Something Happened On The Trip Back To Bhutan!

Approaching the traffic circle at the north end of town, I saw a woman in a light coloured kira a distance ahead, of Marian’s height and build, walking with Marian’s gait, and wearing her hair up the way Marian sometimes did. I could only see her back, but what I saw sent my pulse racing. Immediately I stepped into the circle, barely missing a sleeping dog on the pavement, and running almost into the path of an oncoming car. When I looked in front again, she had vanished. Frantically, I scanned nearby shops and side streets in the gathering dusk. There was no trace of the woman who could be my twin sister. In tears, I headed back in the direction of the Hotel Druk.

                                             --Opening paragraph of The Heart of the Buddha

It has been seventeen years since my last visit to the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, nicknamed the Happiest Place on Earth, the setting of my second novel The Heart of the Buddha, published in 2009. My cheeks flush, my heart thumps as our plane from Kathmandu flies into Paro Valley where the only airport of Bhutan is situated. The nostalgia, the yearning to be back, the sight of the green tiled roofs of the airport terminal buildings in the valley nested in the foothills of the Himalayas, the realization that my wish the past seventeen years of returning to the Land of the Thunder Dragon is at last being fulfilled. 

The airport has expanded to include more neat and tidy two storey buildings with white walls and green roofs, ornate pillars and window frames decorated with paintings depicting auspicious symbols of dragons, garudas, and eternal knot motifs. On a huge external wall is a larger-than-life portrait photo of the Royal Family, the handsome young Oxford-educated King, his beautiful queen, and their little toddler son. Kesang greets us with a warm hand-shake, wearing a gho, national outfit for men, and white knee-hi's, just as he did the first time we met him at Paro's old airport nineteen years ago. The difference is this time he is the owner of a reputable tour and trekking company with a fleet of tour minibuses and a team of tour and trek guides. 

Just before entering the busy hub of Paro and ensconced on a gentle slope is the Paro Dzong, with its fort-like white walls, decorative wood windows, and courtly towers of pointed red roofs, embodying government administrative offices, temples, inner courtyards and a monastery, the temporal and spiritual authorities of the Buddhist kingdom connected under one roof. I remember the motor road from Paro to Thimphu the capital, farmhouses dotting the rural countryside, the three chortens at the confluence of two rivers, a popular stopover for travelers along the way. Thimphu has not lost its former charm in spite of the extended and improved infrastructure, lots more houses no higher than five storeys, a more intricate network of roads, more hotels of local ownership as well as foreign funding. For all the apparent modernization and extensions of the capital, a white-gloved policeman still directs traffic in the kiosk at each of the two main traffic circles in town, a rare phenomenon to most of the world, a fond impression from my childhood in colonial British Hong Kong. Hotel Druk, the iconic establishment of the capital where young royalties and foreign businessmen and government officials used to hang out, has been renovated and refurbished to upscale elegance. Outside the hotel, in the little square is the old familiar clock tower no higher than a three-storey building, freshly repainted, a dragon motif guarding it on all sides. That is where the opening page of The Heart of the Buddha takes place. Tears somehow begin to well in my eyes as I stand there under the clock tower. The clock is ticking, registering 4:38 p.m. Perhaps it has never stopped in the interim of seventeen years since I last stood under it as I imagined the scene in my novel. 

I have three copies of The Heart of the Buddha with me on this trip, not that the novel hasn’t been distributed to Bhutan. In fact, an Indian publisher bought the right from me some years ago to republish it in India for distribution to countries of the Indian subcontinent, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan. The cost of the book published and printed in India would be more affordable to the local people than if they were to buy it from a foreign online bookstore. I was happy with the arrangement because I wanted to bring it home to Bhutan and her neighbors on the subcontinent, no matter the cost. Of the three copies I have brought to Bhutan this trip, one is to be presented (better late than never) to the Public Library of Thimphu, one to the National Library of Bhutan for the institution's permanent collection, and the third copy, well, I would leave with our friend Kesang, in the hope it would find its way to the Royal Palace somehow, some day. The improbable is what dreams are built on.  

March 21^st, 2019 is our last day in Bhutan, and the last day of the annual Paro Tsechu Festival, held on the grounds of Paro Dzong. We are there to see some of the religious and traditional dances and performances. An extravanganza of an event it is, ladies in their best kiras of multi-colors, men in their formal ghos. The King will attend the main ceremony that day. A red runner is laid on the ground in the huge courtyard leading to the thongdrel, a large appliqué with the image of a well-venerated Buddhist saint. Young scouts form a human chain on both sides of the red carpet. We stand behind the scouts, the closest spots we can get to the red carpet.

