O dia 27 de janeiro será lembrado por muitos brasileiros como aquele em que ocorreu uma das maiores tragédias da história recente, onde mais de 200 jovens morreram asfixiados em uma boate de Santa Maria (RS). No mundo, nessa data se recorda o Holocausto e os milhões de homens e mulheres que foram vítima da barbárie e da insanidade.
Não pude deixar de observar a triste (e mórbida) semelhança entre a morte daquelas 200 pessoas a dos milhares que pereceram nas câmaras de gás, justamente em uma data tão simbólica. Pensando no sofrimento daqueles jovens de Santa Maria, veio-me logo a comparação com a situação dos homens, mulheres e crianças asfixiados pelo Zyclon B. A boite de Santa Maria tornou-se uma verdadeira câmara de gás… Na Alemanha, a causa é conhecida de todos. No Brasil, também: a irresponsabilidade de alguns e o descaso de outros com a segurança… Pagamos por nossa imprudência, imperícia e negligência, pela despreocupação típica do brasileiro que “acha que nada de ruim pode acontencer!” com ele. O resultado só pode ser um: choro, dor, morte.
Outra reflexão que me veio: se com uma tragédia como essa, em que duzentas pessoas morrem em um acidente há tanta (e plenamente justificável) comoção nacional, imaginem como seria no caso de um atentado terrorista acontecendo aqui em Pindorama…
Em tempo: o 27 de janeiro foi estabelecido pela Assembléia-Geral da ONU como o Dia Internacional da Lembrança do Holocausto porque, nesta data, em 1945, foi libertado o campo de concentração de Auschwitz.
Lembremos e oremos pelos mortos de Santa Maria. Lembremos e oremos pelos mortos do Holocausto.
Para mais informações sobre o Holocausto, clique aqui.
Liberation of Auschwitz
“So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance.”
—Bart Stern
Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. A complex of camps, Auschwitz included a concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp. It was located 37 miles west of Krakow (Cracow), near the prewar German-Polish border.
In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its satellite camps. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. More than 15,000 died during the death marches from Auschwitz. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered.
VOICES FROM AUSCHWITZ
The train arrived in the middle of the night, so we were greeted by very bright lights shining down on us. We were greeted by soldiers, SS men, as well as women. We were greeted by dogs and whips, by shouting and screaming, orders to try to empty the train, by confusion… There is no way to describe your first coming to Auschwitz.
—Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall
And they said, “From now on you do not answer by your name. Your name is your number.” And the delusion, the disappointment, the discouragement that I felt, I felt like I was not a human person anymore.
—Lilly Appelbaum Lublin Malnik
So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance.
—Bart Stern
Frumentarius 