heart, an uninvited visitor comes to them: the ghost of the lost day.

Birkenau’s clouds of smoke obscure the sun,

and the scent of death blocks out spring’s fragrances.

SS shouts deliver their victims to death chambers and replace the chirping of the birds.

To all the experts and everyone who is ostensibly offering help:

Stop, don’t interfere, dial back your efforts. We want neither your sting nor your honey.

We are a part of the community whose suffering has not gone away. Not for a single day. Let us finish our time on this planet!

Laying wreaths and lighting torches will not bring anything back, not even a single lost day.