The King of Bhutan finally comes into view. With confident strides, clad in his royal robe and with his golden yellow sash, the handsome young King greets his people left and right as he walks on the red carpet. As he gets close to us, Mike suddenly calls out, “Your Majesty, we are from California!” His Majesty hears him in the crowd, and turns to face us. 

        “You’re from California?”

          “Yes, San Francisco!”

The King exchanges a few pleasantries with us. He even shakes our hands. As he is about to continue on, a voice in my head seems to tell me, “It’s now or never!” The moment is passing and will not come back. With not a second to lose, I call out, “Your Majesty, I’ve written a book about Bhutan!”

            He hears me. “You wrote a book with something about Bhutan?”

            “I wrote a novel all about Bhutan.”

            “Oh, I’d like to read it. I love reading.”

            “I will present a copy to you and Her Majesty.”

            I am in seventh heaven, or perhaps I am in Heaven itself where anything is possible. I bite my lip. No, I am not dreaming. Right after the dashing young king has walked on, the Deputy Court Chamberlain is by my side to get my contact information. 

That very afternoon, Kesang brought the third copy of The Heart of the Buddha to the King’s residence in Paro. A handwritten note is tucked into the book which reads, 

      Your Majesty, 

      I humbly present to you my novel about Bhutan, The Heart of the Buddha.

     Sincerely yours,

  Elsie Sze (California)

Reminiscing the Summer of '62

On the cruise with Mike from Hong Kong to Singapore in November, 2015, I reminisced the sea journey I took with my father and mother and brother Tony across the South China Sea to Sarawak in the summer of 1962...

The big circular window of our stateroom (cruise ship cabin) frames the view of the grey murky fast moving water capped with scattered white billows like flitting ghosts cut out of sheets at Halloween time. The slight curve of the horizon where the sea meets the grey, hazy sky strongly hints that what I see is part of a perfect arc of a circle, the grand circumference of Planet Earth. Wonder if Columbus first conceived his revolutionary theory that the earth was round from this same observation of the horizon. This part of the South China Sea I first traversed fifty-three years ago, the summer of 1962, on board the HMS Helios, a Norwegian cargo ship that also accommodated a handful of passengers on every voyage, from Hong Kong to Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak.

I was sixteen and traveling out of Hong Kong for the first time. It was also the first time my mother, nine-year-old brother Tony and I visited our father’s home in Sarawak. My parents had a first class cabin on the upper passenger deck, compliment of an uncle from Kuching who was in the shipping business. Tony and I were assigned a room on Deck 3 below, where third class passengers were accommodated. We did not mind being third class citizens. To me the whole journey was an adventure, regardless of the comfort level of our sleeping arrangement, and Tony was just too young to care where he slept or how congested the cabin was, as long as there were new things to see and experience. Third class passengers, all ethnic Chinese, were fed Cantonese food. I recall some of the recurring a la carte concoctions at lunch and dinner, rice stir-fried with chopped-up vegetables and fried eggs, chow-mien with strips of cabbage and meat, braised tofu and bok choi in oyster sauce, all heavily greased with oil that smelled of age and repeated use. There were usually sweet red or green bean soup for dessert, and tangerines or wedges of water melon. Tony loved all that food, except the citrus fruits. I disliked the smell of grease, but beggars could not be choosers.

Our stateroom on board the Celebrity Millenium has no complimentary upgrades, neither do we get any free perks, since this is the first time we travel by this cruise line. And we don’t care enough to pay extras, so we don’t get a room on one of the upper decks with a balcony, or complimentary ironing, or free Internet time, or any  presumably irresistible discounts. I am not crazy about cruises; in fact I find traveling by cruise ship lacking in stimulation of my adventurous spirit and freedom for me to decide where I want to go, what I want to see, how long I want to stay at each port of call.  And I am never a fan of casinos, more so ones on board. In lieu of walking the ten-mile trails along the lagoon close to home in California, I walk the treadmill for an hour a day in the ship’s gym, an acceptable though not ideal alternative activity. The meals are feasts, cuisines from around the world, sit-down lunches and dinners, dress code mostly smart casuals with occasional formals, and huge buffets that run into midnight. A lot of decadent excessiveness and sinful wastage.  Never mind the assault on that poor digestive system. Indulge! It’s all you can eat!

Between wake and sleep and except for meal times when Tony and I had to return to our station below, we stayed on the deck outside our parents’ cabin. They had a nicer and bigger cabin, going out to an ocean view balcony on the deck that ran the length of the cabins. Sometimes Dad played card games and chess with Tony and me. Among the other passengers in first class, there was a tall, slim thirtyish English lady wearing wire-rimmed glasses, dressed with somewhat demure, good taste. She was an expatriate school teacher in Hong Kong on her summer vacation. There were a middle-aged Chinese lady and her teenage son around my age heading for Sandakan in North Borneo (the other British colony on the island of Borneo), and two or three other English gentlemen traveling alone. They were supposed to dine every evening with the captain, a much anticipated event for most of the first class passengers but rather stressful for my parents as it meant dressing up every evening, having to make conversation with their fellow diners at the captain’s table, and be mindful of table etiquette. At least English, the language spoken at the table, was not a problem for Mom and Dad, having been educated in English throughout their school and university years even though it wasn’t their mother tongue. After the first couple of days, Mom was feeling sea-sick, and spent most of the time in bed and consequently had to miss dinner at the captain’s table. In the end, she moved down to sleep in our cabin, switching place with Tony who was happy to sleep in the cabin above with a view of the sea. The kindly Chinese cook on third deck made congee for Mom as congee was soothing for her upset stomach.

The English school teacher and one of the ship’s officers in a smart white uniform, a good-looking thirtyish blond fellow presumably Norwegian, but perhaps English, started meeting a lot on the balcony outside her cabin which was adjoining my parents’. They chatted as they leaned against the rail in the first two or three days like casual new acquaintances, then as the week wore on began talking with quiet familiarity. I couldn’t help shooting casual side glances in their direction as I sat on a lounge chair outside my parents’ cabin. Even though I couldn’t catch what they said, I could sense something was in the air from their emotive language. As our week’s sea journey was about to come to a close, they started conversing intently, apparently looking into each other’s eyes. At one point, I saw the officer holding the school teacher’s hand. A shipboard romance was blossoming.

The Chinese lady traveling with her teenage son to Sandakan began chatting with my parents. A feeling of camaraderie soon developed, due to their common ethnicity and dialect, Cantonese, besides the fact that they were the only Chinese passengers in first class. I cultivated an interest in the lady’s son to ward off my boredom after the first couple of days, in spite of his giving me the silent treatment the entire journey. He was a lean and tall fellow with ordinary good looks but nothing outstanding or impressive. We were never introduced, and were too shy to say hello to each other on our own. He looked bored too whenever I saw him on deck outside the cabin he shared with his mother. I never learnt his name. Perhaps his reserve and aloofness put him in an aura of mystique. My first teenage crush.

Time does not change the condition of the sea. I am looking at the same dull blue-green water, the same billows, only the porpoises I saw on the first trip leaping out of the water and diving immediately back in are not there. Perhaps I’ll see them tomorrow when we get close to land. Time has changed the circumstance of my voyage. I am on a cruise with husband Michael, sharing the table every meal with a group of friends we have only known a short time ago. My father died a year ago at ninety-seven. My mother who lives in Edmonton, Canada with my youngest sibling Judith and her family is ninety-three and suffering from dementia. Tony at sixty-two is a practicing dentist in Ottawa. And I will be seventy next year, a mother of three grown sons and four young grandchildren.

In the intervening years between my first sea journey on the HMS Helios the summer of 1962 and now on the Celebrity Millenium, a lifetime has elapsed. Little did I know when I went with my parents on that first journey to Sarawak in ‘62 that I was not to return there until forty-four years later, in 2006.  A very long absence indeed from relations whose blood line and surname I have shared all my life. I cannot think of an excuse for the long absence, only regrets, and the need to make up for the lost years when our relationship with my father’s side of the family in Sarawak was no more than the Christmas card and occasional letter sent every year. The lack of communication with them was to a great extent circumstantial, especially after my parents’ migration with us, their children, from Hong Kong to Canada in the late 1960s. Father is now gone. I have assumed the role of reconnecting with our family in Sarawak. I have made four more visits there since 2006, and making my way there as I write, the sixth time in the last nine years.

A year and a half ago, soon after the release of my book Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak, I walked down the street of Buso, my father’s birthplace and home village, a copy of my published book in hand. Never did I think for a moment when I was sixteen and visiting Buso the first time that I would some day write a novel about Sarawak, a novel published to literary acclaim as winner of a literary prize, a novel dedicated to my father and the family he left behind when he went to Hong Kong as a young man for a higher education, a novel that has helped reconnect me with my relations in Sarawak.

On the street of Buso, Sarawak, holding my book Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak

This present journey across the South China Sea is special for the memories it evokes. Just several days ago on the Celebrity Millenium, I thought to myself: “If only for a day on this sea journey, I could go back to 1962 and be on board the Helios with my father and mother, and nine-year-old Tony.”  Then, something happened to me last night as the cruise ship sailed from Ho Chi Minh City towards Singapore. In a dream, I was standing alone when someone came up to me. I turned and to my surprise it was my father. He was his younger self. He might have a suitcase at his feet, but I am not sure. I was very happy to see him, and gave him a hug, perhaps even a kiss on his cheek. Then the dream was over. The image is so vivid in my mind. I feel a special closeness to my father and I miss him more than ever. I believe he is with me on this voyage across the South China Sea just as he was fifty-three years ago in 1962, when he took me and my mother and brother Tony to Sarawak for the first time.

I stare at the murky water and wonder if the English school teacher on that voyage in 1962 remained an old maid all her life, or if her shipboard romance with the handsome blond officer blossomed into a deeper commitment.

I wonder how life has turned out for the Chinese boy who went with his mother on that sea journey to Sandakan. He would be about seventy by now.

I miss seeing porpoises leaping out of the water alongside our cruise ship, as they did along the HMS Helios in 1962.

But one thing I have no doubt about on this voyage: I am sailing across the South China Sea with my father, accompanying him home. 

Introducing my new novel Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak

This time last year, I was announced the winner of the inaugural Saphira Prize for unpublished writing sponsored by the Women in Publishing Society in Hong Kong. Now, a year later, the Prize takes shape in my new book Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak.

Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak is the result of years of research involving long distance travel to one of the less beaten tracks of the world, Sarawak in the northern part of the equatorial island of Borneo. For my story, I, with my husband Michael, had trekked the hot and humid tropical jungles of Sarawak, combed limestone caverns where myriads of swiftlets and bats hung out, spent nights in Dayak longhouses far from my North American comfort zone, and explored outlying villages and bazaars that had deteriorated into pseudo ghost towns from their heyday of yesteryear. Through the connection of a cousin in Kuching, capital of Sarawak, I was brought to the very entrance of Ghost Cave in a currently functioning gold mine in Bau, or Mau San as it was formerly called, the nineteenth century mining town where major poignant scenes and heartrending tragedy were played out in the region’s history and in my story.

The most meaningful part of my journey to Ghost Cave had been the reconnection with my father’s birthplace and homeland, with my extended family with whom relationships had dwindled to little more than the exchange of annual Christmas cards and occasional death announcements since my father left home for a higher education in Hong Kong as a young man. It was as if an ancestor’s ghost, or two, had intervened to bridge the wide gap effected by great physical distance and prolonged elapse of time, and bring about the strengthening of weakened family ties. In this sense, my greatest reward and gratification in the writing and publication of Ghost Cave has to be the personal journey I took in making up for lost years with my paternal extended family. Unintentionally, yet amazingly, the story of Ghost Cave is a reflection of my own passage of renewal.  

On March 28^th, 2014, Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak will be launched in Hong Kong by its publisher the Women in Publishing Society.  I am very thankful to the Society for awarding me the Saphira Prize which carries with it the publication of my award-winning manuscript “Ghost Cave”. If it seems everything that has to do with the creation of this book has just landed conveniently in my lap, it is because I have been blessed in the course of writing this novel, in my creative process, research, and with all the help from my extended family in Sarawak and my immediate family close to home, especially my ever sustaining and understanding husband, and with my introduction to the Women in Publishing Society in Hong Kong soon after the publication of my first novel Hui Gui,  and my continued involvement with them over the years.  Ghost Cave is for me not only the realization of a long cherished writer’s dream, but also the completion of a self-imposed mission for myself and my father. Someone up there is looking out for me to bring to fruition this labour of love. 

With humility and gratitude, I give you Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak.

Currently available in ebook format from:

www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, and the worldwide network of Amazon online outlets; www.barnesandnoble.com, www.chapters.indigo.ca, and from your App Store as an iBook download on your Apple device.

The book will be available in print format from Hong Kong bookstores and worldwde from the network of online bookstores listed above by the launch date of March 28th, 2014. 

Are the people behind the Genius Bar geniuses? How I found out in a recent traumatic saga...

Part One.   The Tale of the Photos

Last week, I walked into the well-lit store with the big, bright and bitten apple logo, in my neighborhood mall. As usual, I was greeted by one of those confident-looking young attendants in blue t-shirts, name tags around their necks, and electronic tablets in hand. I said I had an appointment with the Genius Bar. I was seated at the Bar at the back of the store, and soon greeted by a Genius Bar expert. I explained when I was downloading photos, there was a warning note in my computer (a MacBook Air) that said my files were full, and I needed to delete some files.

He took a look at the little trash basket icon at the bottom of the computer screen, clicked on it, and saw all the unwanted files I had moved there. At this point, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he probably asked the question casually if he could empty the trash, to which I would have nodded consent, caught on the spur of the moment, and especially since I had wanted to delete those files in the trash in the first place.

With deft movements of his hand, too swift for my eyes, clicking, and crunching, he emptied the trash basket. Now, that would clear up a lot of space in my MacBook Air! It did! But my iPhoto application had disappeared from the computer, when we had both seen my photos neatly organized as albums and events in iPhoto before the emptying of the trash! My prized and treasured photos since 2007, from my travels, research trips for my novel-in-progress, weddings of my children, grandkids through their stages of development, all gone in a jiffy, like a wisp of smoke!

I was on the verge of tears. No worry. My Genius Bar expert connected my laptop to the external hard drive which I had been using to back up all my files, to retrieve my lost photos. But there were NO PHOTOS! According to the expert, the external hard drive had backed up all my files except for the photos! It would always remain a mystery. He took my computer into the secret back room behind the Genius Bar to search for the photos with their special equipment, but could not find them.  He then gave me the final diagnosis: the photos saved in the iPhoto application of my computer were all irretrievably lost.

Part Two.  The Tale of the Manuscript

The Genius Bar expert who tended to me at the Apple store back home in Toronto had reinstalled the iPhoto application into my laptop, after it disappeared along with all my photos stored and organized therein. Three days later, when I was visiting my parents in their town, I took my laptop again to the Genius Bar of the Apple store in their neighborhood, because there were still some glitches with the iPhoto application in my computer. The expert there gave a quick diagnosis of the problem, and said he needed just to restore the iPhoto application, and everything would be fixed. To me, the word ‘restore’ was a frightful word, evoking the wiping out of computer files.

“Will my documents be safe?” I asked.

“Oh yes, no documents will be touched. Only your iPhoto will be restored,” he reassured.

“My most important file is my novel manuscript. I can’t lose it. It’s backed up in my external hard drive, but to be safe, why don’t I buy a memory stick and back it up there as guarantee,” I said.

“You don’t have to do that. Just email the manuscript to yourself.” With that, he proceeded to send my manuscript file in my computer to my email account. “Go get a coffee. Come back in half an hour,” he said.

While I had coffee at the mall’s food court, I checked my email inbox from my phone the whole time, but the message with my manuscript attachment never arrived. Thirty minutes later, I went back to the Apple store. I asked to talk to my Genius Bar expert. After waiting for him to finish helping another customer, he went into the back room, and finally came out with my laptop. He came up to me. I sensed something was amiss.

“Something happened,” he began. “It was entirely my fault. I bear full responsibility for what happened. I pushed the wrong button, and all your files are gone. I am sorry.”

I broke into tears. Sorry? For wiping out the novel I was writing for two years, and about to finish? Did he realize what it meant? I never got the email that was supposed to have my manuscript attached. Now my only hope and salvation would be in the external hard drive that I had used to back up all my files. It had failed me with the photos. Let it not fail me with the almost completed first draft of my new novel.

Anxiously, I, and the Genius Bar expert, waited while the little external hard drive did its work, putting the backed-up files into the computer. It ran its course in ten minutes, the longest ten minutes ever. When the reinstalling was finished, we checked the restarted computer. And it was there…my manuscript, and I assumed everything else, except for the lost photos.

Epilogue

Days later, I was told by my computer savvy cousin that there was a way to retrieve deleted files, though not at Apple stores, as long as the computer was not reformatted, a fact which you’d think those Genius Bar experts would know, and should have told me. It also meant all my deleted photos could have been restored, if my entire computer hadn’t been cleaned out by the second Genius Bar expert who tended to me in my parents’ town.

It was a lesson learned. Always back up your important files in more places than one. I almost lost my novel-in-progress. I could not have rewritten, reconstructed a 75,000 word manuscript. In frustration and disappointment, I would have given up writing for good. 

As for my photos, I still have most of them stored in one of the photo services websites, Kodak Gallery. To add insult to injury, Kodak Gallery is closing in a month and a half. But that’s another story!

Auschwitz and Birkenau

If I had to name one site I visited during my week in Poland, April 2 – 7, 2012, that left with me the deepest and most lasting impression, it would have to be Auschwitz and Birkenau, often referred to collectively as Auschwitz. The day we were there was Holy Thursday in the calendar of the Catholic Church, a day in preparation for Christ’s Passion and Death on the Cross, a rainy, gloomy day, under a low, grey sky. It was a very different journey from the happy wanderer’s visits to historic old towns and awe-inspiring monuments, magnificent churches and incredible salt mines. Movies and books about the Nazi death camps have told a lot of the horrors of the Second World War, but could not deliver the poignant reality that a visit to Auschwitz could. My trip to Auschwitz was a sad, sober, shocking learning experience, a harsh and raw confrontation of man’s shameful inhumanity to his own kind, in all its appalling magnitude, beyond any boundary of reason.

Led by a well-schooled guide no more than in his mid-twenties, who took us from the indoor prisoners’ blocks, cells and museums of Auschwitz to the mostly outdoor grounds of Birkenau, my group and I walked through one of the saddest times in human history. Through the entrance gate to Auschwitz, we filed in, past blocks of two and three-level red brick houses, identified by numbers, as were the prisoners who came to be just numbers.

The entrance gate to hell

Wall charts in the museum, housed in former prisoners’ blocks, told of 1.3 million, mostly Jews, but some from other ethnic groups too, deported to Auschwitz from various countries in Europe, of which 1.1 million died there, from overwork, starvation, torture, exhaustion from prolonged roll-calls in extreme outdoor weather, subjection to medical experiments, appalling living conditions, execution by firing squads or phenol injections, and most of all in the infamous gas chambers. Silently, in respect to the long dead, we filed through the rooms with glass encased displays of objects that once belonged to the prisoners who died in the camps: thousands of men’s, women’s, children’s shoes, clothing including children’s and babies’ overalls and smocks, hats and spectacles, suitcases, and, what struck me most, women’s hair, weighing hundreds of tons, collected in a display case that ran the length of one room, along with the fabrics that were woven with such. A painful ordeal to lay eyes on them, and yet they were there, to remind and shock. And when I walked through the narrow hall with photos of victims, some in their middle years, some too young to die, some drained and desperate, some with expressions still radiating hope, with their years of birth and death inscribed, I wept.

One of the prisoners' blocks at Auschwitz - on the right was an execution wall where prisoners were shot

At Birkenau, a short bus ride from Auschwitz, we saw low brick and wood buildings with chimney stacks, behind barbed wires. The chimneys were supposedly for furnaces used to heat up the prison cells. However, the cells were never heated, and living conditions remained most appalling. Led by our guide, we walked in the rain on muddy ground to the crossroad near the train tracks where the newly arrived prisoners had once stood. There, our guide described the scene of the arrival of one such train-load. The prisoners would be divided into two or three groups. Those too young or old or weak to work would be sent immediately to the shower, where they were ordered to strip and even told to remember the numbers on their clothing and belongings, for retrieval after the shower. Only in their last moments did they realize they were doomed inside the chamber of death, when the deadly gas, Zyclon B, descended from vents in the ceiling. Such a scene was to be repeated numerous times from the time the gas chamber was used for extermination of the prisoners in 1941 until 1945. By a forest at the far end of the camp, we saw ruins of the gas chambers and the crematorium, demolished by the Nazis before their surrender, to eliminate traces of their crimes.

 

Prisoners’ houses with chimney stacks at Birkenau behind barbed wire fences

Ruins of a gas chamber, blown up by the Nazis before their surrender

Finally, we stopped at the end of our route, where a modest stone monument to the dead at Auschwitz and Birkenau was erected, with a big arrangement of fresh white roses laid on its front step. On either side of the main monument were horizontal tablets at regular intervals, each with words in a different ethnic language cast on it, all a desperate, silent scream in the common language of humanity: